THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



SEPTEMBER, 1858. 



PLATE I. 

 PORTRAIT OF J. HALL MAXWELL, ESQ.; 



SECRETARY OF THE HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF SCOTLAND. 



PLATE II. 

 FREDERICK; A celebrated Short-horn Bull. 



(For descriptioti see page 192 J 



J. HALL MAXWELL, ESQ.; 



secretary of the HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF SCOTLAND, 



John Hall Maxwell, of Dargavel, comes of an old 

 Scotch family, that, we gather from the Statistical 

 History of Scotland, has been settled in the county 

 of Renfrew for nearly six hundred years. Mr. 

 Maxwell was himself born there in 1812, and 

 having adopted the law as a profession, was called 

 to the Scottish bar in 1835. The characteristic 

 energy of the man never allowed him to occupy 

 the ranks of the briefless. He enjoyed, indeed, at 

 one time considerable practice, more particularly 

 in such business from Scotland as came before 

 Committees of the House of Commons. In the 

 year 1845, however. Sir Charles Gordon, the then 

 Secretary to the Highland Society, died ; and Mr. 

 Maxwell being a member of the Board of Direction, 

 as well as with a predilection for agricultural pur- 

 suits, became a candidate for the appointment. 

 He was elected to it in the January of the following 

 year ; and at once abandoning all further employ- 

 ment at the bar, he has since devoted himself en- 

 tirely to the interests of the Society. It is not too 

 much to say that he has done so with the most 

 signal success. Mr. Maxwell gives a high reading 

 to the office of Secretary, and his influence and 

 example are something remarkable. The best 

 patrons of the association at once put themselves 



OLD SERIES] 



under his direction, and it is amusing at times to 

 see how dutifully a noble duke or a lofty chieftain 

 receives his orders as to where he is to be at 

 such an hour " to-morrow morning." They 

 all, proverbially, work well together, and none 

 more zealously than their Secretary himself. The 

 efi"ect of this has so far been most significant and 

 encouraging. During the last ten or twelve years 

 the Highland Society has progressed and pros- 

 pered exceedingly. The funds have accumulated, 

 its power has extended, and its constituency greatly 

 increased. The association now numbers nearly 

 three thousand five hundred members, having 

 added much new blood to that original support it 

 traces back to. Still the Highland Society has 

 been in active operation for the best part of a cen- 

 tury, while it has embraced within its legitimate 

 sphere of action many features which the common 

 run of agricultural associations have carefully kept 

 clear of. So far, for instance, from interfering 

 with any question before Parliament, it has pro- 

 moted aad been the chief agent in the adoption of 

 many measures. One of the more recent and 

 marked of its proceedings has been the recognition 

 by the Society of the Collection of Agricultural 

 Statistics — a question that has brought Mr. Hall 

 O [VOL. XLIX.— No. 2. 



