510 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 



looking for information and advice. In alluding to the subsidence or 

 diminution of the plague in Holland, Belgium, and France, the lion, 

 baronet Avho had just sat down observed that he believed it was 

 through the exercise of despotic authority in these countries, and 

 especially in France, that the authorities had been enabled to grapple 

 vnth this gigantic evil, and to deal wdth it more eliectually than had 

 been done in this country. No doubt difficulties of an unparalleled 

 nature had presented themselves, and allowance must therefore be 

 made for the authorities ; but the conclusion to which he had come 

 was, that there ought to be an Agricultm-al Board in the Government, 

 to which the country might look. In the meantime, what was there 

 to prevent the Royal Agricultural Society of England from occupying 

 that j)osition? They had large means at their disposal, and what 

 availed those means if at such a crisis as this they were not employed 

 in collecting all the information that could be obtained on the matter ? 



The Secretary (Mr. Hall Dare) begged to state that the Council of 

 the Society had for months been in communication with the Govern- 

 ment. In December last, a deputation from them waited upon the 

 Government, and laid before them a set of resolutions, to which they 

 had agreed ; and again in February a deputation visited Downing- 

 street with another set of resolutions. These resolutions had had the 

 effect of inducing the Government to alter their Bill, to meet the views 

 of the Council of the E-oyal Agricultiiral Society. 



Mr. HuTTOx, of Gainsborough, said : As he followed Lord Cathcart 

 through his interesting lecture, it struck him as a melancholy reflection 

 that, with all the labour, research, and industry which his lordship 

 had bestowed upon the question, he was able to give them no kind of 

 hope of being placed in a better position. To him, who lived in a 

 district in which the plague was raging, in his own herd, and in those 

 of his friends and neighbours and tenants, this ai^iJcared a melan- 

 choly state of things. He did not wonder that it had had a 

 depressing influence upon people living in the country. As to the 

 stamping-out of the plague, he believed that to be altogether out of 

 the question ; it had broken out in so many places notwithstanding 

 all that had been done. The justices had been most active and ener- 

 getic in carrying out the law, the farmers themselves had given every 

 possible assistance, and yet the disease had increased in his neighbour- 

 hood in a fearful manner. He confessed that he could not see what 

 was to be the end of it. He hoped that some few might be cured, and 

 probably some few would be cured, but it was certain that no specific 

 had yet been discovered. In his neighbourhood, and indeed in Lin- 

 colnshire generally, the large farmers, of whom there were a great 

 number, had in many cases suffered infinitely more than the cottagers. 

 He knew one case in which every head of cattle belonging to a farmer 

 was swept away by the disease, whilst the cows of the cottagers — and 

 several of them kept cows — had almost entirely escaped. These cot- 

 tagers' cows had been running about in the lanes and fields, while the 

 farmer's cows had been kept well fed and well housed. He was, 

 therefore, inclined to think that it was best to separate beasts, turn 

 them into the fields, and expose them to the weather rather than keej) 



