436 
The  late  Lord  Vernon. 
supported  the  resolution,  proposed  by  Lord  Lichfield  in  1879,  for 
the  publication,  in  the  Society’s  ‘ Journal  ’ and  in  the  agricultural 
newspapers,  of  reports  of  sales  of  inferior  or  adulterated  manures 
or  feeding-stuffs,  which  were  brought  under  the  notice  of  the 
Consulting  Chemist  by  members  of  the  Society. 
It  was  not  long  before  the  Society  was  called  upon  to  defend 
the  publication  of  what  they  considered  such  a case.  The 
action  was  tried  at  Leeds  in  1872,  before  Mr.  Justice  Blackburn, 
and  although  it  wras  decided  in  favour  of  the  Plaintiffs,  the 
Society  never  regretted  the  course  they  had  adopted.  Their 
conduct  wTas  warmly  approved  by  the  members  of  the  Society  ; 
and  from  that  time  forward  it  was  recognised  that  the  Council 
had  entered  upon  a course  of  unflinching  antagonism  to  those 
dealers  who  acted  against  the  spirit  of  the  resolution  just  stated. 
Caution,  however,  in  dealing  with  such  cases  is  very  requisite, 
and  the  responsibility- — -after  what  had  occurred  at  Leeds — of  in- 
volving the  Society  on  inadequate  grounds  in  heavy  expenses,  be- 
came no  trifling  one.  But,  trifling  or  not,  Lord  Vernon  was  always 
ready  to  bear  his  own,  and  more  than  his  own,  share  of  it.  His 
indignation  was  with  difficulty  restrained  as  the  report  of  some 
flagrant  cases  were  read  out,  and  he  was  apt  to  be  almost  im- 
patient if,  as  he  was  ready  to  think  them,  too  timid  counsels 
sometimes  prevailed. 
As  might  have  been  expected  from  his  activity  when  acting 
as  Steward  of  Implements,  his  interest  in  the  Implement 
Committee  was  unceasing.  One  of  the  results  of  “ Lord 
Vernon’s”  Committee  was  a remodelling  of  the  scheme  for 
implement  trials,  so  that  only  those  implements  of  the  most 
recent  invention,  and  the  manufacture  of  which  seemed  the 
most  backward,  were  retained  on  the  official  list  for  trials  in 
rotation. 
The  present  position,  of  being  almost  embarrassed  by  the 
perfection  to  which  agricultural  implements  have  arrived,  and 
of  the  necessity  for  an  occasional  pause  in  their  trials,  in  order, 
as  it  were,  to  give  time  for  the  ingenuity  of  the  makers  to  bring 
out  something  with  a substantial  claim  to  novelty,  is  very 
different  from  the  state  of  things  some  thirty  or  even  twenty 
years  ago,  when  threshing-machines,  reapers,  mowers,  drills, 
and  other  implements,  were  only  in  the  first  stage  of  their 
invention,  and  were  brought  before  the  public  with  all  their 
juvenile  imperfections. 
It  was  under  such  circumstances  that  Lord  Vernon’s  ever- 
wakeful  sense  of  justice  led  him,  while  giving  every  credit  to 
the  few  large  firms  for  the  ingenuity  they  showed,  and  the  heavy 
expenses  they  incurred  in  producing  these  implements,  to  fear 
lest  any  such  system  of  trials  as  then  existed,  should  uninten- 
