i 4 o A HISTORY OF 



a remarkable manner what care and discrimination 

 were evinced in carrying out its plans for the encourage- 

 ment of more scientific methods in agriculture. 



Arthur Young (Tour, i. 20) speaks of visiting 

 Baker's farm, and it is only right to say that he con- 

 sidered, with all Baker's exertions, he had not answered 

 the expectations formed about him. Young says that 

 he needed capital for getting the farm into order, and 

 that he ought not to have been employed in making 

 experiments. What the Society really wanted was a farm 

 cultivated as experience in England and elsewhere had 

 shown that it should be. As an example for Irish 

 farmers, the land should have been in a mountainous 

 tract, with some bog and tolerable soil. Arthur Young, 

 frequently mentioned in this chapter, was born at 

 Bradford in 1741, and is one of the highest autho- 

 rities on the social and agricultural condition of Ireland 

 in the latter part of the eighteenth century. He 

 managed Lord Kingsborough's estates in Cork for 

 some time, and the famous Tour in Ireland, published 

 in 1780, reviews the general condition of the country, 

 dealing with farming, wages, rent, public works, &c. 

 Young died in 1820. 



In the sister country of England, though agricul- 

 ture was not included in the original scheme of the 

 Society of Arts (founded in 1754), for some fifty 

 years from the year 1758, it occupied probably the 

 first place in the premium lists of that Society. In- 

 deed, that institution became the most important 

 agricultural society in the kingdom. 



On the 6th of March 1766, the Dublin Society con- 

 firmed the amendment of the by-laws, which had been 

 agreed to at a general meeting in November 1765. 

 They were 45 in number, and included provision for 

 the election of officers ; prescribed duties of presidents, 



