tired with nothing to do
except just what he wants to this is far from the facts. While it is
true that in 1919 he did retire from business, in which he had spent
practically all of his time since leaving school, he has never been able
to retire entirely and is still president of one corporation and
vice-president of two. In the case of one of these the conditions under
which it operated have changed so entirely that he has had practically
to get back into business and the work of the association has had to be
sandwiched in as best it could and at times has had scant attention. Had
it not been for Mrs. Bixby's help on the work of the treasurer proper,
he would have had to resign.

There is a deficit[1] shown by the treasurer's report although less than
that of a year ago. The attempt to induce a rather large proportion of
our members to become contributing members, paying $5.00 per year as
membership fee, including subscription to the American Nut Journal, has
been reasonably successful, about one-quarter of our receipts of
membership fees being from this source. The real difficulty, however, is
that our total membership is not sufficient to enable receipts from dues
to pay expenses. In every year, for a good many years, receipts from
contributions have been about equal to those from dues and apparently
that condition will have to continue until our membership is doubled,
unless the activity of the association is materially reduced, which
course seems inadvisable to your treasurer.

[1] This was wiped out at the meeting by contributions and guarantee of
new membership which more than equalled the amount of the deficit.

The results of the nut contest the past year have been unsatisfactory.
The nut crop was a failure over quite a portion of the country covered
by the association. The number of nuts sent in was not over one-tenth
of those received in 1920 and no nuts of notable excellence were
received. Were it not for the fact that this year promises to be a great
year for nuts in the northeastern United States, one might think that
the nut contests had outlived their usefulness. They have, however,
brought us so many good nuts and are so comparatively inexpensive that
your treasurer would not want to give them up yet.

During the past year an earnest effort was made by the treasurer to get
new members by getting nurserymen to enclose in their catalogs circulars
regarding the association as well as membership applicat