The late Mr. H. M. Jenkins. 
193 
His influence by comment and suggestion regarding topics 
coming before the Council and Committee could indeed be 
illustrated at any length. From among the evidences of this 
lying in the minute- and letter-books at Hanover Square I select 
an example, in which he calls the attention of the Chairman of 
the ' Journal' Committee to a suggestion which had been made 
by Major Craigie, at a General Meeting* of the Members for 
the publication of the ' Journal ' in more frequent parts. He 
says :— 
" I have received and placed in the ' Journal ' Committee-book the sugges- 
tion made at the last General Meeting of Members. It does not strike me 
that the case is strenc;thened which was made when the same suggestion was 
brought forward some years ago. If a number of tenant-farmers had main- 
tained the proposition that the 'Journal' would be more timely and more 
useful and more widely read if issued quarterly, I should have been disposed 
to say then, ' I think, the Council ought to consider this expression of opinion 
very seriously, with a view to making the ' Journal ' more popular with the 
Members.' But as a matter of fact the ' Journal ' never was so popular with 
the Members as it has been the last ten years. No one else has ever made 
this suggestion, and now the proposition is not very logically defended, for it 
is forgotten of the 'Journal of the Statistical Society ' [which Jiad been quoted 
as a parallel] that the papers contained in the 'Journal of the Statistical 
Society ' are read before they are published, whereas those in our 'Journal ' are 
published before they are read, except, of course, by the authors and editor. 
The greatest difficulty we have, in fact, is to induce farmers to read it at all ; 
and it was thought many years ago that after spring seed-time and after 
harvest were the two periods of the year when farmers had most leisure and 
would be most likely to read. The founders and original Members of this 
Society were eminent and energetic men, and they began by publishing the 
' Journal ' quarterly, but in the second year only three numbers were pub- 
lished ; in the third there were nominally three, but actually only two ; and 
ever since the 'Journal' has been published half-yearly. In those days the 
Agricultural Press was not so efficient as it is now, so that there is less reason, 
as it seems to me, for a more rapid publication now than there was then. I 
have always been told that if there is no great demand for a change the onus 
probandi lies with those who advocate the change ; and I venture to submit 
that it rests with others to prove that a quarterly issue of the ' Journal ' 
would be so much more palatable to the Members than the present half- 
yearly issue as to justify the Council in going to the increased expense. 
"The issue of an occasional supplementary number is a totally different 
question, and I think that this stands on safer ground. To a very small 
extent the principle has been adopted, as, for instance, in the issue of Miss 
Ormerod's diagrams and my little butter pamphlet, neither of which was 
published in the ' Journal.'" 
Here is another letter bearing on suggestions with reference 
to the ' Journal ' — this time addressed to a correspondent : — 
"January 14th, 188G. 
Speciai, Crops. — " Although it will give me pleosnre to place your 
letter before the 'Journal' Committee at their next meeting, I ought also 
to say that in my several reports on the Agriculture of foreign countries 
* December 10th, 1885. 
VOL. XXIII. — S. S. 
O 
