C "i ) 
ilopal ^isn'niltural ^on'etp of OfnglauU. 
GENERAL MEETING, 
12, Hanover Square, Saturday, December 11, 1847. 
REPORT OF THE COUNCIL. 
The Council have been actively engaged during the last half- 
year, in carrying out, to the best of their ability, the various 
objects of the Society ; either by a direct extension of their 
operations, or by such modifications of detail as experience may 
have led them to adopt : and in every change which they have 
effected for the promotion of these objects, they have, as in every 
former period of their proceedings, been most anxiously careful 
that no false step on their part should endanger the hitherto safe 
and steady progress of the Society in its career of usefulness, and 
the development of its powers for the common good of the 
country. They have the satisfaction of finding, that as the 
sphere of the Society's operations becomes enlarged, it maintains 
its progress in a uniform and steady course, but that while every 
advantage is taken of the light which science may throw on its 
path, they can securely rely on that beacon only for their guid- 
ance which practical experience has established. They trust that 
the motto of the Society, " Practice with Science," will continue, 
as it has hitherto done, to regulate its movements ; and that 
•science will be regarded simply as that knowledge of principles 
which is derived from observation or experiment, and its deduc- 
tions adopted only when the cases are similar in circumstance 
and condition : — that while theory suggests modes of improve- 
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