16 The Foundation of the Royal Agricultural Society. 
With a vast field of activity before them, the Council set 
vigorously to work, entrusting various branches of their opera- 
tions to committees formed for the purpose ; authorising an appli- 
cation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for permission to make 
a selection from the books and papers of the extinct Board of 
Agriculture, the loan of which was subsequently accorded by the 
Treasury ; recommending the offer of prizes (varying from 10/. to 
50/.) for essays on no fewer than twenty-four subjects, including 
the improvements in Scottish agriculture since the establishment 
of the Highland Society, the preservation of turnips from the de- 
predations of the black caterpillar, the simplest mode of analys- 
ing soils, the state of agricultural mechanics, the comparative 
merits of wheel and swing ploughs, the insects prejudicial to 
cereal crops, the formation and management of water-meadows, 
the best varieties and the diseases of wheat, the advantages of 
stall-feeding, subsoil ploughing, the rotation of crops, and so 
forth. 1 It was also determined to offer prizes of 50/. for the best 
draining plough, and 20/. for the best instrument for crushing 
gorse ; prizes for a ploughing-match at the first country Meeting, 
to be held at Oxford in July, 1839 ; 30/. for the best cultivated 
farm in Oxfordshire and the contiguous counties ; and " such 
amount as the Society might think fit to award " for the inven- 
tion of any new agricultural implement. 
By the end of July the stress of the preliminary business was 
over, the sum of 2,000/. had been invested in the 3£ per Cents, as 
a " nest-egg," and it was resolved that the weekly meetings of the 
Committee should be suspended for two months. But in the 
meantime overtures were made to the Royal Veterinary College 
to give a series of demonstrations on the structure, and lectures 
on the diseases, of cattle, sheep, and pigs, in the belief that this 
would effect as great improvement in the treatment of those 
animals as had already taken place in the treatment of the horse. 
The Society expressed its readiness to defray any expenses in- 
volved in this proposal, and, as it met with the cordial approval 
of the College authorities — although for a time it was not 'pur- 
sued with the ardour considered essential to the interests of 
agriculture — an annual subsidy of 200/. was promptly voted for 
carrying it into effect. 
These matters formed the substance of a very satisfactory 
report for the next General Meeting, held in December, at which 
Lord Spencer (to whom the " marked thanks " of the Society 
were voted for his eminent services, on the motion of the Duke 
1 Several of these essays will be found in the first volume of the Society's 
Journal. Others were regarded as not of sufficient merit to be published ; 
and in some cases there was no competition. 
