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86           FIFTY-THIRD ANNUAL Rzr    OF or
lightly on my shoulders and forget about it? Well, after
getting letters from county agents such as those referred to,
one begins to feel that there is some responsibility. You may
ask the question, why don't you do it, why don't you help
these fellows? With all this harvest ready to harvest, why
don't you get busy? Well, we have been busy, but you
cannot harvest a very big crop with a small force. I am
condemning no one. I am criticising no one. The situation
is this. We all know that it takes money to do work. We
all know that the university is given a certain appropriation,
that there are a lot of departments, all as intensely interested
in their line of work as we are interested in horticultural
work, and therefore, just about this season of the year, the
budget season of the year, everybody is putting forth his
best efforts to get just as much of that money for his partic-
ular department as he possibly can. I have no criticism to
make of the proportion which horticulture has received, I
do not want it understood that I am complaining that we
have not got a just proportion, but I do want to say this, that
if we are going to take care in an adequate manner of the
calls that are being made similar to these which I have read,
and put this proposition of better fruit in Wisconsin over
when the thing is ripe for it, we will have to increase our funds
and increase our force. People who get the most funds are
the people who have the biggest call or the biggest backing
outside that is helping them to get the funds. I am going to
be very frank, you do not need to expect the Horticultural
Department under the present conditions, to be able to help
these men who need help, any more extensively than we have
in the past, unless we have greater facilities for doing it. We
are willing to pull all we can, but the fact of the whole matter
is this, that it is very largely up to you as a horticultural
society and as fruit growers of the state to help determine
how much can be done in this line of work.
There is just one other thing which I want to mention.
Owing to the fact that a horticultural department is a part
of a definitely organized institution in which the fruit growers
of the state directly have little or no part, there often seems
to be the feeling that you are just a little bit outside; you do
not feel quite free to butt into the organization with sugges-
tions. You leave that to the secretary of the horticultural
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