Report to the General Meeting. 
xiii 
the various branches of agricultural improvement, both personally 
at their meetings and as contributors through the pages of the 
Journal ; but within their own local sphere in the country they 
have, in many instances, been instrumental in reviving the spirit 
of existing associations, or of establishing new societies or clubs of 
practical farmers, for the observation, collection, and discussion 
of such practical results as more immediately refer, in the first 
instance, to the improvement of their own local agriculture, but 
become afterwards generally applicable to other localities placed 
under the same circumstances of aspect, soil, and cultivation. 
It has been the uniform desire of the Council to avail them- 
selves of every opportunity by which the operations of the Society 
may extend their influence, and convey sound and practical infor- 
mation, through the numerous classes of its members, distributed 
over the various districts of the kingdom. While preserving its 
fixed locality for the transaction of official business in the Metro- 
polis as a centre, the Council have the satisfaction of referring, 
with great confidence, to the signal success which has attended 
the means of communication afforded by the distribution of the 
Journal, the circulation of Cottage Tracts reprinted from its pages, 
and the change from year to year of the locality in which the 
country meetings are held. In the more concentrated sphere of 
its legislative and official duties, the Council have to report the 
active measures taken by their various committees to simplify the 
details connected with their respective departments, and to avail 
themselves of such results of experience as render the general trans- 
action of business gradually more uniform, exact, and satisfactory. 
The Society consists of the following members, namely, — 
Life governors 95 
Annual ditto 214 
Life members 442 
Annual ditto 6161 
Honorary ditto 15 
making a total of 6927 members on the books of the Society at 
the present time ; and the Council have the satisfaction of report- 
ing the steady accession of candidates from every part of the 
