G9 
A membership committee was appointed, consisting of a general chairman, 
Mr. E. I >. Punk, of Bloom ington, ill., nmi a chairman and subcommitteemen for 
each State and province of North America. 
Thf presenl membership, Including a number of European and Asiatic per- 
sons and organizations, numbers about 'J7."». of which 15 arc life members. The 
expenses incident to the first meeting and the printing and postage and clerk 
hire necessary in connection with securing members have required practically 
all the receipts from annual memberships. Since only the proceeds from annual 
memberships and the Interest income from life membership Investments are 
available for the payment of current expenses, the association is practically 
without funds with which to publish its tirst annual report. 
The plan adopted for securing memberships has aol proven either convenient 
of effective, and this work is being somewhat more closely centered in the sec- 
retary's office, with the chairman and members of the membership committees 
and others who volunteer to assist in securing members operating through that 
agency. A card index provides a way of keeping account with each person, 
society, or institution to whom an invitation to join is sent, and it is proposed 
that those who should join shall be repeatedly solicited, that a positive or a 
negative answer may he secured. The multiplicity of organizations to which 
breeders and scientists belong makes it difficult to secure members. 
The association has to offer as inducements to persons to become members, 
besides the privileges and responsibilities of its annual meetings, an annual 
report, a business or professional card in the directory in the annual report, 
the good offices of the association in having the U. S. Department of Agriculture 
and the experiment stations send to its members such public documents as the 
directory cards may show that the members are respectively interested in. No 
doubt other advantageous features will be developed. 
The association is determined that a large membership shall be secured. It 
is in need of help to gain a sufficient number of annual and life member- 
ships so that it will be recognized as having been fairly launched as a strong. 
conservative, and permanent association. It is also in immediate need of suf- 
ficient financial aid to publish its first annual report, for which there is an 
abundance of excellent material. 
W. M. Hays, 
L. H. Bailey, 
C. F. Curtiss, 
H. J. Webber. 
Thos. F. Hunt, 
Committee. 
The report was accepted and the committee was continued for another year. 
Military Instruction. 
The following resolution adopted by the section on college work and admin- 
istration was presented and adopted (see p. 63) : 
Rcsoh-r<l. That the executive committee he instructed to present the views of 
the association in reference to military tactics to the President of the United 
States or to the Secretary of War, or both : or, if it seems preferable to the 
executive committee, that they be authorized to appoint a special committee for 
this purpose. 
The Upbuilding of Agriculture. 
W. Saunders, Director of Canadian Experimental Farms, read the following 
paper on this subject : 
It is not my purpose on this occasion to dwell on the history of the progress 
of agriculture from early times, but to call attention to some points in connec- 
tion with the marvelous progress which has been made in the United States and 
Canada in the knowledge and practice of agriculture within a comparatively 
recent period. 
Agricultural progress in the United States was greatly influenced by the pass- 
ing of the land-grant act in 1881, by which, through the liberality of Congress, 
provision was made for the endowment of a college of agriculture and mechanic 
arts in every State of the Union. The grant was a generous one — 30.000 acres 
for each Senator and Representative in Congress to which such State was 
