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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



THE TWO AGRICULTURAL BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS. 



His Grace the Duke of Richmond occupiesjust at 

 present a somewhat peculiar position. He is the 

 President of an Agricultural Benevolent Insti- 

 tution that is considered to be gradually declin- 

 ing, and he is the President of another Agricul- 

 tural Benevolent Institution that is declared to be 

 rapidly developing. The great essential differ- 

 ence between these two Associations is, that the 

 Duke himself originated the one, and Mr. Alderman 

 Mechi the other. That which his Grace was not merely 

 the first to suggest, but that actually bears his own 

 title upon it, the farmers would seem to care little or 

 nothing about. Even with such an introduction, the 

 Richijiond Institution has long been little better than 

 a dead letter. The one or two thousand pounds 

 nest-egg have remained very much at the same figure; 

 while we cannot undertake to say whether any poor 

 widow has ever put in her claim to that assistance the 

 Society was intended to offer. Arising as it did in a per- 

 sonal tribute to the man, the finest compliment that 

 Agriculture could have paid to the Duke of Richmond 

 •would have been to establish the Institution of which 

 he was the founder. But somehow or other Agriculture 

 did not seem to care about such a diversion from the 

 first intention, and so it came to pass that while Agri- 

 cultural Societies and Clubs flourished more than ever. 

 Agricultural Charities flourished not at all. Farmers 

 could meet and talk and subscribe about anything but 

 pensions for themselves, or alms-houses for their 

 widows. 



What, however, the Duke of Richmond could 

 not do, Mr. Mechi is courageous enough to think 

 that he can. And so far he has clearly the more 

 success of the two. There are people who say that the 

 new Agricultural Institution would have been already 

 a much greater fact than it is, if it had not been for the 

 unhappy association of Mr. Mechi's name with its 

 fortunes. The Execijtive Council, indeed, have gone 

 BO far as to request t^hat he will withdraw from any 

 share in the direction. But this at best is a very trans- 

 parent blind, and, with his own partner still on the 

 Committee, cannot tell for much. Let it rise or let it 

 fall, the new Agricultural Benevolent Institution 

 will be as directly identified with Mr. Mechi 

 as Tiptree-Hali, Leaden-Hall, or large profits, 

 come from which of the two they may. And in com- 

 mon justice, giving to every one credit where credit is 

 due, this should be so. The names of Mr. Mechi and 

 of his partner Mr. Bazin are those that of all others 

 should occupy a prominent position in the manage- 

 ment. So far from thinking that this Benevolent In- 

 stitution has suffered anything from its connexion with 

 the firm of Mechi and Bazin, we do not believe that it 

 ■would have been half what it now is without them. 

 Mainly through such instrumentality the thing has 

 been well worked. Telling circulars have been 

 issued ; moving appeals have been made in the right 

 quarters; and where the Duke of Richmond could not 

 count upon two thousand pounds, Mechi and Bazin 

 have already more than four. 



Still, how much of this comes from the farmers 

 themselves ? How far can such a movement be re- 

 garded as a spontaneous one on their parts ? It is 

 indirect aid and patronage that have given the new 

 Benevolent Institution the start it enjoys. Landlords 

 perhaps feel it both a matter of duty and policy to 

 countenance such an undertaking, especially when put 



to them in that business-like form it was sure to be by 

 Mechi and Bazin. Their agents naturally follow so 

 noble an example, and add their ones and twos to My 

 Lord's ten or twenty. Then, the implement makers — 

 many famous in many ways for ready, open-handed 

 liberality— were not the men to be solicited in vain ; 

 and Clayton and Shuttleworth give their lifty, the 

 Ransomes a fifty, the Howards their twenty-five, the 

 Hornsbys another twenty - five, and so on. A 

 few leading agriculturists, like Jonas Webb, John 

 Clayden, Rigden, Sanday, the Russells in Kent, 

 Barthropp land Crisp in SuSblk, and another stray 

 ' man here and there, join in ; but it is 

 not from their order that the strength traces. 

 Look, for instance, at three such counties as 

 Norfolk, Northampton, and Nottingham succeeding 

 each other on the subscription list, and note the num- 

 , ber of farmers who have responded to the energetic 

 appeal of Mechi and Bazin. Why, the Richmond 

 Institution must surely have done as much or more 

 i amongst them. Not that the notion was quite a novelty 

 even then. Some such a fund has, in fact, been sug- 

 gested over and over again. A very energetic gentle- 

 man has often mooted it in Hampshire, and every- 

 where else that he has had an opportunity; while, we 

 believe, there is still lying in one ot the local Banks 

 in Norfolk a certain sum long since got together 

 for much the same purpose. Let Messrs. Mechi and 

 Bazin look to it, though if not with all the claim of 

 the first discoverers. 



Anxious as we are that the great body of practical 

 agriculturists should take their own view of this 

 question, we give a very full report of " the Opening 

 Festival," as it is called, of the new Institution. This 

 indeed runs to a much greater length than the general 

 character of the oratory deserves. With the exception 

 of Mr. Wren Hoskyns, who very becomingly and unex- 

 pectedly undertook the duties of the chair — and 

 saving with him Mr. Mechi himself, the speech- 

 making could not have been more common-place, 

 or, as in one or two cases, more thoroughly indifferent. 

 Take for example a Mr. Wood, a barrister, who by 

 some unlucky "accident" became connected with the 

 Society; and on the strength of this was placed on the 

 right of the Chair, and positively called upon to 

 deliver two of the most tiresome and tedious ad- 

 dresses we ever had the misfortune to sit through. 

 But we do not go quite to the length of reporting him 

 in full. Then on the other side of " Talpa," was Mr. 

 Batson, a gentleman who at one time made a good deal 

 of talk over his farming in Herefordshire; but, accord- 

 ing to all accounts, did not make it answer, and who 

 must have occupied his prominent position at the London 

 Tavei'n a good deal on the same showing as " the 

 frightful example " at a teetotal festival. However, 

 Mr. Batson is no less a man than the Chairman of the 

 Executive Council, so that the Institution is launched 

 under the most encouraging auspices. 



But Mr. Wren Hoskyns is a thinking man, 

 and he rarely writes or speaks without suggesting 

 something for profitable reflection. He dwelt here 

 on the effects of the law of primogeniture, of 

 intestacy, and the many difficulties opposing 

 the transfer of land ; and | in proposing the toast 

 of the occasion, he weut on this wise : " In the neigh- 

 bouring country of France, by one of the laws of the 

 first Napoleon, that land was so divided and cut up 



