ave given of their
time and strength to this important work: our Secretary, Joe McDaniel!
You all know him by his exceptional service to us all. (Let's rise and
give him a hand.) And while we are on our feet--one of the best
treasurers any organization ever had, efficient, kindly, but a veritable
watch-dog of the Treasury, Mr. Snyder! Also a hand to the members of our
important committees, Mr. Chase, Dr. MacDaniels, Mr. Slate, Mr. Stoke--I
can't name or praise them all as they deserve. The NNGA could not
possibly be what it is without them.

And now let us get on to the business before us.

Secretary's Report

J. C. McDANIEL, Nashville, Tennessee

The membership of the Association seems to be increasing fairly
steadily. When I checked the mailing list early last October, it had 667
names, as compared with 691 listed in the 37th Annual Report. When I
left Nashville last week, the number had increased to 742, according to
my stenographer's latest count. There have been some discontinued
memberships, as will happen almost every year in any organization, but
the new members have more than compensated for them, in numbers.

We did not add up a total on all the mail sent out in response to
inquiries, but it has been voluminous. Close to 800 requests for our nut
nursery list have been received solely as a result of Mr. Stoke's
_Southern Agriculturist_ chestnut article in last February's issue, and
they are still trickling in. Some new memberships have resulted from
these contacts, but more have come as a result of our column in the
_American Fruit Grower_, and a Chinese chestnut article in _The Flower
Grower_ early last spring, which gave our Association a boost.

Some members have said they did not find their _American Fruit Grower_
subscriptions of much value to them, particularly since the inauguration
of _The Nutshell_, our news bulletin which has been issued four times
since the last annual meeting. I will take some of the blame for this,
since as editor of _The Nutshell_, I am somewhat in the position of
competing with myself as columnist for the _Fruit Grower_. Space is
limited in the latter publication, too, and sometimes publication of the
"Nut Growers News" column is deferred a month or two, and again, I have
been known to miss a deadline. Most of the columns, as in the previous
years, are digests of material previously given in our Annual Reports.
This practice seems to be justified as a matter of keep