TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION M.—PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 709 
Section M.—AGRICULTURE. 
PRESIDENT OF THE SEcTION.—T. H. Mippueton, M.A. 
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5. 
The President delivered the following Address :— 
Larly Associations for Promoting Agriculture and Improving the 
Improver. 
Tue honour which has been done me.by the Council of the British Association 
in electing me to be President of the new Section, ‘ Agriculture,’ carries with it as 
its first privilege the opportunity of congratulating those officers of the Sub- 
sections who have been the means of securing for agriculture the place which its 
students have long coveted in the meetings of our great Association for the 
Advancement of Science. Sir Horace Plunkett, than whom no one has shown a 
better appreciation of the advantages of association for the improvement of agri- 
culture, made his Address as Chairman of the Sub-section a special plea for the 
recognition of this subject; and a subsequent Chairman, Major Craivgie, used, 1 
have been led to understand, all those arts of peaceful persuasion of which he is a 
master, in order to secure the formation of this Section. Other officers of the 
Sub-sections, too, have worked hard for this result, and to them those of us who 
are now assembled to take part in the first meeting of the new Section owe a debt 
of gratitude. 
In view of the subjects which, in recent years, have engaged the attention of 
the Agricultural Sub-sections, it was suggested to me that for the Dundee meet- 
ing a paper dealing with some agricultural question of the past would be appro- 
priate. As from my personal point of view this would have the advantage 
of causing me to renew acquaintance with treasured, but latterly somewhat 
neglected, old volumes which fill my study shelves, I readily accepted the sug- 
gestion. A subject from the past has for me the additional attraction that it 
relieves me altogether from a discussion of questions related to my daily work. 
A President of a Section is, indeed, expected to speak about his own work; but 
mine belongs to that category which many people seem anxious to learn about 
before it has been made public, and in which nobody is particularly interested 
after, in buff, or blue, or white garb, it has been issued by His Majesty’s 
Stationery Office, and is purchasable at the modest figure which represents the 
cost of paper and printing. 
With the view, then, of informing ourselves of certain phases of agricultural 
progress in the past, and at the same time gaining some inspiration for the future, 
I propose to invite your attention to the prototypes of Section M. When did the 
first associations for improving agriculture appear? What were the circum- 
stances which led to their formation? What were their aims? What did they 
