MR. CORSAN: Why not give a tree with every new membership so that the member can plant a nut tree on his own farm, and the Boy Scouts and also the Girl Scouts would come into this thing, too, as the tall gentleman from Decatur has said.
MR. PATTERSON: I should like to tell you what happens in our association in the south of Georgia. For a number of years our treasurer has come up with a deficit each year. The only practical way that we have found in the southern nut growers' association for increasing our membership and getting additional funds is to do it by subscriptions taken at the meeting. Let each man pledge so many members and turn over the money to the treasurer to pay up for the members that he has pledged. Then let him go out and get the members to reimburse himself. In that way we have increased our membership very much. I do not say that that is the way that it should be handled here but that is the only way we have found of solving the problem.
MR. TAYLOR: I represent the Northern Apple Growers' Exchange. We want to get people who grow apples into our association and the first thing of all is to get them interested. You first have to attract the attention of a man, your prospective member, and then you have to arouse his interest and you have to create a desire. We found that in order to attract his attention a circularization of people who were eligible for membership accomplished a great deal. These people were circularized, given little bits of information here and there, not the information that was given the members as a rule, not to that extent, but they were given a certain lot of information from time to time to let them know that the Apple Growers' Exchange was there. After a while they were approached personally and if they said "No" we continued circularizing them a little while longer along a different line. Finally, when we thought we had gotten them to a point where they were interested, the problem was to get them properly signed up. So we then made a drive for those particular individuals by showing them what they could personally get out of it. After he had joined our problem was to hold him, to keep him interested until he became enthusiastic. Unless you keep them interested they are liable to cool off, and once they are cooled off it is almost impossible to get them interested again. We find the members who have gone out are the hardest to get back. A way of keeping that new member in, and helping him to feel that he is a potent factor in the organization, might be by having some sort of a special communication with him at the time he joins, or at the next meeting of the association. I know that in California that is the way they work it. Keep members informed, not merely with reports of proceedings but with something like an occasional sheet or two on the latest thing that is going on, especially for the new members. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: I would like to have any other suggestions. Dr. Morris, have you anything to say?
DR. MORRIS: No, I have been doing a lot of thinking.
THE PRESIDENT: It seems to me it is the one vital thing for us to consider. We have got to increase our membership.
MR. OLCOTT: Apropos of the remarks of Dr. Taylor comes the question of the desirability of giving a prospective member something for his money. Our first problem is to interest someone to the extent of membership and then to keep him after we get him. Those are problems that require thought. I think the President in his address suggested that the association produce young nut trees to be given away to someone to plant, to interest that someone and others who see it. Would you give him another tree at renewal time?
THE PRESIDENT: That was the idea.
MR. OLCOTT: The renewal proposition with trees selling at $2.50 to $3.00 apiece would be pretty expensive for the association—for a member to pay us $2.00 and get a tree for nothing. My personal idea has been that there should be a state organization in every one of the northern states, subsidiary to this association; that each association have its monthly meeting, or maybe quarterly or annual, taking in those who cannot find it convenient to come to the parent association's convention.
DR. MORRIS: I will pay the dues, and subscription to the Journal, for any Boy Scout for ten years if you will make that the object for striving for a prize in some organization of Boy Scouts.