210 
The late Mr. H. M. Jenkins. 
these five qualifications are here placed properly. The office is 
an English office, and the foreign relations of it, important as 
they may be, are merely incidental to its leading duty, which — 
identical, of course, with that of the Society itself — is to serve the 
interests of English agriculturists. Eagerness, sympathy, in- 
telligence lie at the very foundation of the whole. "What is the 
chief requirement of your office?" the Editor was once asked. 
" To know now," was the reply, " what will be of agricultural 
importance six months hence." An eager, able, sympathetic 
outlook was his most important qualification. That is what his 
answer really meant. 
This eagerness of outlook, this constant loyalty to the Society 
which he served, amounting to an entire absorption of time, and 
mind, and power, in the effi)rt to promote its interests and its 
utility- — this large appreciation of scientific truth, agricultural 
and other, united with exact acquaintance with many of its 
branches, agriculture at length being one of them — this admir- 
ably clear and simple literary style — and lastly, this acquaintance 
with foreign language, foreign agriculture, foreign agriculturists : 
these are what enabled our late Secretary, and must qualify 
his successor. Beneath them all lay a thoroughly honest, 
resolute, and good-natured personality. No one ever had a 
clearer sense of right and wrong. Work promised was always 
set about at once ; engagements of all kinds were scrupulously 
and punctually kept. I may again tell an illustrative story 
of my own knowledge on this point. Coming from Barnet 
to the meeting of one of the Juries in charge of the late Health 
Exhibition at South Kensington, he was told that he had been 
appointed reporter in his absence. His urgent and quite 
unanswerable protest on the plea of overwork was of no avail ; 
and at length he unwillingly undertook the task ; and the report 
was brought next morning needing neither alteration nor cor- 
rection. His work was facilitated not only by an urgent 
instinct foi* the completion of it, but by his orderly method in 
doing it. He has told me that whatever literary work h>e had 
to do was always exhaustively thought out and carefully 
arranged in his mind before taking pen in hand ; and thereafter 
the report or argument or discussion, whatever he was engaged 
upon, developed and matured on page after page, which he 
covered with the most perfect handwriting that was ever seen ; 
rarely needing either addition or subtraction or correction 
when read over for the press. Of his good nature and his 
resolution there are many memories. I prefer to refer here to 
his home life only. No one ever more loved his home or made 
it more his special living interest. Always urgent to return 
from his many foreign journeys, in which, however, Mrs. Jenkins 
