440 HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The Duke of Buccleuch was opposed to the measure 

 being attempted by the Society, for the reasons assigned in 

 the report adopted in 1835. Proprietors should undertake 

 such experiments as may be too expensive for tenants. 

 Lord Tweeddale observed, with reference to what was said 

 by ]\Ir Nairne, of proprietors carrying the premiums at 

 general shows, they, no doubt, did so in the first instance, 

 for males and females of superior breeds, brought into the 

 country at great expense ; but the tenants generally carried 

 the other premiums ; and, getting the produce of the 

 breeding thus introduced, they in a few years beat the 

 landlords in these also. 



The feeling of the meeting being decidedly against an 

 experimental farm being attempted by the Society, Mr 

 Nairne, by leave, withdrew his motion. 



In 1840 the Wester Ross Farming Society presented 

 a petition praying that the Highland Societ}- would estab- 

 lish an experimental farm. The application was referred 

 to a committee, and in their report it is stated that, in 

 considering the petition, the committee did not allow their 

 minds to be influenced by the fact of similar applications 

 having been, on former occasions, deliberately weighed and 

 rejected. They considered the question on its own merits. 

 After stating their reasons for thinking that a model farm, 

 in the proper sense of the term, would be attended with no 

 great practical benefit to agriculturists, and would, if con- 

 ducted or superintended by the Directors, be attended 

 with great difficulties and ruinous expense, the committee 

 remark that ' much more advantage results from the 

 examples which abound in all parts of the country of well- 

 conducted farms, in the hands of intelligent individuals ; 

 for the operations on such farms are far more likely to be 

 the subject of imitation than tho.se of one farm situated in 

 a favoured district, and conducted by a public body who 

 would be supposed to manage it without much economy of 

 means.' With regard to an experimental farm, it appeared 

 to the committee ' that, though advantages might result 

 from it by the performance of experiments on a great scale, 

 which individuals have not the means to execute, there is 



