24 EARLY SOCIETIES. 



the coast,' a like sum to be annually allowed to wrack or 

 cure-masters. 



Up to the year 1809 such sums as were applied to the 

 improvement of fisheries proceeded from the funds of the 

 Board of Trustees for Manufactures, &c., and were admin- 

 istered by that Board ; but in 1 809 the Fishery Board was 

 by Act of Parliament constituted a separate Board, and 

 put upon the votes of Parliament, by which it has been since 

 maintained. 



The provisions of the Act constituting the Fishery 

 Board imposed the condition that seven of the Fishery 

 Commissioners should be selected from members of the 

 Board of Trustees for Manufactures, but in all other respects 

 the two Boards were made and have remained essentially 

 separate Boards. They had indeed entirely separate offices 

 up to the year 1839 ; but upon the Fishery Board then 

 removing its office to the Royal Institution in Edinburgh, 

 a building built by, and the property of, the Board of Manu- 

 factures, the Treasury deemed it conducive to economy that 

 the work of the two Boards should be committed to one 

 Secretary and one set of Clerks — an arrangement which 

 was carried into effect accordingly, and has since continued. 

 The late Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart, was the first 

 Secretary appointed over the office establishment thus con- 

 solidated, and at his death in 1 848 he was succeeded by the 

 Honourable Bouverie Francis Primrose, C.B., the present 

 Secretary. 



The operations of the Society of Improvers extended 

 over at least twenty years. It owed much of its success to 

 the intelligence and activity of its Chronicler, Mr Maxwell 

 of Arkland. Maxwell was a member of the Nithsdale 

 Maxwells, the lands of Arkland, which lie in the parish of 

 Kirkcormock, in Kirkcudbrightshire, forming part of the 

 possessions of the Earls of Nithsdale, Lords Herries. 

 Arkland, according to Chambers' ' Domestic Annals,' took 

 a lease of the farm of CHftonhall, near Edinburgh, and 'was 

 there disposed to make experiments in improved husbandry.' 

 The preses of the Society, Thomas Hope of Rankeilor, who 

 must have been a remarkable man, has left his impress on 



