The Fresident's Addicts at General Mectiiuj. 429 



list of subjects properly occupying tlic attention of this Society such 

 questions as the education of the agricultural classes, the best con- 

 struction of labourers' cottages, and many other kindred subjects. 

 Nothing can be farther from my intention. These subjects were set 

 forth in our charter, and naturally and properly occupy the attention 

 of the Society at the present moment ; but improvements of all kinds, 

 whether in education, or in farm buildings and cottages, require 

 ample means, and I repeat, therefore, that the first great object of the 

 formation of this Society was to increase as much as possible the 

 amount of wealth to be extracted from the soil, leaving the apportion- 

 ment of it between landlords, tenants, and labourers, to be settled 

 between man and man at fitting time and place. Nor is the sphere 

 of our operations thus defined either a narrow or an ignoble one. We 

 may well be content to devote our energies to the production of the 

 great staple products which must always form the main bulk of 

 the food of man, and to produce this food in greater quantity and of 

 better quality than heretofore is one of those highly gratifying results 

 which, whilst improving the position of the iigriculturist himself, adds 

 at the same time to the comfort and wellbeing of even the humblest 

 classes of his countrymen. 



Having thus limited myself at the outset, I will first advert to 

 that subject which has been one of absorbing interest during the 

 whole of the past year — I mean the cattle -plague. At this time last 

 year the Council of this Society were exerting themselves to bring 

 the collective weight of this and other leading agricultural societies 

 to bear in inducing the Government to adopt certain stringent regu- 

 lations for preventing the movement of cattle generally, and for 

 slaughtering promptly those attacked by the disease. The resolu- 

 tions unanimously adopted by the Council with this view were, as 

 nearly as may be, subsequently embodied in the " Cattle Diseases Pre- 

 vention Act ; " and, looking at the immediate check given to the cattle- 

 plague when that Act came into force, and its subsequent rapid and 

 continuous decline, few persons are now found to question the sound- 

 ness of the policy then pursued. The cattle-plague has now for a 

 considerable period been brought into such narrow compass that we 

 may reasonably hope soon to see it altogether extinguished ; and it 

 seems to me important that, whilst its disastrous effects are still fresh 

 in our memories, we should not allow our attention to be diverted 

 from the true character and results of this calamity imtil such regula- 

 tions be permanently adopted — be made, in fact, part of the law of 

 the land — as may give us all the security against its recurrence which 

 the nature of the case will admit of. The late attack of rinderjiest 

 may be said to have lasted little more than a year, for though the first 

 cases were observed at the end of June, 1865, it had not made any 

 great progress before August of that year, and by the end of August, 



