As usual a considerable number of sources have contributed towards this large membership roll. The auxiliary societies, of which there are 10 have brought upon this roll in all 878 members. One new auxiliary society has been added to the number this year, organized in St. Paul under the name of "Horticultural, Poultry and Improvement Association of West St. Paul." An auxiliary society maintained at Crookston for a number of years seems to be no longer in existence and should probably be taken from the list of auxiliaries. The farmers' institutes have not contributed as largely to the membership roll as some previous years, on account in part of the fact that the work heretofore done by farmers' institutes is being done in farmers' clubs and schoolhouse meetings of farmers, which does not offer as good an opportunity for securing memberships, though the service to the cause of horticulture is probably even better. Through this source the society has received this year 146 memberships. Many of the nurserymen have contributed liberally to the membership this year, memberships that were given by them to their customers in accordance with an arrangement made with this office. In all from this source have come upon our roll 172 memberships.
The State Fruit-Breeding Farm continues to be the object of permanent central interest in our association. Unfortunately the frosts of last spring interfered with the fruiting of the thousands of trees which under other circumstances would have borne fruit, many of them for the first time, so that practically few advances have been made the past year in breeding new tree fruits except in preparation for the future. In small fruits it was different, and the list of these worthy of trial which are standing the climate well is a growing one. Our membership are exceedingly interested in these new fruits as manifested by the large number called for through the distribution of plant premiums. In all there were sent out this year 2,594 lots of these plant premiums.
There is a growing interest in top-grafting late-keeping varieties of apples as indicated by the large number of calls made on this office for scions for this purpose the past season.
The seedling contests continue and the interest in growing seedlings continues as well, there having been a call during the past year from this office for a considerable number of packages of apple seeds by our membership.
So far no apple seedling has appeared to which we could award the $1,000 prize offered by the society for a winter apple. Referring to the seedling contest inaugurated some years ago, the first $100 premium in connection with which should have been awarded three years ago, it appears that the time limit for the fruitage of these seedlings was made too short. The fourth premium comes due at this meeting, but no claimants have as yet come forward for any of these premiums. Probably it will be thought a wise thing to do to continue these awards during later years when these seedling trees will come into bearing.
The "acre orchard" contest entered into a year ago last spring in which there 35 entries finally materialized into a smaller number than anticipated, reports having come into the office last year from 23 contestants. The reports for the current year are now being received but not all at hand.
The executive board provided conditions under which these orchards should be conducted and the prizes awarded, which conditions will be found published in the 1914 report of the society on page 45.
Trial stations are continuing their work and are being used principally now as far as new material is concerned in testing of fruits from the State Fruit-Breeding Farm. To this list has been added the government station at Mandan under the management of A. W. Peterson, reports from which point will also be made to our association from time to time, as well as from the trial stations connected with University Farm, all of which stations have been added also to our society list.
Arrangements are being perfected for the purpose of extending to our membership opportunity to use the books from the society library, which is now increased to about 3,300 volumes. This list has been published in the 1915 report of the society, and we shall be prepared early in the year to send out books to all who desire them according to the regulations, which will be published in an early number of our monthly.
The society is maintaining its card indexes and adding year by year to the amount of material which they represent. One of these cards indexes contains the names and titles of all the articles published in the society's annual reports and is indexed also with the names of the writers, the index being prepared in this double manner. Another card index contains the list of books in our library, and the third one, indexed by subjects, the bulletins on horticulture coming from the various state experiment stations and the U. S. Department of Agriculture. These indexes are invaluable for their various purposes and may be used by the membership at their volition.