MR. OLCOTT: It will take to the end of the year to get the returns.
MR. WEBER: I will send my check when I get home, because I don't want to go in to my pocketbook now.
THE PRESIDENT: What was the deficit, Mr. Bixby?
MR. BIXBY: The deficit was $176. There was pledged yesterday, $75, and there has been $10 more today. That's $85 of the $176. Then there is $20 of Mr. Olcott's. That would make it $105. Mr. Weber, when he gets home, will make it $125. We will clean it up one way or another.
THE SECRETARY: I think we should proceed now to the report of the nominating committee and the selection of the next place of meeting.
THE PRESIDENT: The hour is growing late and there is just one message I want to give you here. While it may savour some what of advertising our filbert enterprise, it was not with that idea in mind that we proceeded to get the information we have got. Our filberts have been distributed through the L. W. Hall Company, nurserymen of this city, who have exclusive sale of them at this time. They have been distributed during the past three years over a considerable area: Illinois, Idaho, Iowa, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Delaware, New York, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Georgia, District of Columbia, Pennsylvania and Kansas.
Some little time ago I conferred with Mr. Hall in regard to communicating with his customers to whom he had delivered filbert plants, the first in the spring of 1919. He has written them asking them how the plants have done, and particularly with regard to fruit bearing. I have the replies here and the gist of them is this: that the plants have done finely, have been entirely satisfactory in that respect. There has been a complaint that they have not borne; there are some instances of extreme pleasure expressed over the way they have borne. My own idea is, and I believe it is that of Mr. Vollertsen also, that they have not had quite time enough yet, since the spring of 1919.
MR. BIXEY: That is not time enough.
THE PRESIDENT: Furthermore, Mr. Hall, in offering them—against our advice as we endeavored to persuade him to offer them as improved European filberts, assorted varieties—thought that the people would be attracted to those unpronounceable names that we have them under. Maybe they were. He listed some six or eight varieties, I think, and those varieties were of our larger fruited kinds. We frankly confess that those varieties will not bear as abundantly as the smaller fruited varieties—not that they are very small they are quite a good sized nut. I believe if Mr. Hall had made a freer distribution of the so-called smaller fruited varieties that there might have been an even more favorable report in connection with fruiting. Another year or so will give us more definite information.
We have now cleaned up our program pretty well. You are going to find Doctor Kellogg's paper in the report, together with the secretary's. We have the papers here. That completes the program up to the present time with the exception of Senator Penny and Mr. Linton. We supposed Mr. Linton would be here. I had telephoned this morning as Mr. Penny promised to send a paper but he hasn't been able to do so. Those are the only two papers of the program that we haven't got.