296 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



It is composed of nearly three thousand members, who 

 pay an annual subscription of 25s. each, or a life-payment 

 may be made, varying from 8 to 12, according to cir- 

 cumstances. The present President is the Duke of Kox- 

 burghe ; the Dukes of Buccleuch, Sutherland, Hamilton, 

 Montrose, &c., have successively filled that office. The 

 Vice-Presidents are Lord Aberdeen, Lord Breadalbane, 

 Lord Dalhousie, Lord Douglas, &c. A number of prizes, 

 distributed into classes, are annually given by the Society, 

 for the practice of agriculture and special crops, woods 

 and plantations, improvement of waste lands, agricultu- 

 ral machinery, all kinds of live stock, dairy produce, and 

 cottages and gardens. These competitions, which always 

 conclude with a dinner, where a small farmer may seat 

 himself beside the greatest aristocrat, are at least as 

 famous as those of its English rival. The Society has an 

 agricultural museum at Edinburgh, where may be seen 

 models of all the implements used in Europe, samples of 

 all kinds of cultivated grain, and reduced models of the 

 animals which have obtained prizes since the beginning 

 of the competitions. Mr Peter Lawson, seedsman to the 

 Society, has the finest establishment of the kind existing. 

 The unique collection of seeds which he contributed to the 

 Great Exhibition of 1851 was universally admired. 



Special newspapers, cheap pamphlets, local meetings, 

 subscription lectures, diffuse, as in England, all kinds of 

 information on the subject of husbandry ; and as a testi- 

 mony to the scientific interest attached to these studies, 

 there has been for many years past a chair of agriculture 

 in the justly-esteemed University of Edinburgh, which 

 is at present (1853) occupied by the celebrated David 

 Low. 



But all these encouragements, however powerful, do 



