xlii 
Report to the General Meeting. 
conclusive and satisfactory in proportion to the perfection of the 
particular science itself, whose principles are proposed for the 
regulation of agricultural practice. The laws of mechanics being 
simple and determinate, their application to the improvement of 
the principles on which the machines and implements of agricul- 
turij may be most economically effected, has been attended with 
results correspondingly decisive in their character: but while the 
simj)le and well-established principles of inorganic chemistry 
may with confidence be expected to serve as safe guides in leading 
us to a knowledge of the properties of every variety of soil, and 
the means of their required modification to particular objects, any 
new light to be thrown upon agriculture by organic chemistry, a 
less perfect branch of the science, must as yet be received with 
greater diffidence, though it ultimately promises the most im- 
portant results. The Council are convinced that the perfection 
of agriculture as a science or farming as an art. Is only to be 
attained by the establishment of scientific principles derived from 
practice, and their judicious application under the given circum- 
stances and conditions of each particular case of climate, soil, or 
aspect. While, howevei", they deem this caution requisite In ex- 
position of the practical objects and character of the society, they 
witness with great satisfaction the rapid advances made by the 
distinguished chemists of the present day In that comparatively 
new and Infant branch of chemical philosophy connected with 
investigations into the laws of organic matter and the principles 
of vegetabl e life ; and they have to congratulate the Society on 
the zeal with which their consulting chemist. Dr. Playfair, has 
entered this new and valuable field of scientific inquiry, and the 
kindness with which he has again favoured the Members on the 
occasion of their General Meeting, with two highly interesting 
lectures, elucidating the application of the most recent discoveries 
of chemical science to the practical operations of agriculture, li'he 
Council feel that if any circumstances could enhance the obliga- 
tions under which they are laid in reference to these lectures, they 
would be the readiness with which ]^r. Playfair, at a very short 
notice, and regardless of personal inconvenience, prepared him- 
