396 | TIMHERI. 
Quelch, in rendering the exhibition a marked success, 
The steps taken by the Committee in increasing the prize 
list and especially the giving of considerable numbers of 
prizes of comparatively low value, were highly appreci- 
ated by the class of cultivators the encouragement of 
whose love of horticultural and agricultural pursuits is 
the primary object of the holding of these shows, al- 
though, perhaps, that appreciation was not fully shared 
by certain of the judges whose duties required them to 
adjudicate on the merits of the articles exhibited. 
The Society has continued its efforts, but without much 
success, to develop the timber trade of the colony. There 
are many obstacles in the way of the desired development, 
among which, to my mind,one of the most important is the 
lack of knowledge among the woodcutters of the method 
to be adopted to insure the proper curing of the timber. 
I must express my deep regret and disappointment 
that the year of my office as President has proved such 
a depressing and disastrous one for the colony at large, 
and especially for the Sugar Industry, that it should have 
been one in which any hopes based upon the appoint- 
ment of the Royal West Indian Commissioners have been 
overshadowed by the dread shown by the majority of 
the Commissioners of their fetish—so called “free trade,” 
and that during it, the interest taken by the Agricultural 
and Commercial members of the Society has apparently 
shown signs of waning rather than of increasing. 
I trust that in the future far brighter prospeéts may 
arise for the Colony than those we at present can per- 
ceive, and that those brighter prospeéts may be in part 
due to an increased interest in agricultural matters on 
the part of the members of this Society. 
