SECRETARY’S CORNER

Annual meeting Wisconsin state horticultural Socy.—­This meeting is to be held at Madison, Wis., on January 5-7.  Mr. Chas. Haralson, superintendent of our State Fruit-Breeding Farm, is to represent this society at that meeting.  We may look for an interesting report from him in the February issue of our monthly.

Is your annual fee paid?—­If not, won’t you please send it in promptly, remitting by a $1.00 bill, which is a safe medium of payment, instead of using check unless you draw on a bank in one of the larger cities of the state.  Checks on country banks, as a rule, can only be collected here by a payment of ten cents, which the society can ill afford to pay for so many members.

Annual meeting S.D.  Hort.  Socy.—­The annual gathering of this sister association will be held in Huron, S.D., January 18-20.  Quite a good many of our members live so near the state line that they may find it convenient to attend this meeting, which will certainly be a profitable one.  Prof.  N. E. Hansen is secretary.  Mr. Wm. Pfaender, Jr., of New Ulm, is to be the representative of this society at the South Dakota meeting.

Annual meeting southern Minnesota Hort.  Socy.—­This very wide-awake auxiliary of the state society will hold its annual meeting in Austin, January 19th and 20th next.  The program of the meeting is not yet at hand, but you may be sure that it will be an interesting and practical one.  If the reader is living anywhere within convenient range of Austin by all means attend this meeting and get inspiration and help for the work of another season.

You are not forgotten.—­This refers to members of the society who have paid their annual fee for 1916 and are wondering why they have not yet received the membership ticket.  There is always a little unavoidable delay in sending out these tickets after the annual meeting.  First the tickets must be printed, and then the society folder that goes out with them must be prepared, and the material making up this folder comes from quite a number of sources, and it takes more or less time to get all of these matters together and in shape.  You need not be solicitous in regard to membership fees remitted, as the chance of loss in transmission is approximately nothing; hardly half a dozen instances of the kind have come up in the twenty-five years of service of the secretary.

Passing of Michael Bendel, Sr.—­This old member of our society and resident of Madison has just been called away, December 23rd, at the age of seventy-nine years.  While not an attendant at our meetings he was a most loyal member of the society, and especially conspicuous in the western part of the state, where he lived, as a successful experimenter in orcharding, in which work he had a large experience.  His portrait and a brief sketch of his life appear in the 1914 volume of our report, on page 150.  Mr. Bendel was for many years president of the Lac qui Parle County Agricultural Society, was always greatly interested in everything to improve the interests of his community, and especially those pertaining to farm life.  He has left an enviable record.