It was moved and seconded that the report of the committee be adopted and the amendment to the by-laws made as therein recommended.
(Motion carried unanimously).
The Treasurer: I would like to give notice of our intention, at the next regular meeting, of moving to amend Article III of the Constitution, by adding to the same the following:
"There shall be four classes of members: Annual, contributing, life and honorary. Annual, contributing and life members shall be entitled to all rights and privileges of the association. Honorary members shall be entitled to all rights and privileges of the association, excepting those of holding office and voting at meetings."
The President: Notice has been duly made and will be filed in the proceedings of the session.
We have with us Prof. F. N. Fagan to whom I am sure you will be glad to listen at this time in connection with the work that is being carried on at State College with which institution he is connected.
Professor Fagan: At the Rochester meeting we reported on an English walnut survey that was made in Pennsylvania. Since that time we have not done anything except with Mr. Jones's and Mr. Rush's help, to gather information about the parent trees of which we located definitely about three thousand and indefinitely probably two thousand more. All of these trees but one were in bearing. They were seedling trees and as much variation was found in the trees as we would naturally expect to find in seedling trees. Our problem is to determine the trees worthy of propagation. It is necessary also to solve better the propagation problem. We cannot expect to get any large amount of planting of any of our nut trees until we can put the trees to the public at a price at which it will feel that it can afford to invest. To the members of this association, or to other people vitally interested, two or two and a half or three dollars is not anything for a good tree; but to the average planter of home ground or farmstead that is too much money. We all know that it is not an easy task to propagate these trees and we are not condemning the nurserymen. We know that they cannot afford to grow a budded or a grafted tree of known parentage for any less. So the problem of propagation is one of the largest that we have before us, and it is one to which our station and I myself are giving all the thought and time that we can.
We realize the importance of the nut industry in the state if for no more than roadside and home planting. Whether commercial planting will extend through the north with our black walnuts, our butternuts, our hickories and our English walnuts, to the extent that it has in the south with the pecan, is a question which time alone can solve.
We now have new land at the station suitable for the planting of nut trees. It is going to be the best land that we have on our new farm and we hope next spring to make a collection planting of varieties. We have not much money but we can make a start. It is not going to be at a place that will be set aside and not cared for. It is going to be along the public road, where we will have to take care of it or we will be criticised.
Until we solve our problems of selection and propagation we will go along at a fair rate of increase in regard to our plantings; but we will not reach the man who has a piece of ground and who says, "I would like to plant that ground in walnuts, maybe fifteen or twenty trees but I cannot put thirty dollars into those trees, or twenty dollars when I can buy apple trees for twenty cents."