iZi 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



(Signed) A. N. HOOD, Chairman of Finance Committee. 

 T. W. BRAMSTON. 

 WILLIAM PiSHER HOBBS. 

 QUILTER, BALL, JAY, & Co., Accountant?. 



Examined, audited, and found correct, tliis 17tli day of 

 Alav, 1861. (Signed) WILLIAM ASTBURY. 



HENRY CORBET. 

 WILLIAM COHEN. 



balance sheet, slst december, 1860. 

 Liabilities. 

 To Capital :— £ a. 6. £ a. d. 



Surplus, June 30, I860 ». 16,660 13 7 



I.css surplus of expenditure over 

 income during the lialf-year, 

 viz. : — 

 Expenditure.... £4,3 14 10 10 



Income ^,697 15 5 



. » 1,616 15 5 



— 15,043 18 2 



To Canterbury Meeting ; — 

 Account outstanding ^om»,.o.,t,,, S2 11 



£15,076 9 2 



Assets. £ s. d. 



By cash in hand ,., , 1,278 12 6 



By New Three per Cent. Stock £12,000, cost .... 11,796 14 7 



By booljs and furniture. Society's house, Han- ) j, .„. v . 



over-square ,,.....„ ., ) -,vvi) o o 



By Leeds meeting -.,, 12 1 



£15,076 9 2 

 [Mem. — The above assets are exclusive of the amount recover 

 able in respect of subscriptions in arrear on tlie 31st of Decem- 

 ber, I860, which at Hut date amounted to £1.261.] 



The Chairman having proposed the adoption of thia 

 statement, 



Mr. Neville Grenville said ha wished before that 

 motion was put to congratulate the meeting on the very large 

 Bum which the Society had in the Funds, and to express a 

 hope that the Couacil would devise some means of spending 

 a portion of it advantageously. (Hear, hear). He was quite 

 sure that that Society need not feel itself called upon to leave 

 a large amount of money to posterity ; and he should be very 

 glad to see some of the money invested spent in the advance- 

 ment of the art with which they were all associated. (Hear, 

 hear). With great deference he would direct the attention of 

 the Finance Committee to one item of expenditure. The 

 prize of which they had just heard, of £100 for a stallion, 

 showed that the inferior show of horses at Canterbury had 

 produced its due effect on the Council, and that they wished 

 to improve the breed of horses to the greatest extent in their 

 power by offering a handsome premium for the best male 

 animal. He wished, however, to observe that he had heard it 

 stated that one reason why the show of horses at Canterbury 

 was not such as it ought to have been was, that the accommo- 

 dation for them was bo inferior that the owners of the 

 most valuable animals would not send them. He would sug- 

 gest that some portion of the large fund which was accu- 

 mulated should be applied in providing better accommodation 

 for valuable horses (Hear, hear). 



Mr. Freebody complained that the prizes or rewards 

 given by the Council for essays on agriculture were not suffi- 

 ciently liberal, and thought that some portion of the £2,000 

 recently invested should be applied in increasing them. Fif- 

 teen or sixteen years ago, he himself forwarded to the Council 

 an eaaay on which he had bestowed great labour, upon the re- 

 clamation of land from the sea on the Lincolnshire coast ; but, 

 to his great surprise, it was returned to hira, without any re- 

 ward for his labour. Mental as well as physical exertion re- 

 quired some reward ; and he thought the purse-strings of the 

 Society should be opened more liberally than they had been 

 for works pertaining to the advancement of agriculture. 



Mr. FisiiER HoBBS trusted that he should not be out of 

 order, if he endeavoured to set Mr. Grenville right in regard 

 to the financial position of the Society. That gentleman ap- 

 peared to imagine that the finances were in a very flourishing 

 state. He (Mr. Hobbs) wished to observe, ia order that there 

 might not be any misapprehension on the part of the public, 

 that the fund mentioned did not represent the surplus income 

 of the Society (Hear). Under the rules, the Council were 

 obliged to keep a certain amount invested, to represent the in- 

 terest of life-governors and life-members. There were 84 life- 

 goveruora who had paid ^50 each, and 1,113 who had p«(^ 



£13 each ; and by one of the bye-laws it was declared that 

 the compositions for life-membership or life-goveiuorship 

 should not be applicable to defray the current expenses of the 

 Society. The £14,000, therefore, which was invested did not 

 really belong to the Society, in the sense of being applicable 

 for current expenses, but was intended to be kept in hand, to 

 represent the interest of the life-governors and life-members. 

 They had a balance of £14,219 23. 9d. j but he believed that, 

 according to strict calculation, the amount ought to be 

 £15,330. Therefore, instead of admitting that that was a 

 wealthy eo:iety, which had funds at command, to spend as it 

 pleased, he must call upon those present to aid the Council in 

 carrying out the object in view, by an increase ia the number 

 of members ; and he trusted that one result of the Prince 

 Consort's being the Presidect next year would be that, instead 

 of 4,600 members, they would soon have 10,000 (cheers). The 

 Society bad doue a great deal of good already ; but, as a work- 

 ing member of the Council, he would declare that, if they 

 could double their subscriptions, they would treble, and more 

 than treble, their usefulness (cheers). 



Mr. Orlebar said, having attended many of the meetings 

 of the Society, and having frequently heard both farmers and 

 landowners express their opinions with regard to it, he must 

 say that there appeared to be a general impression that, con- 

 sidering the number of members and the amount of funds, the 

 Society was not doing as much good as it ought to do (Hear, 

 hear). Seeing that the meeting next year was to be held 

 in London under circumstances which would probably lead 

 agriculturists from all parts of tbe world to flock to England, 

 he trusted that the Council would consider well whether 

 the present was not a proper time for effecting some improve- 

 ments. To him, he must say, it appeared very strange that 

 reporters should still be excluded from the weekly meetings 

 of the Society. Why were they excluded ? The reason given 

 by Mr. Sidney was, that the papers read would otherwise be 

 published a little sooner than they appeared in the Society's 

 Journal, There would, be thought, be little harm in that, and 

 a great deal of good. People would take much greater in- 

 terest in the Society's proceedings if reporters were allowed 

 to attend. The members were verj' much obliged to the 

 Council for what they had done ; but many of them thought 

 that a great improvement might be effected by an alteration 

 in some of the rules and bye laws. 



Mr. S. Sidney said he should not have intruded himself 

 on the meetiug a second time but for the observations of Mr. 

 Fisher Hobbs with regard to the fund invested. Tiiat gentle- 

 man said that, under the bye-laws, the Council were bound to 

 maintain that fund intact, on account of the interest of the 

 life-governors and life-members. No doubt it had been dis- 

 covered by many that the composition for life-membership 

 was a cheap arrangement for the person who effected it (Hear, 

 hear). What the Council had to do in this matter was, he 

 conceived, to take care that the Journal of the Society was 

 delivered to life-members : that wss all such per.'ous could 

 fairly require. What was the precise value of the Journal he 

 would not preteud to say. He knew it could be bought very 

 cheap secondhand — (laughter) — like a great many other use- 

 ful books (Hear, hear) ; but he would suggest that the Coun- 

 cil should take into their serious consideration whether it 

 were not desirable that the bye-law to which Mr. Hobbs 

 alluded should be altered. Somehow or other life composi- 

 tions had of late years increased and ordinary subscriptions 

 diminished. He could really see no reason why the fund in- 

 vested should not be reduced one-half, provided half of it 

 could be expended usefully for the Society (Hear, hear). The 

 origin of tbe bye-law probably was, that Lord Spencer feared 

 that without such a regulation the Society might break down 

 (Hear, hear). There was no danger of that at present (Hear, 

 hear) ; the Society was firmly established, and it was not 

 likely to go down if the Council performed their duty. 



Mr. Moore (Wilts.) maintained that papers read should 

 go to the public journals at once ; and instanced the case of 

 Professor Siraouds' lecture, the early appearance of which had 

 led to much profitable talk at the market dinners and other 

 meetings in his own county, 



Mr. Baker, from Anstralia, said he had been for some 

 years a life-member of that society, and he happened also to 

 be the president of the South Australian Agricultural Society. 

 In the latter capacity he bad often deeply regretted that tbe 

 proeeediDgs of that Bociety were not more extensively pub- 



