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out this subject, I should be most ungrateful not to acknowledge 

 the generous support and encouragement given me from the first 

 by the Press, throughout my own and foreign countries, as also 

 by several kind friends, and by none more than the late Mr. 

 Merrifield, when such support and encouragement were especially 

 welcome ; but I shared, what is, I suppose, the fate of all pioneers, 

 meeting generally with obstinate prejudice and opposition for 

 many years, and that, too, from those who should have been the 

 very first to give me their countenance. However, I went 

 steadily on upon the magna est Veritas principle, and I am happy 

 to say this has pretty well all died away, and I now reap a 

 suificient reward in finding my system officially adopted by the 

 Governments of other countries and by agriculturists generally, 

 abroad as well as at home. I thank you for having so patiently 

 listened to a paper which has grown under my hands much longer, 

 and, I fear, more tedious, than I had at the outset intended it to 

 be. 



The President, Mr. G. D. Sawyer, on behalf of the 

 meeting, heartily thanked Major Hallett for his paper, one of 

 the best with which the Society had been favoured for a long 

 period. — A long and interesting conversation followed. 



The President opened it with a few remarks expressive 

 of the results of his observation of wheat producing, which led 

 Major Hallett to state that Jethero TuU said that 90 per cent, of 

 a square yard of very thickly sown wheat would be missing at 

 harvest, and to point out that the development on the stems 

 ceased as soon as the roots became impeded by crowding — as 

 soon as, in Darwinian phraseology, there was a struggle for 

 existence. 



In reply to Dr. Corfe, the Major remarked that in all his 

 experiments he had employed no manure, his object being to 

 ascertain, so far as he could, the relative value of each grain, an 

 object whose attainment would be defeated if any substance was 

 used which might tend to the superiority of one growth over 

 another, by an unequal distribution of that substance. — ^Mr. C. F. 



