AGRICULTURE 97 



The farmer concentrates on the output of the arable land over this area 

 as a whole. Very few cattle are fattened on grass in summer. There is 

 little dairying, and stock rearing is of minor importance, but a large number 

 of cattle, chiefly Irish, are fattened in the fold-yards in winter, in order to 

 supply manure for maintaining the humus content and the fertility of the 

 land. Little or no straw is sold ofi:" the farms. Large numbers of sheep, 

 principally cross Down hogs, are folded on the beet tops and swedes where 

 grown to consolidate the lighter land and to manure it, and pigs and 

 poultry find a place on most farms. 



XV. 



THE FIRST MEETING OF THE 

 BRITISH ASSOCIATION, YORK, 1831 



BY 



O. J. R. HOWARTH, Ph.D. 



When David Brewster, in 1831, made the first concrete proposal for the 

 foundation of a ' British Association of Men of Science,' and for calling 

 a meeting of the ' cultivators of science ' for that purpose, he addressed it 

 to John Phillips, the Secretary of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, on 

 the grounds that York was centrally situated for a general meeting such 

 as was contemplated, and that the society already established there was 

 flourishing and well managed. He himself, and others who, under his 

 inspiration, took active part in the foundation of the Association, lived and 

 worked in Edinburgh, but that was obviously not a geographical centre 

 from which to launch a British national scheme. Nor, for that matter, 

 was London ; moreover, it was desired to avoid the appearance of invad- 

 ing the ground occupied by the major learned societies whose headquarters 

 were in the capital. Therefore Brewster chose York, and he chose well. 

 The origin of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in 1821 is traced to 

 the scientific examination of the bones of various extinct animals which 

 were recovered from the floor of Kirkdale Cave, near Kirkby Moorside, 

 beneath the hills of the North Riding. A number of these specimens 

 came into the hands of James Atkinson (1759-1839), an eminent surgeon 

 of York, and certain fellow-citizens of his, who took action to ensure that 

 they should form the nucleus of a Yorkshire museum of natural history 

 and antiquities. The Yorkshire Philosophical Society was brought into 

 existence to maintain the museum, and received from the Crown a grant 

 of land in York which had been part of the site of a palace built by James I. 

 Here the museum still stands, adjacent to some of the famous Roman 

 fortifications of the city, and the beautiful ruins of the Abbey of St. Mary. 



