THE 



COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE 



SEPTEMEER 1872 



THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY AND LIBEL. 



THE Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England, in its laudable endeavours 

 to promote and protect the farming interests, 

 has often a delicate and a difficult task to 

 perform. Sometimes the duties are even 

 more than difficult — they are dangerous. The 

 Society was established for the purpose of 

 conferring a boon upon agriculturists, by 

 aiding in every possible way that could be 

 thought of the advance of scientific agricul- 

 ture. To their large constituency the Council 

 are in duty bound to leave no stone unturned 

 to clear away every obstacle that exists 

 interfering with the thorough cultivation of 

 the soil and the proper rearing and feeding 

 of stock. By liberal prizes offered at annual 

 exhibitions, the Society has marvellously 

 improved the breed of cattle ; by encourage- 

 ment to implement-makers, the latter per- 

 haps not so liberal as it might be (at least, so 

 it is said by some), they have succeeded in 

 having wondrous improvements made in all 

 instruments and machines calculated to better 

 tillage, reduce manual labour, and cut or 

 raise and harvest the produce of the ground. 

 Progressing|in their scheme of beneficence, 

 they have thought it right, and properly so 

 in our idea, to invade territories where abuses 

 are well known to exist — all, be it remem- 

 bered, in the interests of the great class they 

 represent, and with whose welfare that of the 

 general community is intimately associated. 

 If a farmer has to pay more for his whistle 

 by 20 or 30 per cent, say, than that 

 whistle is worth, and if it should happen, as 



VOL. IX. 



it does sometimes, that the whistle he buys 

 will not even sound, though he blow until he 

 is black in the face — an exercise not con- 

 ducive to health — then, although the hus- 

 bandman is the direct sufterer, indirectly the 

 public are aggrieved on account of the high 

 expenditure on an ineffective instrument. 



To drop allegory : if a farmer purchase 

 manure at a certain price, on the understand- 

 ing that it is worth the money, and finds, when 

 the time comes, the joyous reaper should be 

 bearing " the harvest treasure home," that 

 there is little corn to carry, owing to the 

 adulteration in the manure, which he had 

 been assured was genuine, pecuniarily he does 

 not suffer solely — consumers of bread are 

 penahzed with him. His, no doubt, is per- 

 sonally the keenest annoyance, but buyers of 

 corn have to pay dearer on account of the 

 small crop resulting from the application of 

 the stuff supplied by fraudulent vendors. 

 Again, in the case of feeding-stuffs, when 

 stock-owners are swindled, the loss does not 

 altogether fall upon themselves. If cheap, 

 nasty, and even deleterious matters supplant 

 the pure Hnseed-cake, and cattle and sheep 

 deteriorate and die in consequence, the price 

 of beef and mutton is enhanced to the buyer. 

 In the present condition of our stock-markets, 

 and the exorbitant, almost prohibitive, price 

 of beef and mutton, there is little need of 

 trickery of a nefarious character being exer- 

 cised, either in fertihzers or condimental 

 foods. 



Not alone farmers, but the general public, 



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