Annual General Meeting, i)ecemher 6, 1911. xxxvii 



to the Acting-President, tu the penuaneiit officers of the Society, to every one, 

 their thanks and congratulations on the way in which they had maintained the 

 prestige of the Royal Agricultural Society during the past year. The Acting- 

 Pi'esident had said that the Report might be taken as read, and he supposed 

 that wa-^ almost a necessity at such a meeting, but he hoped he might assure 

 him on behalf of every one that it would be read, and with the appreciation 

 with which he himself had read it. With regard to the increase of Members, 

 he cordially supported what had fallen from him in that direction. They bad 

 got to 10,000, but he hopeil they would not stop there, and would go on to 

 1.5,000. They must move by stages in the matter, and with a little exertion 

 they would easily increase their numbers. He congratulated the Council on 

 the way in which they had seen to the educational and scientific work of the 

 Society, which was equally important. They wanted to provide means of 

 bringing together a collection of fine stock and fine implements, and of the 

 various agricultural requisites, but they could only advance the science by 

 means of the educational and scientific activities such as the Society was 

 engaged in carrying on. There was no occasion for a long speech, but, speaking 

 from his heart, the Reports and Accounts were extraordinarily creditable to the 

 Council and Officers of the Society. He was especially glad that in a year 

 when they had been honoured by the Presidency of His Majesty King George V. 

 they should have so good an account to give of themselves. He had great 

 pleasure in moving the adoption of the Report. 



Mr. Llewellyn T. E. Llewellyn had great pleasure in seconding, and 

 the Report and Accounts were unanimously adoj)ted. 



Election of President. 



The Chairman said that, in accordance with the By-laws, the Council 

 recommended that Lord Middleton should be elected as President for the 

 ensuing year. Lord Middleton had been their President once before, and had 

 consented, if the meeting agreed, to become President at Doncaster next year. 



Mr. Henry Walter Gilbey. as an Ordinary Member of the Society, took 

 it as the highest compliment that could be paid to him to be allowed to propose 

 " That Lord Middleton be elected President of the Society, to hold office until 

 the next ensuing Annual General Meeting." He considered that it would be 

 not only impertinent but superfluous to attempt to tell the, agriculturists in 

 that room all the qualifications Lord Middleton had to hold that important 

 office. His Lordship, as the Acting-President had stated, had already been 

 President of the Society on one previous occasion, and it was at a time when 

 the Royal Society was not in the flourishing condition they now knew it to be 

 in. He was sure there was not an agi'iculturist in the room who would not 

 heartily approve of the resolution that he had been requested to put before 

 them, that his Lordship should be asked to take that office. Lord Middleton, 

 as they were all aware, was one of the most important landlords in the king- 

 dom, and a nobleman respected by every one who knew him. (Hear, hear.) 

 His keenness in agriculture generally was well known, and in his attendance 

 at the meetings of the horse societies or in connection with agriculture he was 

 more frequent, or as frequent, as any member of those societies. He was sure 

 it was a debt that all agriculturists owed to his Lordship for the past services 

 he had rendered to them, and they would ask him with pleasure to accept the 

 office of President for the ensuing year at Doncaster. 



Major P. G. Craigie, C.B., as an old Member of the Society, had very 

 much pleasure in seconding the motion that had been put before them. He 

 did not think there would be in that room, nor among their 10,000 Members, 

 a dissentient voice to the choice of the Council, which was one which they 

 most heartily ratified and approved. Lord Middleton was known to every one 

 of them as a breeder of the greatest eminence of various varieties of stock. He 

 would be a typical President, and in a typical county like Yorkshire they could 



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