JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 

 OF ENGLAO. 



I. — The Royal Agricultural College of Cirencester. 



In the useful and masterly survey of the progress of agriculture, 

 in a late number of our Journal, written in continuation of 

 a similar review taken by the late Mr. Pusey at an earlier date, 

 Mr. Thompson observes : — " The commencement of the Society 

 took place during one of those recovering fits of associative 

 activity to which Englishmen are periodically prone." He then 

 explains that the Yorkshire Society was formed in 1837 ; the 

 Royal Agricultural Society in 1838 ; and the Royal Irish 

 Improvement in 1841. To these we venture to add the Royal 

 Agricultural College at Cirencester, organized in 1842, and 

 incorporated by charter in 1845. The Council of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society having recently appointed a committee to 

 consider and report on the actual state of agricultural education, 

 we propose to give a brief history of this Institution. 



Only the elder members of our Society who are familiar with 

 the state of the agriculture in England some thirty years ago, are 

 able thoroughly to appreciate the progress and the improvement 

 which have taken place in the interval. — We speak of the 

 general condition of the kingdom, without ignoring that there 

 existed at that day many skilful and successful cultivators of 

 the soil and breeders of stock — men in advance of their age. — 

 But others who bear in mind the success of the annual meetings 

 of our Society, which, visiting every district of the kingdom, 

 has exhibited to a class of men not generally given to migrate 

 far from home, the best stock of every description, with a 

 wonderful display of implements — demonstrations far more in- 

 fluential on the minds of farmers generally than any descriptions 

 in print — and who further duly estimate the worth of the inves- 

 tigations and experiments of our agricultural chemists, and other 

 scientific men recorded in the Society's Journal — will readily 

 concede that the signs of prcjgress are manifest, and that these 

 are in great measure attributable to the exertions and influence 

 of this Society. 



VOL. XXVI. B 



