94 PROCEEDINGS AT GENERAL MEETINGS. 



silver medals at the intermediate show of stock ; and plough medals on the former 

 conditions, as well as the cottage premiums. In regard to the latter, he stated that 

 the Directors had opened a door so as to admit crofters paying L. 15 of rent and 

 under to compete for a medal, on condition that individual proprietors or local 

 associations give L. 2 in prizes for each medal claimed. He concluded by report- 

 ing that it had been resolved upon by the Directors to propose to the General 

 Meeting to vote the sum of L.50forthe year 1869 to the Edinburgh Christmas 

 Club, as being the Metropolitan Fat Stock Show of Scotland. 



Mr Pagan, Innergeldie, proposed that the grant to the Edinburgh Christmas 

 Club should be increased from L. 50 to L. 100. He thought that L.50 was too 

 a small pittance to be given by a great Society like this. 



Mr Campbell Savinton said that this matter met with the most attentive and 

 careful consideration on the part of the Directors, and he hoped that the resolution 

 at which they had arrived would be adopted. 

 The report was unanimously adopted. 



Chair of Agriculture. — Mr Lawson of Borthwick Hall, reported that the 

 arrangement agreed to by the General Meeting in January last, in regard to the 

 endowment of the Chair of Agriculture in the Edinburgh University, had been 

 fully carried out. He stated that the agreement was that the sum of L.150 per 

 annum should be given by the Society for ten years, on condition that Govern- 

 ment gave an ecpial or a greater sum ; and that it had been reported at the half- 

 yearly meeting of the Society in June last, that the Lords Commissioners of the 

 Treasury had agreed to include L.150 in the estimates. The vote had since 

 passed, and the first half-year's allowance had now been paid both by Government 

 and by the Society. 



The report was approved of. 



Veterinary Department.- — Mr Gillon of Wallhouse, Convener of the Vete- 

 rinary Committee, reported that up the present time the attempts to get an in- 

 dependent royal charter for a Veterinary College had failed ; but they did not 

 mean to give up the contest. It would be renewed on the first oppor- 

 tunity. They must have a royal charter for Scotland, and the sooner they could 

 get it the better. Mr Gillon proceeded to report that the Society continued to 

 take a lively interest in all that concerned the welfare of the Veterinary College. 

 On 2d November last he attended the opening of the College, and listened with 

 pleasure to a most excellent address, delivered by Dr Dalzell to the students. He 

 was happy to notice the very numerous attendance, and he could not help remark- 

 ing that they were a very superior class of young men. The College was now in 

 a very prosperous condition, and he thought it would continue to be so under the 

 able direction of Principal Williams and those who laboured with him. 



Chemical Department. — Professor Anderson reported the proceedings con- 

 nected with the Chemical Department. In the course of his remarks, he said that 

 he had arranged for the experiments for the present season, which were likely to 

 be of a very important kind. They were but on a small scale, but such as would 

 go over the whole rotation. He had been afraid that, owing to the drought, the 

 experiments would have been a failure, but he was glad that they had turned out 

 well up to this time. In .regard to the work of the laboratory, he believed that 

 the number of analyses had exceeded that of any previous year. He had been 

 successful in detecting some important cases of adulteration, so that farmers had 

 been able to recover from the sellers a considerable sum of money. 



Mr Harvey, "Whittingham Mains, said he thought that this subject was con- 

 nected with the most important department of the Highland Society. It was all 

 the more important, particularly in a year like this when roots had been so very 

 meagre. He had been reading Dr Voelcker's account of the Chemical Department 

 of the English Society, in which that gentleman said that the extent of adultera- 

 tion had this year been altogether beyond precedent. An instance was given of pigs 

 killed through having been fed on cakes containing such poisonous stuff as castor-oil 

 beans, and the still more poisonous curcus-bean. In more than one case bearing 

 the press stamp " pure," the cake had been adulterated to a very great extent. 

 He thought that the Chemical Department of the Highland Society might be 

 made still more useful by perhaps appointing a committee to take steps to stop, 

 as far as was in their power, that abominable system of adulteration. They, as 

 agriculturists, knew what was good land and what was very bad; but few of them 

 knew what their animals fed upon, or what fertilisers to put into the land. He 



