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GENERAL iMEETING. 
May 22, 1844. 
REPORT OF THE COUNCIL. 
Thk Council, in laying before the Members, at their present 
General Meeting, their Half-yearly Report on the state and pros- 
pects of the Society, at the completion of the sixth year from the 
date of its foundation, have the satisfaction of recording the pro- 
gressive fulfilment of its various objects 
The excitement which attended its original formation, and the 
rapidity with which the importance of those objects was recognised 
by the friends of agriculture in every part of the kingdom, at once 
swelled the list of its members to an extent unprecedented in the 
history of any similar institution. That excitement, having roused 
the attention of the cultivators of the soil to the fact of the great 
resources within their own immediate power, has led them to 
seek, with practical caution, but with an energy also proportionate 
to the advantages to be gained, those means by which the objects 
in view have appeared to them most likely to be attained, and 
rendered applicable to their local circumstances. Not only have 
the leading agriculturists of the kingdom come forward to aid the 
Council in carrying out, to the best of their power, the general 
collection and discussion of facts having an important bearing on 
