30 



THE FERN BULLETIN 



Should such a change in the Constitution be 

 proposed in future, it will be for the best 

 interests of fern study in general and the Fern Society 

 in particular, to vote solidly against it. Let us not 

 make experiments in publication. If another company 

 wishes to take over the Fern Bulletin, making the same 

 arrangement with the Society that we have always 

 made, we will make them a present of it provided, they 

 buy the stock of back numbers. We wish to make it 

 plain that we do not object to a new publication de- 

 voted to ferns, but we do most decidedly protest 

 against the Society becoming its own publisher. In 

 the present arrangement the Society has no libilities 

 beyond the cost of the magazine to each member ; as a 

 publishing concern there would be no limit to its lia- 

 bilities. A careless management may plunge the So- 

 ciety into debts that can easily wreck it. 



In reference to the statement sometimes made, that 

 the Society has annually to make a new contract with 

 the publisher, it may be said that the Society has never 

 made but one contract with the publisher and that was 

 made when the magazine adopted its present style 

 and price. The rate was then made less than the regu- 

 lar price and was strictly for cash in advance. Recent 

 advances in the cost of production have decided us to 

 ask for an advance of one cent per copy in 1910. If 

 the legislation relative to the mailing rate of magazines 

 now before Congress raises this rate, as seems probable, 

 we shall have to require another raise of the Society 

 and of our subscribers ;;like. This advanced rate, how- 

 ever, will fall with greater force upon a new publica- 

 tion than upon a well established one. 



Some of those who have been clamoring for a new 

 magazine, assert that it is needed for those fern stu- 



