EVOLUTION OF THE A.O.S. 105 



Society which, at the outset, occupied two small rooms in a 

 block of offices situate in a side street in Westminster, and 

 had at first hardly enough funds with which — apart from the 

 voluntary efforts of an active committee — to pay rent, a 

 secretary, a typist, and the charwoman, and distribute 

 leaflets in addition, had started on no less formidable a task 

 than, not merely inducing British farmers to combine, but 

 practically reorganising their industry, with possibilities of 

 exciting the prejudices, or of arousing the opposition, of 

 powerful commercial interests concerned to the extent of 

 many millions in the allied industries on which agriculture 

 was more or less dependent. Yet the said Society, based on 

 sound principles, and increasing in strength as the years 

 went on, was to attain to such success that it represents 

 to-day a national movement which has not only already 

 achieved important results, but, with the process of recon- 

 stitution it has just undergone, should enter upon a fresh 

 and greatly expanded career of practical usefulness alike to 

 agriculture and to the country in general. 



The first secretary of the Society was Mr. A. T. Matthews, 

 who had acted as secretary to the National Agricultural 

 Union. Mr. J. Nugent Harris, the present secretary, began 

 his connection with the Society in July, 1901, when he was 

 appointed as dairy expert. Three months later, on Mr. 

 Matthews resigning his post as secretary, Mr. Harris suc- 

 ceeded him in that position. 



Early Days. 



At the outset there was naturally a great amount of spade 

 work to be done in preparing the foundations of a system of 

 agricultural organisation designed, at first, to cover not only 

 the whole of England and Wales, but Scotland as well ; 

 though, as will be told in detail in the section on " Devolu- 

 tion," the work of carrying on organisation in Scotland from 

 the London headquarters through a small staff, controlling 

 inadequate finances, was so arduous that the A. O. S. readily 

 joined in the setting up, in 1905, of a separate organisation 

 for Scotland. 



