PROCEEDINGS OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN AGRI- 
CULTURAL COLLEGES AND EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 
MINUTES OF THE GENERAL SESSION. 
Morning Session, Tuesday, November 17, 1903. 
The convention was called to order at 9 a. in. in the banquet hall of the Shorehani 
Hotel, Washington, D. C, President J. K. Patterson, of Kentucky, in the chair. 
Prayer was offered by M. H. Buckham, of Vermont. 
H. H. Goodell, of Massachusetts, moved that a committee of live, including the 
president of the association, be appointed to arrange for the visit of the body to the 
President of the United States. 
The committee appointed in accordance with this motion was as follows: H. H. 
Goodell, of Massachusetts; H. C. White, of Georgia; W. M. Liggett, of Minnesota; 
W. O. Thompson, of Ohio, and J. K. Patterson, of Kentucky. 
Report of the Executive Committee. 
The report of the executive committee was presented by H. C. White, of Georgia, 
chairman, as follows: 
Immediately on adjournment of the sixteenth annual convention of the association, 
in Atlanta, Ga., October 9, 1902, your committee met and organized by the selection 
of President H. C. White, of Georgia, as chairman, and Director E. B. Yoorhees, of 
New Jersey, as secretary. Instructions were given the chairman to edit the proceed- 
ings of the convention just closed before publication, and to prepare and issue an 
abstract of the proceedings in form of the usual memorandum. After informal dis- 
cussion of routine matters, adjournment was taken subject to the call of the chair- 
man. The abstract memorandum was issued and posted to each member of the 
association, November 15, 1902. The edited proceedings were placed in the hands 
of Director True for publication by the United States Department of Agriculture, 
November 28, 1902. 
Four subsequent meetings of the committee were held, at each of which a quorum 
was present, viz, at Washington, D. C., January 6, 1903; at Washington, D. C., Jan- 
uary 10, 1903; at Columbus, Ohio, June 22, 1903, and at Washington, D. C, Novem- 
ber 16, 1903. Business was otherwise transacted by correspondence or by attention, 
on request, by individual members of the committee. The matters which have 
received the attention of the committee and the results of action thereon are as 
follows: 
The mining school bill was pending in the Fifty-seventh Congress at the time of 
adjournment of the last convention. Your committee made strenuous efforts through 
personal endeavor, by correspondence, and with the aid of friends outside the organ- 
ization of this association to secure consideration of the bill by the House of 
Representatives. The efforts were unsuccessful for essentially the same reason that 
made ineffectual the endeavors of your former executive committee, namely, the 
inability to secure from the Committee on Rules of the House a rule for its consider- 
ation, and the Congress finally adjourned sine die without action on the bill. The 
great importance of this measure to the interests of the institutions comprising this 
association, the extent of favor and support which it met in the last Congress (that 
of a very large majority of the members of both the House and the Senate), the fact 
21736— No. 142—04 2 17 
