THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



369 



3rd. We cannot but think that much needless appre- 

 hension has been caused by the sentence in our circular, 

 " how far it may be deemed expedient to amalgamate in 

 one central society the existing local county shows." Tiie 

 question we threw out rather as being one which we 

 knew several would come to discuss, who say that they 

 cannot subscribe to two societies, but have pleasure in 

 suppoiting one, and by no means as an idea of our own, 

 as we have thought from the first that these district so- 

 cieties would go far to foster and be fostered by a Royal 

 Welsh Agricultural Society. After all, deny " the ex- 

 pediency" and the offence is drawn. The paragraph 

 we should, however, have at once dismissed with a mo- 

 nosyllabic tormentor in its ear, had we forseen the up- 

 roar it was destined to cause ; or, if we had sooner come 

 across the subjoined quotation from The Farmer's Ma- 

 gazine for 1838, which even as we write has casually 

 turned up. It runs thus — '* We are aware of an idea 

 having been once entertained that a general society 

 would interfere prejudicially with the local societies. 

 Experience in Scotland — and there is no reason why the 

 result should be different in England—has proved the 

 reverse. The local societies have flourished much better 

 since the establishment of the Highland Society." 

 Putting England for Scotland and Wales for England, 

 we endorse this sentence as our own. 



4th. One gentleman opposes the scheme on the ground 

 that it is likely to nurse a morbid feeling of Welsh nation- 

 ality, and remarks that it were better that all distinction 

 between England and Wales be abolished. 



We may be excused if we pause to confess that, even 

 supposing a pure race may be absorbed or exterminated 

 — a physiological fact, by-the-way, which authors of 

 eminence deny — we cannot in this instance see the ob- 

 ject of the fusion. Why may not the Saxon and the 

 Celt of our island move upon an amicable parallel of 

 honourable rivalry, as continental nations do ? The 

 inestimable advantage of free intercourse with enlight- 

 ened neighbours we are forward to allow ; but why so 

 studiously seek, without necessity, to swamp a distinc- 

 tive genius, which after all may tend eventually to throw 

 new light (for it is a genius of power) upon the various 

 objects of their common scientific investigation? 



But to return. " It is the railways," he writes, " that 

 we want." Now this scheme of a Welsh Royal Agri- 

 cultural Society seems to us — though, after all, 'tis true 

 we may be blinded by an over-weening fondness for our 

 bantling — most excellently calculated to stimulate the 

 formation of new lines through farming districts such 

 as that just opened up the Clwyd ; while we can con- 

 ceive few things adapted better to intermix the Saxon 

 and the Cymry than an annual week of social walk 

 and talk amidst machinery and cattle, where thousands 

 daily come and go in a mood of most joyous in- 

 spection. 



5th. It is objected that the Welsh breeds of cattle and 

 sheep — the superiority of the ponies none dispute — can 

 bear no comparison with the English importations ; that 

 the Anglesey or Castlemartin bullock can by no means 

 maintain its ground beside the Hereford or Shoi thorn. 

 Granted, for argument's sake ; but are there not dis- 



tricts of vast extent, both in North and South Wales* 

 where — to quote the exj)rcssive words of Lord Bagot's 

 agent, lately spoken at the Rhyl meeting of the Den- 

 bigh and Flint Agricultural Society — " you might 

 as well look for an elephant as a shorthorn" ? It were 

 hard to " keep pace with the expectancy" of some, for we 

 remember to have heard a titled lady ask the guide, on 

 a bleak pass in Cumberland, whether pine-apples grew 

 thereabouts; and our impression is that not more out 

 of place were a pinery on open Skiddaw than the silky 

 coat of " Rose of Athelstane" by the shores of Llyn 

 Arenig; nor less unhappy, in the mists of Snowdon, or 

 by the morasses of the Berwyn, those lovely oval South- 

 down forms, which you may see Her Grace of Rich- 

 mond with gloved hand pat so daintily at Christmas time 

 — the hereditary " gold medalists" of Smithfield. On 

 this head, however, we would not be misinterpreted. 

 We do not advocate, as some suppose, the expulsion of 

 the Shorthorn and the Leicester, the Cotswold and the 

 Devon, any more than we would go in for the restitution 

 of the Druids. These justly valuable breeds we should 

 be foremost to recommend upon the rich meadow pas- 

 ture which a genial climate favours ; but at the same time 

 we think it only fair that the highland farmer be encour- 

 aged equally with the lowland, seeing (hat so large a pro- 

 portion of the Welsh acreage is highland ; and we cannot 

 deem it to be absurd, that at least an effort be made to im- 

 prove stock which, fed by the graziers of Northamp- 

 tonshire, Leicestershire, and Kent, have already the merit 

 of fetching the best prices of the London market. The 

 question how far the native breeds deserve cultivation, 

 where it is to begin, where to end, and how to be carried 

 on, can only be solved practically ; and it is the very 

 question we want to see solved : a solution which can be 

 attained, however, only by the establishment of a national 

 Welsh society, for the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England will not recognise distinctly the Welsh breeds, 

 and the West of England Society has enough to do at 

 home, while the small local shows are obviously unequal 

 to the task. 



On the other hand, let us consider the advantage 

 that must accrue from the establishment of this 

 society. 



First, as an immediate consequence, we shall have 

 the best stock of all breeds brought into the country 

 from all parts of the United Kingdom in competition for 

 the prizes, with the certain effect at least of improving 

 the Welsh farmer's eye and taste by the study of 

 animals such as could be nowhere collected but at the 

 exhibition of a national society ; besides that, the leading 

 farmers and gentry will have inducement to import the 

 best of fashionable blood for their own and their 

 neighbours' use, an outlay to which they never could be 

 tempted by the comparatively paltry £2 prizes of a 

 country gathering. 



Secondly. We shall have a great mart for meritorious, 

 even if not winning stock, such as the largest district 

 show never could afford ; attractive not only to the 

 clile of England, but, what is of more importance still, 

 to the Australian, the French, the American, the en- 

 voys of Hungary and Prussia — all eager to behold and 



