Report to the General Meeting. xliii 
self for their delivery, and the liberality with which the Royal 
Institution of Great Britain at once placed their theatre at the 
disposal of the Society for the occasion. 
The Society's recent country Meeting at Southampton was 
most successful in every department of its arrangements^ and ful- 
filled the most sanguine expectations of the Council. The extent 
of the show-yard and the number of entries for exhibition on that 
occasion, exceeded those of any previous meeting ; and the trial of 
implements, so dependent on circumstances for failure or success, 
Avas conducted to the satisfaction of the stewards of that depart- 
ment and the exhibitors whose implements were selected for trial, 
and proved an object of much attraction to the numerous specta- 
tors by whom it was witnessed. The success, in a financial point 
of viewj was greatly promoted by the means so liberally placed at 
the disposal of the Council by the committee of the town and 
neighbourhood of Southampton, in the contribution of lOOOZ. to 
the funds of the Society for the purpose of meeting the expenses 
of the occasion. To the mayor, corporation, and authorities of 
the borough, the local committee, the commissioners of police, 
the occupiers of the trial ground, and the South Western Railway 
Company, the Society, before lea\ing Southampton, conveyed by 
unanimous resolutions their best acknowledgments of the essential 
sernces which those parties, by their cordial and zealous co-opera- 
tion, had respectively rendered to the Council in promoting the 
objects of the Meeting. 
From the agricultural character of the district in which the 
next annual Country Meeting of the Society at Shrewsbury is 
appointed to be held, the Council anticipate with confidence a 
result no less gratifying than that obtained at Southampton ; and 
they have already taken the requisite steps in preparation for that 
Meeting, and have also decided that the Judges of Stock shall be 
appointed from recommendations made by the Members of the 
Society at large at the General INIeeting in May. 
The Finance Committee will lay before the Meeting the 
balance-sheets of the accounts as examined and approved by the 
auditors on the part of the Society. Their chairman will also 
