396 TlMHERl. 



Quelch, in rendering the exhibition a marked success. 

 The steps taken by the Committee in increasing the priie 

 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 prospects may 

 arise for the Colony than those we at present can per- 

 ceive, and that those brighter prospects may be in part 

 due to an increased interest in agricultural matters on 

 the part of the members of this Society. 



