176 THE ROYAL DUBLIN SOCIETY. 



Various premiums were offered for Manufactures, including the manu- 

 facture of broad-cloths, wool combs, stocking frames, felt hats, pearl barley, 

 tanning, knitting, and the production of saltpetre and smalt. One of these 

 premiums, that would not commend itself to modern ideas, was for the 

 person who should employ the greatest number of children not exceeding 

 1 3 years of age. The premiums for the encouragement of fisheries amounted 

 to i^i50, and were offered for the promotion of new fisheries, and for the 

 largest takes of fish. A sum of ;^ioo was also offered for the discovery of 

 black lead mines, beds of fireclay, and for the production of fuller's earth, 

 whilst a premium of £^0 was offered to the author who should produce the 

 best Natural History of any county, and ;^22 15^-. to the author of the best 

 " Farmer's Monthly Kalendar." 



Meanwhile the Society had acquired a local habitation. The first meet- 

 ings were held in the rooms of the Philosophical Society in Trinity College, 

 and then, for a time, it met in one of the Committee rooms of the Parliament 

 House. On account of its development the Society acquired premises of 

 its own in 1756, in Shaw's-court (now the site of the Commercial Buildings). 

 In 1768 the Society moved to more commodious premises, at No. 114, 

 Grafton-street. In their turn these premises were found to afford insuffi- 

 cient accommodation, and the Society erected a large building in Hawkins- 

 street and Poolbeg-street. This house, which subsequently became the 

 old Theatre Royal, was not long occupied, and in 181 5 the Society pur- 

 chased the city residence of the Duke of Leinster, in Kildare-street, and 

 since that date Leinster House has been the Society's headquarters. In 

 1732 a field at Ballybough Bridge was taken by the Society for " a nursery 

 for raising several sorts of trees, plants, and roots which do not at present 

 grow in this kingdom, but are imported from abroad, and when raised in 

 such nursery may be dispersed, to be propagated in the country." This was 

 the first step in the estabHshment of the Royal Botanic Gardens. In 1736 

 four acres of land near St. Martin's-lane, Marlborough-street, were taken, 

 and in 1795 the Society secured the site now occupied by the gardens at 

 Glasnevin. 



From the very beginning books were purchased, and some, such as Jethro 

 Tull's Treatise on Husbandry, were printed and distributed at the expense 

 of the young Society. Models and specimens began to accumulate, and 

 with the permission of the Lords Justices, they were deposited for public 

 inspection in a vault of the Parliament House. Such was the beginning of 

 the Library and Museum. A catalogue of the Library about the year 1740 

 which is extant includes eighteen folio volumes, eleven quartos, and seven 

 octavos, published between the dates 161 8 and 1736. 



Arthur Young, in his Tour in Ireland, published in 1780, was already 

 able to extol the Society's work : — " Great honour," he writes, " is due to 

 Ireland for having given birth to the Dublin Society, which has the undis- 

 puted merit of being the father of all the similar societies now existing in 

 Europe. . . . For some years it was supported only by the voluntary sub- 

 scriptions of the members, forming a fund much under ;^ 1,000 a year; yet 

 was there such a liberality of sentiment in their conduct, and so pure a love 

 of the public interest apparent in all their transactions, as enabled them, 

 with that small fund, to effect much greater things than they have done in 

 later times, since Parliament has granted them regularly ^^ 10,000 a session." 



Early in the nineteenth century a number of inspectors were appointed to 

 make statistical surveys of the different counties, and twenty-one volumes of 



