No. 9. 



Royal Agricultural Society. 



289 



miums of a pecuniary or an honorary na- 

 ture. 



The society, likewise, at some place in the 

 country, easily accessible, holds an annual 

 show or exhibition of animals, implements, 

 and agricultural products, upon the best of 

 which it awards premiums. This occupies, 

 generally, four days. Tuesday is exclusively 

 assigned to the several committees for the 

 inspection of subjects of premium, in the way 

 of implements and agricultural machinery, 

 when no persons whatever, excepting the 

 committees and persons necessarily attend- 

 ant upon them, are admitted to the yard, so 

 that they have a favorable opportunity of 

 quiet inspection, uninterrupted by any inte- 

 rested or curious parties ; Wednesday is de- 

 voted, in the same way, to the examination 

 of the animals, and afterwards the yards are 

 open to the public, upon payment of a rea- 

 sonable entrance fee ; and on Fridays a pub- 

 lic sale, at auction, is held of such animals, 

 or implements, as their owners are willing 

 to dispose of in this way. The collection of 

 people, on such occasions, from all parts of 

 the country, and, I may properly add, from 

 all parts of the world, is immense. Two 

 large public dinners are given on the occa- 

 sion ; the one called the council dinner, on 

 Wednesday, and the other, called the socie 

 ty's dinner, on Thursday, when provision is 

 made for fifteen hundred guests, in a pavil- 

 ion erected for the purpose. These dinners 

 are, in general, seasons of great hilarity, and 

 promotive of sympathy in the great cause of 

 agricultural improvement. If no other good 

 comes of them to agriculture, they serve at 

 least the purpose of consumption, and so 

 quicken price and demand. 



On these occasions the prizes are announ- 

 ced to the successful candidates; and these 

 premiums are given either in medals, plate, 

 or money, and are received with no small 

 degree of public and self-congratulation. 



The arrangements, in general, are made 

 with great care. The animals are assorted 

 in distinct classes, with separate committees 

 for the examination of each class; and the 

 implements are placed according to their 

 different designs and uses. It would be im- 

 possible to convey an accurate or adequate 

 impression of the number and variety of the 

 animals offered, in such cases, for exhibition 

 and premium. I have already given a list 

 and the number of agricultural implements 

 exhibited the last year at the Derby show; 

 but that conveys no idea of the ingenuity and 

 skill evinced in their construction. One is 

 led to conclude, from the inspection, that 

 there is no operation or function, connected 

 with human life and labor, for which me- 

 chanical labor does not attempt, and may not 



presently succeed in furnishing, an instru- 

 ment or machine. In many cases, a machine 

 is any thing but a facility ; and not a few of 

 the machines, both in their contrivance and 

 in the expensive and showy manner in which 

 they are got up, evince pretty strongly the 

 guage which the contrivers and makers have 

 taken of the understandings and pockets of 

 the probable purchasers. They are seldom 

 at a loss to put the pail under a full cow. 



In many respects the arrangements are 

 admirable, and well worthy of imitation.* 



* The terms on which the premiums for seed wheat 

 are to be awarded, are well worth the observation of 

 other agricultural societies, and I therefore subjoin 

 them. 



"SEED WHEAT. 



"I. Thirty Sovereigns, or a Piece of Plate of that 

 value, will be given to the Exhibiter, at the Meeting 

 at Derby, of the best 14 bushels of White Wheat, of the 

 harvest of 3842, and grown by himself. 



" II. Thirty Sovereigns, or a Piece of Plate of that 

 value, will be given to the Exhi biter, at the Meeting 

 at Derby, of the best 14 bushels of Red Wheat, of the 

 harvest of 1842, and grown by himself. 



"III. Twenty Sovereigns, or a Pieceof Plate of that 

 value, will be given to the Exhibiler, at the Meeting 

 atDerby, of the best 14 bushels of Spring Wheat, of the 

 harvest of 1842, and grown by himself. 



"Competitors are requested to send with their 

 Wheat, specimens, fairly taken, of the same in 

 ear, with the whole of the Straw, in a bundle 

 not less than one foot in diameter, and with the 

 roots attached. 

 " [12 bushels of the Wheat will be sealed up by the 

 Stewards, and one of the remaining bushels of 

 each variety will be exhibited as a sample to 

 the public; the other being kept for comparison 

 with the produce of the next year. At the Gen. 

 eral Meeting, in December, 1844, the prizes will 

 be awarded.] 

 " The two best samples of each of these three 

 classes of Wheat, without at that time distin- 

 guishing, in any of the cases, between the com- 

 parative nierilsof either sample, will be selected 

 by the Judges, appointed for the Meeting at Der- 

 by, and will be sown, under the direction of the 

 Society, (the Winter Wheats in the autumn of 

 1843, and the Spring Wheat not earlier than the 

 1st of March, 1844,) by four farmers, who will 

 make their report, upon which the prizes wSlI be 

 awarded, jirovided there be sufficient merit in 

 any of the samples. Ten Sovereigns will be 

 given at the Meeting at Derby, to each Exhibit- 

 er v\ hose Wheat has been selected for trial. 



" ♦^j* Mo variety of Wheat which has been selected 

 for trial at any previous show shall be qualified to 

 compete," 



The following are the instructions to the Judges on 

 other subjects: 



"As the object of the Society in giving the prizes for 

 neat cattle, sheep, and piga, is to promote improve- 



