FIRST SHOW AT ABERDEEN, 1 834. 221 



alterations in the rules and regulations of the Society, and 

 a variation or extension in their designation or title, had 

 been specially approved of at and by a General Meeting of 

 the Society held at Edinburgh on 12th May 1834.' The 

 charter, which is dated 18th June 1834, recites that ' His 

 Majesty being satisfied that the design of the petitioners, is 

 laudable, and that the patriotic purposes of the said Society 

 eminently deserve encouragement,' ' hereby of new consti- 

 tutes, erects, and incorporates the said petitioners, and the 

 w^hole other persons who now are members of the said 

 Society, and such persons as shall hereafter be admitted mem- 

 bers thereof, agreeably to the rules of the said Society, into 

 one body politic and corporate, or legal incorporation for 

 ever, by the name and style of The Highland and 

 Agricultural Society of Scotland, which is in 

 future to be the name of the said Society, instead of ' The 

 Highland Society of Scotland at Edinburgh,' which they at 

 present use, and as such, and by such name and title hereby 

 granted, to have perpetual endurance and succession.' 



The Charter embodies some changes in direction and 

 management ; but its great feature is the extension of 

 name, in correspondence with the development of the 

 Society's operations. Originally designed, as its title 

 implied, for the benefit of the Highlands, it had, almost 

 without the observation of those in the direction, very early 

 taken a much wider range ; and as noted in the petition on 

 which the Charter proceeds, and as the foregoing pages 

 amply illustrate, the Society, while directing its efforts 

 more closely to the improvement of agriculture and rural 

 economy, had at the same time become most truly national 

 in its aims and operations. The Charter of 1834, therefore, 

 in effecting the change of designation, did not thereby 

 inaugurate a new state of things, but merely recognised and 

 registered the extended sphere and more defined objects to 

 which the Society had for years been so effectively devoting 

 its attention. 



The same year in which the new charter was granted, 

 the Society crossed the Dee and held its first show at 



