Fifty Years' Progress of British Agriculture. 25 
In July 1851, the Prince Consort, speaking at a banquet at 
the Mansion House on the opening of the first great International 
Exhibition, pointed to the duty of every educated person closely 
to watch and study the time in which he lived, in order to add 
his mite of individual exertion to further the accomplishment of 
the ordinances of Providence, the foremost of which he described 
as the realisation of the unity of mankind. The products of all 
quarters of the globe were placed at our disposal, and we had 
only to choose which was the best and cheapest for our purposes, 
while the powers of production and distribution were entrusted 
to the stimulus of competition and capital. The Exhibition of 
1851 was to give a true test of the point of development at which 
mankind had arrived, and a new starting-point from which to 
direct their further exertions. 
The three preceding years had been eventful for British 
agriculture. Protection duties had ceased, and the landlords 
and farmers of this kingdom, no longer permitted to lean on an 
artificial support, had now to rely on their own energy and 
skill. In 1851 the new starting-point had been reached, and 
with energy and vigour the task of increased production, to 
compensate for diminished prices, was begun. It has since 
progressed, not so much by surpassing the best farming practice 
of that time, as by a general advance throughout the country, 
leading up to that higher example. 
An unusual lustre was thrown on the meeting of the Royal 
Agricultural Society in 1851. Men from all quarters of the 
world flocked towards happy England to the International 
Exhibition, to see with their own eyes what it was in our insti- 
tutions or our race that had raised this country, with its narrow 
boundaries, to the proud position which she held among the 
nations. The Eoyal Agricultural Show of this year was held 
on the playing-fields of Eton on the banks of the Thames, 
beneath the walls of "Windsor Castle, the abode for many cen- 
turies of the sovereigns of England, over which floated the 
Eoyal Standard of the Queen. At no previous meeting of the 
Society had there been so great a concourse of spectators, so 
fine a field for the exhibition, or such excellent specimens of all 
the best breeds of live stock in England. And never before 
could their peculiarities be studied with greater advantage. On 
the third day of the meeting the gathering of people, favoured 
by the beautiful weather, was immense. What a contrast did 
these British breeds present in the eyes of many of the foreign 
visitors to those to which they were accustomed at home ! The 
sleek and contented Shorthorn, the more sprightly faced Here- 
ford, the handsome Devon, had a placidity and easy, well-fed 
