30 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB 
have been unthinkable at that time. We brought specimens to 
the meetings, discussed them, helped each other to identify them, 
described how, when and where they were collected, and then 
arranged informally for a field-meeting—perhaps for more than 
one—before the next meeting of the Club. If I remember correctly 
the dues were one or two dollars a year. Subscription to the 
Bulletin was a dollar. It was not published by the Club, but by 
Mr. Leggett personally. There were no expenses, except in con- 
nection with the small number of postal cards to announce the 
meetings. The money in the treasury was mostly spent for re- 
freshments, and after each meeting we had a pleasant, sociable 
time, drinking coffee and eating cakes and sandwiches and occa- 
sionally fruit when in season. 
Attending meetings in those days was not so easy as it is now— 
I mean for out-of-town members. I lived at Port Richmond on 
Staten Island. The last boat to the island was at 9P.M. I used 
to take the midnight train on the Central Railroad of New Jersey 
at Liberty Street, get off at Bergen Point Station, walk three 
quarters of a mile to the shore of the Kill van Kull, wake up a 
man who lived in a little shanty there, and hire him to ferry me 
over to Staten Island in a rowboat, arriving home about 1:30 A. M. 
Sometimes, in winter, the trip was not a comfortable one; but I do 
not recall that I ever thought it a hardship, and, to the best of my 
recollection, I think I merely regarded it all as a matter of course. 
I still live on Staten Island, but I can attend this meeting in 
the Bronx to-day far more easily and with less waste of time in 
coming and going than was formerly the case when I attended the 
meetings held at 49th Street. 
