442 HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



unanimously approved of the Committee's report, and 

 ordered it to be printed in the Transactions for 1841. 



Field Experivients. 



The expediency of establishing agricultural experi- 

 ments has been frequently discussed by the Chemical 

 Committee, during the whole of its existence. The dis- 

 cussions, however, led to no definite course of action until 

 1865, when a special committee was appointed to consider 

 the subject. This committee reported in favour of such 

 experiments being made, under the auspices of the Society, 

 on a strictly identical plan, in several districts. They were 

 begun in 1866, and are fully described in the first and 

 second volumes of the present series of the Transactions. 

 They were not carried out under the immediate superin- 

 tendence of Dr Anderson, but by several eminent agricul- 

 turists, on their own farms, and were conducted with as 

 great care and precision as could be obtained under such 

 an arrangement. The experiments lasted over a rotation 

 of four years, and were instituted with the view of ascer- 

 taining what portion of the effects of the more common 

 artificial manures are expended on the crops to which they 

 are applied, and how much remains over for subsequent 

 crops. A series of peculiarly unfavourable seasons interfered 

 with the success of the experiments, and owing to Dr 

 Anderson's ill health and subsequent retirement, they were 

 not continued, so that the questions proposed were not 

 solved. 



Experimental Stations. 



Agreeably to a very generally-expressed desire, the 

 Society again, in 1877, took up the subject of experimental 

 agriculture, and has obtained a lease of two stations, one at 

 Harelaw, near Longniddry Station, East-Lothian, on the 

 Home Farm of the Earl of Wemyss ; the other at Pum- 

 pherston, near Drumshoreland Station, West-Lothian, on 

 the estate of Peter M'Lagan, Esq., M.P. At each of these 

 stations there are ten acres under cultivation, and a series 

 of experiments were begun with last year's season 



