Tenth Annual Meeting ii 



ing of the Western New York Horticultural Society. I have 

 heard about them before, and they most always have a hall full 

 of members, but the greatest number of paid memberships that 

 they have had before this year was 560. This year they had 

 the secretary's desk outside of the door, and the secretary was 

 kept busy issuing membership tickets which admitted them to 

 the hall, and they had a recorded membership of about eight 

 hundred, — more than they had ever had before. They had 800 

 who paid to go in. In other words, in other years when they 

 seemed to have had just as big a crowd at the meetings, 240 

 people had been going in and listening to the urging of the 

 secretary that there was the place to chip in without paying any 

 attention to it, but this year when they adopted that plan there 

 was that large number of people over the highest membership 

 before who wouldn't stay out when they had to pay to get in. 

 I don't suppose we could adopt that plan here. I wish we 

 might." 



The President: "That .suggestion comes a little too late 

 for this year." 



Mr. Hale: ''We are asking and receiving state aid, so 

 we could not shut out anybody I suppose, but their plan 

 showed how many would pay rather than be shut out." 



Secretary Miles : "I would like to say right along' that 

 line that down in New Jersey they are doing away, or talking 

 of doing away entirely, with membership fees, and asking the 

 state to support them entirely. I do not think we want to 

 take either that course or the one Mr. Hale has just referred 

 to. I think we can be more or less independent of the state, 

 as we have been, and at the same time I do not think we 

 want to shut out any one who wishes to come in and hear 

 our proceedings. At the same time we would like that little 

 extra dollar to help ' grease ' the machinery." 



The President: "The report of the next committee, 

 that on legislation, will have to be deferred, as the members 

 are not present." 



The President: "Report of the Committee on Exhibi- 

 tions. Prof. A. G. GuUey." 



Professor Gulley: "Mr. President and Gentlemen : The 

 only exhibition we made last year of any importance was the 



