432 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



The interest attaclilng to the counti7 meetiug will be 

 this year largely increased by the competitive trials of 

 steam-cultivators. The result of these trials will be made 

 known at the Leeds meeting. 



The Society having offered this year a prize of £100 for 

 the beat thorough-bred stallion, having served mares during 

 the season 1861, which, in the opinion of the Judges, is best 

 calculated to improve and perpetuate the breed of the sound 

 and stout thorough-bred horse for general stud purposes, 

 and an unusually large amount for horses in other classes, 

 they contemplate that great interest will be evinced at this 

 meeting by the breeders of horses and the public generally 

 throughout the Kingdom. 



The entries of implements and machinei-y in motion, to 

 be exhibited at Leeds, closed on the 1st of May, and the 

 Council have the satisfaction of stating that the applica- 

 tions for space in this department of the Show-yard exceed 

 those of any previous meeting of the Society. 



The entries for live stock and flax, which will close on 

 the 1st of June, already give indications that this portion 

 of the exhibition will be equally satisfactory. 



The arrangements for the Leeds Meeting, to be held in 

 the week commencing Monday 15th of July, are advancing 

 rapidly. The Show-yard will be open as under :" — 



Monday, for implements, and for stock s. d. 

 (after the judges have made their award) 5 



Tuesday 2 6 



Wednesday 3 6 



Thursday 1 



Friday 1 



The successful competitors for the prizes offered by the 

 Society have been, in class IX, f»r 1859, Professor Tanner, 

 of Queen's College, Birmingham, who gained the prize of 

 £'10 for his Essay on the Breeding of Farm Stock, and in 

 Class VllL, for 1860, Messrs. Raynbird, of Hackwood 

 Park, Basingstoke, the prize of £U) for their paper on 

 Adulteration of Seeds. 



In Classes VIII., for 1859, and VL and IX., for 1860, the 

 Essays were not considered worthy of the prizes, and the 

 Council cannot /orbear from expressing their regret that 

 there was not greater competition. 



Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to grant a site 

 of 26 acres in the Regent's Park for the pui'pose of holding 

 an Exhibition of Stock and Implements in 1862. The 

 Council have made the necessary arrangements with the 

 Office of Works, and trust that the number of distinguished 

 agiiculturists, British and Foreign, who will visit the Inter- 

 national Exhibition will by their presence in the Show- 

 yard have an opportunity of witnessing the magnitude and 

 success of our department of National Industry. 



It has been resolved by the Council to maintain the 

 orighial scheme of Districts for the Country Meetings of 

 the Society, viz. : — 



A. Comprising the counties of Cumberland, Durham, 



Northumberland, and Westmoreland. 



B. Lancashire and Yorkshire. 



C. Cheshire, Shropshire, and Staffordshire. 



D. Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottingham- 



shire, and Rutlandshire. 



E. South Wales and Herefordshire, IMonmouthshire, and 



Worcestershire. 



F. Bedfordshii-e, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Glouces 



tershire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Warwick- 

 shire, and Wiltshii-e. 



G. Cambrideshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Huntingdon- 



shire, Norfolk, and Suffolk. 

 H. Cornwall, Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and Somersetshire. 

 I. Hampshire, Kent, Surrey, Sussex. 

 K. The Metropolis and its Postal District. 

 By Order of the Council, 



H. Hall D,mE, Secretary, 



Lord Berners in moving the adoption of the report said, 

 he would confine himself to a congratulation of the members 

 on two announcements made in it ; first, that the members of 

 the society were, in future, to be admitted to the shows without 

 any payment; and secondly, that the public were to be ad- 

 mitted to the Stock Show on Monday without being subjected 

 to any additional charge. 



Mr. S. Sidney said, he rose to second the resolution chiefly 

 because it would afford him the opportunity which he desired 

 of making some observations. He would confine himself to a 



very few points, but they were points of considerable import- 

 ance. It was impossible for him and those who agreed with 

 him to object to anything that was in the report ; what they 

 did object to was the omissions in the report. One of the 

 most satisfactory features of the report was the state of the 

 finances. It appeared that the society had now nearly 5,000 

 members, and something like £14,000 in the funds. £2,000 

 had been added to the society's property in the funds lately. 

 But how did the society get that £2,000 ? Why, the satis- 

 factory state of the finances was obtained, as other improve- 

 ments must be, by a sort of revolution, to the causes of which 

 he would not allude, but of which he would say that it re- 

 sulted in the placing on the Finance Committee of an entirely 

 new set of gentlemen, who, not being bound down by any 

 traditions, went vigorously to work to carry out the object of 

 the society. He repeated that it was to similar changes that 

 they must look for further improvesneats in the society. So 

 long as year after year the same gentlemen were members of 

 the Council, sorae of them being gentlemen of very advanced 

 age indeed, gentlemen who were, no doubt, very energetic in 

 their younger days, but who had now experienced the natural 

 effects of time ; eo long, he said, as that was the case, they 

 must e^ther not look for improvement, or expect to fiud all 

 attempts at improvement resisted to the last. This led him to a 

 point on which there had been very great andgeneral complaint ; 

 he alluded to the tardiness with which the members as a body 

 received any account of those proceedings of the society which 

 were surrounded with the greatest amount of interest. He 

 would give one striking instance. The other day, when the 

 whole agricultural community was in a state of great anxiety 

 with regard to the rot ia sheep. Professor Simonds gave in 

 that building to a small party of twenty or thirty gentlemen 

 a lecture of the greatest importance on that subject. It was 

 only, as it were, by an exception, by a departure from the ordi- 

 nary rule of the Council, that that lecture found its way into 

 the public prints ; and he should be borne out by other gen- 

 tlemen preeent when he said that it was with the greatest 

 difficulty that they were able to obtain a resolution authoris- 

 ing the immediate publication of that lecture. In the first in- 

 stance the Chairman of the Meeting paid no attention 

 to the wish of those who proposed that it should be 

 published at once ; but through the firmness of one of the 

 members of the Council, who placed the matter in writing, 

 a resolution was passed to the effect tha"; that important lec- 

 ture should be published. But there were means of obstruct- 

 ing what co\ild not be refused. The resolution was, as he 

 had intimated, carried ; but up to that day the lecture had 

 not been published by the Society, and to all appearances the 

 anxieties of sheep-farmers would be resolved either by the loss 

 of their sheep or by their recovery before that lecture had 

 found its way to the light. But extraordinary as was that 

 delay, there was the same tardiness in the publication of the 

 reports. He could not say for what reason there was that 

 tardiness, but he was quite sure it did not arise from a wish 

 to do harm to the society. Perhaps the principal reason was 

 the prejudice which some gentlemen entertained against pub- 

 lication, to which he might add a want of businesslike habits 

 on the part of those who had the management of the printing 

 department. In this view he was borne out by the fact that 

 on a very recent occasion on which a lecture was delivered, 

 Mr. Thompson, the Chairman of the Journal Committee, 

 entered a protest against the publication of Professor 

 Simonds's lecture being drawn into a precedent, that gentle- 

 man being desirous of retaining the lectures for insertion ia 

 the Journil. If Mr. Thompson's principle were right, the 

 committee might cease to give themselves the trouble of having 

 the lectures reported at all ; for if they were only to be printed 

 in the Journal of the Society, it was only a very small circle of 

 agriculturists who would read them. But he submitted that 

 it was not consistent with the intention of the founders of that 

 Society that valuable papers should be cuddled up on shelves 

 in the printing department of that establishment, instead of 

 being diffused to the world, (Cheers.) That society was 

 established and supported in order that it might promote 

 agricultural progress and improvement; and he was sure that 

 the more it promoted that, the more it would flourish, and that 

 the extensive publication of valuable papers emanating from it 

 would prove infinitely more advantageous than any benefit 

 which was likely to be derived from the sale of the Journal. 

 The Journal would always be valuable as a permanent record, 

 and its circulation would not be in the slightest degree dimi- 



