THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



65 



WOOL. 



Judge— Mr. Johns, Chelmsford. 

 Best ten Fleeces of Short Wool. 

 First prize of 21. to C. T. Tower, Weald Hall. 

 Second of 1/. to J. G. Rebow, M.P. 



Best ten Fleeces of Long Wool. — {No 'prize given.) 



PRIZES FOR IMPLEMENTS. 



Judges— J. A. Clarke, Long Sutton, Wisbeach. 

 T. Hawkins, Smallbridge, Suffolk, 

 Best General Collection of Implements. 

 First prize of 20Z. to Coleman, Chelmsford 

 Second of 10/. to Bentall, Heybridge, Maldon. 

 Third of 5/. to Everett and Taylor, Chelmsford. 

 For best new or improved Implement. — {None exhibited of 

 sufficient merit.) 



Mr. Bailey, of Mount-street, Loudon, was the Judge of 

 Poultry. 



THE DINNER 

 Took place in the New Market Hall, at five o'clock, just an 

 hour or so too late for those who had to return by train. Seats 

 had been prepared for somewhere about two hundred and fifty, 

 but an extra table had at last to be laid out, and provi- 

 sion for it obtained from the not over sumptuous board 

 already arranged. Mr. Du Cane, M.P., presided, supported 

 right and left by Lord Rayleigb, Major Beresford, M.P., Col. 

 Brise, the reverend John Cox, Messrs. J. G. Rebow, Perry 

 Watlington, J. J. Mechi, J. Parker, J. O. Parker, W. P. 

 Honeywood, Burch Western, W. Fisher Hobbs, R. Baker, J. 

 Clayden, and other notabilities of the county. There were also 

 present the Rev. C. T, James and Messrs. C. Barnett, S. 

 Jonas, W. C. Spooner, T. B. Gibbs, J. Tanner Davy, Henry 

 Cook, J. Algernon Clarke, G. D. Badham, and J. Spurling. 



After the customary loyal and patriotic toasts had been duly 

 given and enthusiastically received. 



The Chairman in proposing the toast of the evening, " Suc- 

 cess and Prosperity to our new-born Essex Agricultural Asso- 

 ciation, said : When I look around these tables, and see gathered 

 together on this occasion men who, by their practical skill and 

 their high intelligence, have contributed in no small measure 

 to raise the agriculture of England to that proud pre-eminence 

 t now enjoys, I have no doubt whatever of the reception you 

 iwill accord to it. It will hardly be within my province on the 

 present occasion to dwell at any length upon the circumstances 

 that have led to the formation of this association ; they are 

 doubtless, for the most part, fresh in your recollection ; but I 

 may, perhaps, be permitted to point out to you that this so- 

 ciety owes its foundation, not merely to that national interest 

 that we all — who view in the prosperity and well doing of the 

 agriculture of our country the truest foundation of national 

 greatness — feel in whatever tends to further the great cause 

 of agricultural improvement and develop the productive re- 

 sources of the soil, but it has emanated also from a special, I 

 might also say a noble, effort made by the county of Essex and 

 the town of Chelmsford to secure for us that which is one of 

 the highest of agricultural benefits, as it is one of the 

 highest of agricultural distinctions, the annual meeting of 

 the Royal Agricultural Society of England. I take it we may 

 fairly say that to the good seed sown by that memorable meet- 

 ing we owe the inauguration of the present association; and 

 I think we may also fairly say that, considering the short time 

 our seed has been iu the ground, and the somewhat early 

 period we have fixed on for the in-gathering of our harvest, we 

 have reaped, upon the whole, a crop that is far beyond the 

 average. Gentlemen, we know very well, from past experience, 

 that the successful establishment of an association of any kind 

 is not always an easy matter : there are always opponents of 

 various kinds, to be won over as allies or reduced to submission. 

 There is the cautious man, who waits to see how the thing will 

 work before he tenders you his allegiance ; there is the des- 

 ponding individual, who has gloomy tales of past ill success, 

 from which he augurs badly of the future ; and last, not least, 

 there is the plain-spoken honest opponent, who tells you 

 frankly and flatly that he thinks both you and your prospects 

 are all a humbug, and that if you think to catch him in your 

 net you are very much mistaken. Now, gentlemen, in the 

 very small part that I individually have borne in the fornia- 

 tiou of this asaociation, I will not prettnd to say that I have 



not encountered an isolated instance or so of these three species 

 of opponents, but I can say that these instances have been in- 

 deed few and far between ; and I can say, too, and it is with a 

 feeling of pride in my county tliat I say it, that never did 

 any proposal meet with a more hearty, or more cordial, 

 ot more unanimous response than this has done at the 

 hands of the good farmers of Essex. And, gentlemen, I 

 should have been surprised if it had not been so : agricul- 

 tural times have changed of late years in England, and they 

 have changed, too, in Essex. It is no great effort of memory 

 to carry our recollections back to the time when, some few 

 years since, an individual whom I may style the knight errant 

 of the monarch of the press, rode through the length and 

 breadth of England, calling upon the farmers of England to 

 " Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen." We remember how, 

 in the course of his career, he halted for a brief space to survey 

 the broad acres of Essex, and the not very complimentary lan- 

 guage in which he spoke of E^sex farmers and Essex farming. 

 We remember how, iu spite of its proximity to the great nae- 

 tropolis, this county was said to be in a state of Cimmerian 

 agricultural darkness — how Essex landlords were said to be de- 

 void of capital, and Essex farmers to be devoid of brains. We 

 remember how we were told that our fields averaged about an 

 acre a-piece in size ; how they swarmed with injurious hedge- 

 row timber; how the use of a draining-tile was unknown; how 

 mistrust was universally shown of recent improvements iu ma- 

 chinery, and a general want of confidence in everybody and 

 everything. We remember all this— and saddest of all, I am 

 afraid, we must remember too that this flattering picture was 

 not altogether too highly coloured. But, gentlemen, I say, 

 let the same knight-errant come now, and he will say, if he be 

 honest, that a "change has come o'er the spirit of our dream." 

 Let him come, I say, and he will see that good farming is now 

 the rule, and bad farmiug the exception ; he will see an earnest 

 desire, both on the part of landlords and of tenants, not only 

 to avail themselves of every acknowledged agricultural im- 

 provement, but to test the value of new discoveries by fair and 

 impartial experiment and investigation. He will find that 

 landlords have somehow or another obtained possession of 

 capital, and tenants of brains ; and, co-existing with a kindly 

 feeling to each other, he will find an earnest desire on the part 

 of both to study the welfare and ameliorate the condition of the 

 labouriug classes dependent on them for employment. I do 

 not mean to say we have yet nearly approached to perfection, 

 for I believe that the age of agricultural improvemeut is as yet 

 but in its infancy, and that great discoveries are yet in store 

 for us. I believe that ere many years have elapsed we shall wit- 

 ness an application of steam power to the cultivation of the soil 

 to an extent that but a few years since would have been looked 

 upon as the chimerical vision of a lunatic ; we shall witness 

 further developments in the science of agricultural chemistry, 

 improvements in the breeding and rearing of stock, the art of 

 draining, and other branches of agriculture. And, gentlemen, 

 it is to assist in this good cause — it is to give, if possible, a 

 finishing touch to these discoveries— that I imagine we have 

 this day assembled to commemorate the inauguration of the 

 Essex Agricultural Association. I will not enter myself into 

 the particular merits of this day's exhibition. There are sub- 

 sequent speakers who have to address you, men who are what 

 I am not— agriculturists of great practical skill and eminence — 

 who will point out to you its merits and demerits, and who 

 will tell you something of the errors of our ways of Essex 

 farming in general ; but this much I will venture to say — 

 that, considering the time we have had for preparation, won- 

 ders have been accomplished, and an exhibition has been held 

 in every way worthy of this great agricultural county. I give 

 you, then, " Success to the Essex Agricultural Association," 

 and I venture to recommend it, in conclusion, to your support 

 in the words of a recent able writer on English agriculture — 

 " The wave of agricultural progress has acquired irretistible 

 might : we must mount it, or it will sweep ua away. He who 

 lives within the diameter of a little circle has ideas as narrow 

 as his horizon ; but the influence of numbers and skill together 

 is irresistible, and no impersonation of ignorance or bigotry has 

 probably ever visited a single great agricultural exhihitioa 

 without returning a wiser and a better farmer" (Great applause). 

 Major Beresford gave " The Judges ;" and Mr. Barnett 

 in responding sard, in one class npon which himself and Capt. 

 Barlow were appointed to adjudicate they did not give a prize; 

 and if he were not to allude to the circumstance, and state why 



