Ixxxviii 



Report to the General Meeting. 



principles to incontrovertible and well-observed facts ; and that 

 such facts are elicited in the discussions of Farmers themselves^ 

 and are those to which scientific principles can be most usefully 

 applied^ they being peculiarly valuable from the genuine character 

 of their observation by practical men. The Council are fully 

 sensible that the value of the Society will mainly, if not alto- 

 gether, depend on the practical bearings of its labours, " in 

 bringing home to men's business and bosoms " those principles of 

 science which are intended to advance them in their knovv^ledge 

 of improved modes of cultivation and husbandry ; and that their 

 Journal, as the great vehicle of dissemination among their 

 Members of recommendations and suggestions on agricultural 

 subjects, can only be maintained in its career of usefulness, and 

 preserved from becoming the mere organ of a discussion of opi- 

 nions and statement of theories, by being supplied with the 

 rich store of absolute facts, well observed, carefully noted in all 

 their circumstances, and important in their bearing and prac- 

 tical application. 



The Council have to report the cordial co-operation not only 

 of many of the Farmers' Clubs and Local Agricultural Asso- 

 ciations established in various parts of the kingdom, but of a 

 direct communication having been established with the Central 

 Board of Agriculture of Nova Scotia, the Western Australian 

 Agricultural Society, and other similar colonial establishments in 

 other parts of the empire ; all of which are becoming daily more 

 sensible of the mutual importance resulting from a more intimate 

 and direct alliance with the farmers of the United Kingdom. In 

 foreign countries the value of this interchange of opinion on the 

 science and practice of agriculture is becoming more fully esti- 

 mated ; and your President is preparing to lay before the Society, 

 in the pages of the Journal, his personal report of the great 

 meeting of German agriculturists held last autumn at Doberan, 

 and which he attended as your representative- and the Hon. 

 Andrew Stevenson, the first elected of your Honorary Members, 

 has returned, from his diplomatic engagements in this country, to 

 America, with the ardent desire of devoting his attention to the 



