vi 
Report to the General Meeting. 
property of the Society is now 18,112/. 75. %d. New Three per 
Cents., and the balance in the hands of the bankers on the 
1st instant was 699Z. 17^. ?>cl. 
The Taunton Meeting was characteristic of the year 1875, 
which will endure in the remembrance of farmers and townsmen 
alike as the period of a succession of disastrous floods. The 
Society has naturally experienced a loss of some magnitude ; 
but the important accession made to the list of Members during 
the year has enabled the Council to meet the deficiency of the 
receipts at Taunton without any larger drain upon the Funded 
capital of the Society than was entailed by the Bedford Meeting 
last year. It is also satisfactory to know that the visit of 
the Society to so distant a town in the West of England was 
thoroughly appreciated. Indeed, judging from the exertions 
made by the authorities and inhabitants of the town to give the 
Society a hearty welcome, and from the numbers who visited 
the Showyard on the only fine day of the week, there is ground 
for believing that, with a continuance of fine weather, the 
Taunton Meeting would not have affected the funds of the 
Society to any serious extent, while the amount of information 
which would have been disseminated would necessarily have 
been very largely increased. 
The trials of Mowing-machines at Taunton excited the greatest 
interest amongst the competitors and the public, and the prizes 
were competed for by a larger number of manufacturers, both 
English and American, than on any previous occasion. A 
descriptive and illustrated report of the Trials, for which the 
Society is indebted to Mr. Hemsley, one of the Stewards, has 
been published in the last number of the 'Journal;' and the 
Consulting Engineers have, as usual, rendered it more compre- 
hensive and valuable by carefully compiled tables showing the 
results of the trials from a mechanical point of view. 
The exhibition of Live Stock at Taunton was naturally not 
so extensive as that which is seen when the Country jMeeting is 
held in a more central locality ; but it may be said that all the 
standard national breeds were fairly represented, and that most 
of the prizes fell to well-known exhibitors. On the other hand, 
the competition for the prizes offered for local breeds, both of 
sheep and ponies, was particularly small, the only exceptions 
being in the classes for Devon Long-wools, 
The nature of the competition for the prizes offered for the 
