The late Mr. H. M. Jenkins. 
187 
but not likelj to supersede the real article for direct con- 
sumption, except to the extent to which it is used as an adul- 
terating ingredient." Cheese also, of which there were no fewer 
than 359 specimens exhibited, from almost all the European 
countries — and the implements of the dairy, too — as they also 
were exhibited — so they also form a section of this report. 
The Health of the Live-Stock of the Farm was again the most 
prominent subject with which the Council had to deal during 
the year. Representations to the Government, a deputation 
to the Prime Minister, and whatever other means of urgency 
were available, had at length resulted in the appointment of a 
Select Committee of the House of Commons to enquire into the 
whole subject of cattle plague and the importation of live-stock ; 
and Mr. Jenkins had his hands full at this time in securing the 
examination of practical and scientific witnesses, both agri- 
cultural and other. 
In the Report of the Council of December, 1876, it had 
been announced that M. Drouyn de Lhuys, President of the 
Societe des Agriculteurs de France, had intimated the inten- 
tion to hold an Agricultural Congress in Paris in 1878 : and 
the French Society were desirous that the Council of the 
Royal Agricultural Society should obtain a memoir on British 
agriculture to be laid before that Congress. The report 
was accordingly prepared, a number of the most capable men 
in every department being engaged by the Editor to write, 
each on his own department of English farm practice ; and 
in 1878 this report filled one half of the ' Journal ' of that 
year. The important paper prepared by Mr. Jenkins on 
that occasion had thus been previously published in France, 
along with other discussions of the various branches of English 
agriculture, as a contribution to the proceedings of the Inter- 
national Agricultural Conference at Paris. His subject is 
the Royal Agricultural Society of England : and the treatise — 
for so it may be designated — refers in its several chapters to 
the constitution of the Society, its influence on the practice 
of the farm, its enlistment of the sciences of agriculture for 
the use of its members, its work in what the author calls the 
propaganda of agriculture, its efforts for agricultural educa- 
tion, its relations to veterinary science, its guidance of the 
landowner and the labourer, and the retrospect of the ten years 
preceding its date, during which, as it happens, Mr. Jenkins 
had been Secretary. Its membership in that period had in- 
creased, its Journal had become more popular, farm prizes had 
been established, the systematic testing of agricultural machinery 
had been improved, scientific investigation into the diseases 
of plants and animals had been conducted, the technical education 
