206 
Tlie late Mr. H. M. Jenkins. 
Mr. Brandreth Gibbs, and a public meeting was called by 
Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Delano, representative of the Societe 
des Agriculteurs de France, and Mr. Jenkins ; and they were 
appointed joint secretaries, Mr. Howard, who unfortunately 
became disabled by illness, acting as hon. treasurer. The late 
Loid Vernon acted as President of this Committee, which was 
appointed " to collect subscriptions, and corn and other seeds, 
to be supplied gratis to enable the small cultivators of France to 
sow their lands, and thus avoid an otherwise inevitable famine." 
The whole story is told in jNIr. Jenkins's history of the affair 
in the volume of this Society's 'Journal' for 1872 •, and 
Lord Vernon's interest and earnestness in the matter has justice 
done to it in Mr. Wells's memoir of him in the 19th volume of 
the ' Journal.' Committees were appointed for every county 
for the collection of subscriptions. Boards of Guardians, and 
the Presidents and Secretaries of every Agricultural Society and 
Farmers' Club and Chamber of Agriculture in the kingdom, 
were applied to, and a sum of 29,167Z. \s. 2d. was collected, 
which, when supplemented by the Lord Mayor's fund and the 
Swedish farmers' fund, and the Limbourg fund, <Scc,, amounted 
in all to close on 52,000/. In addition to this, large donations 
were made of spring wheat, and barley, oats, potatoes, and 
small seeds. Inquiries were made in the districts which had 
been devastated, and the correspondence revealed the positive 
exhaustion of many of these districts. The period during 
which they had to be supplied was short, but it was ascertained 
that spring wheat was sown up till April 1st, and oats and 
barley for three, or even four weeks later. The wants were, in 
fact, greater than could be supplied, and it became necessary to 
give proportionate relief; no persons occupying 50 acres or 
more were allowed to receive gratuitous relief, and no single 
cultivator was allowed to have more than 8 bushels of wheat, 
12 bushels of barley, or 16 bushels of oats. The preliminaries 
of peace were not signed till February 26th, but the first pur- 
chase of seeds had been made on February 4th. No fewer than 
26,246 occupiers were relieved in the departments of Somme, 
Pas de Calais, and Aisne, and 29,339 in the departments of 
Indre and Loire, Scarthe, Loir and Cher, Loiret, Eure and 
Loir; and, in all — 3695 qrs. of wheat, 3836 of barley, 5387 of 
oats, 250 of tares, 700 tons of potatoes, 500 bushels of haricot 
beans, 250 bushels of turnip seed, 8000 lbs. of carrot seed, 
1000 lbs. of onion seed, besides 500 bags of other seeds, were 
distributed. Captain Delf was afterwards deputed to ascertain 
results; and his report in the autumn of 1871 gave a most 
satisfactory account of the harvest which had been obtained, 
