viii 
Report to the General Meeting. 
Charing Cross Hospital — the prize of 20 sovereigns, for the best 
essay on the food of plants. 
The Council have further to report, that no essays were sent in 
to compete for the prize of 15 sovereigns offered by the Society 
for the best account of the varieties of wheat suited to different 
soils, nor any essay of sufficient merit on the making of cheese. 
They have received from the judges appointed to consider the 
merits of the essays competing for the gold medal offered by the 
Society for the best account or record of the prognostics or 
natural signs of changes in the weather, their report on the rela- 
tive merits of the essays on this subject ; and, in accordance with 
the conditions of that prize, the Council have placed copies of the 
selected essays in the hands of Mr. Morton, jun., of the Whitfield 
Example Farm, for the purpose of a twelvemonth's accurate and 
extensive trial of the practical value and general correctness of the 
rules laid down by the respective writers of these essays, as indi- 
cating the signs of such changes of weather. 
The Council, in pursuance of the conditions of the prize of 10 
sovereigns for an account of the best mode of curing butter for 
future consumption, and for preservation in foreign countries, 
have had the various samples sent in by the competitors sub- 
mitted to the examination and judgment of two eminent dairymen 
of the metropolis, who have decided, after a very careful examina- 
tion, that the whole of the samples of butter competing for the 
Society's prize are of a very inferior quality, and utterly worthless 
as proofs of any efficient modes having been employed of curing 
the butter for future consumption. 
The essays for the prize of 20 sovereigns, for the best account 
of the rotations of crops suited for heavy lands, have received the 
most careful examination and scrutiny of the judges in that de- 
partment, without, however, their agreeing in their decision on the 
particular essay most worthy of the prize. The Council have 
accordingly appointed another member of the Society to act as 
umpire on the comparative merits of the two contending essays, 
each of which has on this occasion been selected by th judges 
respectively as the best. 
The Council have placed the names of the Hon. Henry 
