CHAPTER L. 



EXPERIMENTAL FARMS AND STATIONS. 



This subject has been frequently under the consideration 

 not only of the Directors and special committees, but also 

 of General Meetings of the Society. 



At the Anniversary General Meeting in January 1821, 

 Sir John Sinclair mentioned that he had for some time 

 been of opinion that the establishment of an experimental 

 farm in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, upon a proper 

 plan, and under skilful management, would be productive 

 of material advantages to agriculture, as affording a ready 

 and satisfactory means of ascertaining, by experiment, such 

 points connected with cultivation, upon which doubts were 

 known to exist, or might arise; and that he proposed, 

 by next General Meeting; to mature a plan for such an 

 establishment, which, he hoped, the Society might consider 

 as meriting its countenance and patronage. The proposed 

 plan does not appear to have come before the Society, 



In 1830 the Directors, and afterwards the committee 

 for reporting on communications, had the subject under con- 

 sideration. The impression of the Directors was that such 

 an establishment (which had frequently before been sug- 

 gested and considered inexpedient) would involve a large 

 expenditure and be a very inadvisable application of the 

 Society's funds, it being understood that similar establish- 

 ments by institutions elsewhere had led to no satisfactory 

 result. The report of that committee was to the effect that 

 the communication contained nothing new to recommend a 

 measure which had long been viewed as quite inexpedient. 



In 1835 the Duke of Gordon, then President of the 

 Society, sent a communication, transmitting copy of a 

 printed letter, addressed to the Society by Mr Lewis, an 

 eminent farmer in Fife. The Directors, after a very deli- 



