The Royal Agricultural Society of England. 867 = 601 
1, intained on an ever-increasing scale, of an annual Exhibition 
oLive Stock, Agricultural Implements, Farm Produce, and 
Jscellaneous Articles of domestic utility. For more than 
tlrty years the Country Meetings of the Society were under 
tl honorary direction of Mr. B. T. Brandreth Gibbs, to whose 
ft ering care and unremitting exertion much of the success of 
tl Exhibitions must be ascribed. Mr. Gibbs retired upon his 
w!-won laurels in 1874 ; and his office was divided between 
Honorary Steward of General Arrangements and the paid 
ers of the Society. The following is a list of the Honorary 
Cicers for the Liverpool Meeting last year : — 
Steward of General Arrangements. Honorary 
r. Jacob Wilson, Woodhorn Manor, Morpeth, NorthumberlaiKl. officers. 
Stewards of Live Stock. 
on. W. Egerton, M.P., Rosthevne Manor, Knutsford, Cheshire, 
r. Joseph Souttleworth, Hartsholme Hall, Lincoln, 
r. William Wells, Holmewood, Peterborough, Northamptonshire, 
r R. C. Mosgrave, Bart., Edenhall, Penrith, Cumberland, 
r. William H. Wakefield, Sedgwick, Kendal, Westmoreland. 
Stewards of Implements. 
r. J. BowEN Jones, Ensdon House, Montford Bridge, Shropshire, 
r. John Hemsley, Shelton, Newark, Nottinghamshire, 
r. G. H. Sanday, Wensley House, Bedale, Yorkshire. 
Steward of Forage. 
r. Thomas Eigby, Darnhall Mill Farm, Winsford, Cheshire. 
would be tedious, and of merely antiquarian interest, to Development 
lit ribe in detail the earlier Shows of the Royal Agricultural of Show. 
S( ety for the purpose of showing the enormous development 
«vl:;h has steadily gone on during the thirty-eight years which 
ha; elapsed since the first Show was held at Oxford in 1839. 
It aay be mentioned, however, that at Oxford, in that year, 
the were twenty exhibitors of Implements, and at Cambridge, 
th following year, there were thirty-two. The report of this 
mi ting stated that beyond controversy such a selection of imple- 
mi s was never before collected in one Shoioyard." Contrast these 
ta(; with these relating to the second Show of the Society at 
0;)rd in 1870, when 359 exhibitors showed 7851 articles 
(leribed in the Implement Catalogue. The exhibits of Live 
Stik, which were about 100 in 1839, attained their maximum 
of ;arly 2000 at Battersea in 1862, and generally range between 
12 ) and 1500 entries of Horses, Cattle, Sheep, and Pigs. Such 
»n icrease in the number of exhibits has entailed an enormous 
in(;ase in the size of the Showyard and in the expenses of every 
rtment of the Exhibition. Thus the area of the Show held 
at iverpool in 1841 was 7 acres, and that of last year's Exhi- 
^)it n held at the same town was no less than 70 acres, — an area 
