18370 Transactions of the Agri-Horticultural Society of India. 333 



of their usefulness, which is certainly great, but in the hope that even 

 our feeble voice may be heard in a distant quarter, and prove not alto- 

 gether uninfluential in inducing the government of India* to place our 

 Society on a par, at least, with that of Bombay, the more so, as it has 

 difficulties and disadvantages of climate to encounter, scarcely to be 

 met with in any other part of India, and has, besides, so wide an extent 

 of country to influence by its example. But, while we thus humbly so- 

 licit the supreme government to assist the Society in carrying into ef- 

 fect the very meritorious works on which it is engaged, we address the 

 inhabitants, both European and Native, of the Madras presidency, with 

 more confidence, in the full assurance, that, whatever may be the decision 

 of the supreme government, they will prove themselves worthy of pos- 

 sessing an institution, fitted to diffuse among them much substantial 

 good, and to afford those who take a more immediate interest in its pro- 

 ceedings an inexhaustible fund of agreeable recreation. Let it there- 

 fore be the object, as it undoubtedly is the interest, of one and all, to 

 support it heart and hand, in such a manner, that those who willingly 

 and gratuitously put their hands to the work of managing its affairs, 

 may not have them paralysed for want of means to continue their laud- 

 able exertions. 



To the managers, and presidency members, we would say, recollect 

 the eyes of the whole country are upon you— your proceedings are nar- 

 rowly watched — and, unless you prove yourselves good stewards and 

 deserving the confidence reposed in you, it will soon be estranged : fur- 

 nish therefore your friends in the provinces with the means of coming 

 to a correct judgment on your stewardship, by holding regular meet- 

 ings, at fixed intervals (which are not to be departed from), for the for- 

 mal transaction of business, reports of which are to be duly published for 

 the information of distant members. Conduct the business of the So- 

 ciety thus regularly and methodically, and you will have little reason 

 to complain of the want either of confidence or support on the part of 

 the provinces. 



But we must now return to the point from which we set out, and from 

 which, in our anxiety to forward the cause of agricultural reform and 

 improvement, we have been insensibly led so long to digress — the con- 

 sideration of the Transactio?is of the Agricultural and Horticultural So~ 

 ciely of India, The volume before us is the third of the series. The 

 Society was constituted in 1820, and, early in 1829, published the first 

 volume. Seven years after, in 1836, the second volume issued from the 

 press, and in 1837 the third, equalling in its dimensions either of the 

 preceding two, and showing, in a very advantageous point of view, the 

 growing attention which is given to these pursuits, and the very decided 



