30 PROCEEDINGS AT GENERAL MEETINGS. 



thorough knowledge of practical agriculture. He hoped the noble Lord would 

 long be spared to take an active part in the Society's business. 



The noble Marquis briefly acknowledged the compliment, expressing his 

 earnest desire to do all he could to promote the interests of agriculture and 

 the welfare of the Society. 



This concluded the business of the meeting. 



THE TESTIMONIAL TO EEV. PATEICK BELL. 



At the close of the meeting of the Highland Society, the subscribers to the 

 Bell Testimonial remained to witness the presentation. The Marquis of 

 Tweeddale presided. 



Mr Scot-Skirving, Camptoun, said he had the honour, as Convener of the 

 Committee of the Bell Testimonial, to request his Lordship to do the sub- 

 scribers the favour of presenting it. He might congratulate Mr Bell upon 

 the fact that he would receive the testimonial from his Lordship's hand ; and 

 they would all agree with him in thinking that he could not receive it from 

 more appropriate hands than those of so eminent an agriculturist and of so 

 eminent an inventor and improver of agricultural machines. Had Mr Bell 

 been as richly endowed with this world's goods as they could all have wished 

 him, they would have given him a handsome service of plate ; but, occupying 

 as he did one of the scantiest livings of the Church of Scotland, they had 

 thought it much more appropriate to give him a testimonial in money ; and 

 the little piece of silverplate which accompanied it was intended more as a 

 means by which he would be enabled to hand down a knowledge of the fact 

 to posterity. The salver bore the following inscription : — 



" Presented to the Eev. Patrick Bell, minister of Carmyllie, with the sum 

 of L. , by a large number of his countrymen, in token of their ap- 

 preciation of his pre-eminent services as the inventor of the first efficient 

 reaping-machine. Constructed 1827. — Edinburgh, January 1868." 

 The committee were exceedingly anxious that they had been able to say that 

 the gross sum amounted to L.1000, and he was happy to say that, from 

 subscriptions which had been announced since they met, it was now only 

 about L.30 short of that sum ; and there was a simple way of making it up 

 by gentlemen adding to their subscriptions before they went away. He (Mr 

 Scot-Skirving) would take the liberty of making one remark with regard to 

 inventions. He had often heard it remarked that they were the result of 

 accident or chance. There was scarcely any great invention or any great 

 discovery in science of winch this had not been said. One of the most 

 hackneyed examples was the discovery of gravitation by the immortal Newton. 

 He had read a hundred times that the discovery was the result of Newton 

 seeing an apple fall. Now, apples had fallen since the time they first grew 

 in Eden ; but it was only when seen by Newton that the great idea flashed 

 across his mind. Now, he never had the pleasure of seeing Mr Bell before, 

 and he was not going to flatter him in his presence ; but to show that it was 

 not from accident he became an inventor, he would compare one passage in 

 his life with that of a very different man — Burns. Burns, in one of his best 

 poems — the poem in which he spoke of the thistle in a way which the 

 inventor of a reaping-machine or an agricultural society were not likely to do 

 — once, in his youth, on returning from the reaping-field, exclaims — 



" I felt a wish — I mind its power— 

 A wish that to my latest hour 



Will strongly heave my breast — ■ 

 That I, for pair auld Scotland's sake, 

 Some useful plan or book might make, 

 Or sing a sang at least." 



