Report to the General Mecfinr/, May 23, 1853. xi 



Members distributed throughout the kingdom. Tiie two classes 

 of direct investigations instituted by the Society — 1, for the 

 purpose of discovering new modes and conditions of chemical 

 action in reference to animal, vegetable, and mineral matter ; 

 and 2, for obtaining a more exact acquaintance with the origin, 

 nature, and treatment of diseases prevalent from time to time 

 among the live stock of farmers — have been pursued with vigour 

 by the professors of the Society, and have already led to im- 

 portant results in the one case, and to much valuable experience 

 in the other. Proofressive knowledg-e in ao-riculture is like that 

 in every other art dependent on science for its advancement : as its 

 sphere of operation becomes more extended, and its indications 

 more accurately defined, it opens wider views of the application 

 of those new principles, which are founded on incontrovertible 

 facts, and have been deduced by the aid of science. As instances, 

 however, are constantly occurring of hasty generalisations and 

 illogical deductions, made in the application of science to agri- 

 cultural data, and of the very different laws assigned, even by 

 distinguished writers, to explain the production of the same 

 phenomena, the Council recommend to the Members of the 

 Society a strict adherence to that inductive process attendant on 

 the comparison and discussion of actual facts, which regards 

 abstract science as only the referee to be consulted, or the prime 

 mover, whose subtle agency, like that of steam or electricity, is 

 only available for practical objects, when its power is coerced, 

 and its action restrained within required limits. The invaluable 

 results which have aheady been obtained by such union of 

 practice with science, lead the Council to the well-grounded 

 expectation that still greater success will attend the future opera- 

 tion of that combined influence in promoting the cause of a 

 sound and rational agricultural economy. The ensuing number 

 of the Society's Journal, now in the press, will contain the 

 following, among other communications : — 1. Professor Way's 

 Lectures before the Society, on his discovery of a natural source, 

 in great abundance, of soluble silica, adapted for the preparation 



