see what an
important part he has taken in our discussions, you will get a good idea
of the ability and broad-mindedness, the scientific knowledge and the
honesty of Mr. Bixby. There is one thing that perhaps you don't all
know, and that is that his collection of nuts has been sold to the
United States Government. There is something fewer of you know and that
is that this sale was brought about by the persistent energy, mental and
physical, of Mr. Reed.

The other old friend, whom we shall perhaps never see again at a
meeting, is Dr. Morris. I've seen him twice this summer, had several
letters from him, and lunched with him once. He has with him his devoted
wife and his little daughter and he appears to be fairly well. He
doesn't look very different from what he has when he attended our
meetings. He is up and around and he walked about the place for fifteen
or twenty minutes with Mrs. Morris and me looking at his trees.

Some other old friends that I would like to call to your attention are
our past reports. I suppose that I have read those reports more times
than anybody else, since I have edited nearly all of them. I go back
over them occasionally even now and I have been astonished to find the
value of the papers and discussions that are contained there. I
recommend to all of you who have these reports to make a review of them
and see how many things were known during the early years of our
association, as Mr. Walker has said, that we are now rehashing. When you
go over the names of the men who made up the membership of the
association in its early days, men whom many of you perhaps have never
seen, or have seen very seldom, you can understand how these pioneers in
nut growing would have had something interesting to say.

I've made a little list of names of these men, some of whom are gone,
and the rest of whom we seldom see. Dr. Morris, Prof. Craig, Henry
Hales, Prof. Close, Prof. Hutt, W. N. Roper, W. C. Reed, Prof. Collins,
E. A. Riehl, Dr. Van Fleet, Prof. Van Deman, J. G. Rush, Mr. Jones, Mr.
Littlepage, Mr. Bixby, Dr. Smith, Prof. E. R. Lake, S. W. Snyder, Mrs.
Erlanger, Col. Sober, Prof. Drake and many others. I think it will pay
you all to look back through those annual reports and see what the
pioneer nut growers of this country have recorded.

Mr. Reed, I was saying that Mr. Bixby's collection of nut trees had been
sold to the Government and that it was through your help that this sale
was made. Now I'