Report to the General Meeting. vii 
the Local Committee have already commenced the necessary 
works of draining and levelling-. The Council have deemed it 
advisable to restrict henceforth the amount offered as Prizes for 
Live Stock by the Society itself to a maximum of 3000Z. The 
Local Committee propose to liberally supplement the Society's 
Prize-sheet with classes for Agricultural Horses, Hunters, 
Hackneys, Long-woolled and Shropshire Sheep, Longhorns, 
Jersey Heifer-calves, and Dairy Cattle, as well as Butter and 
Cheese. 
They have already offered Prizes for the best-managed Farms 
in the County of Derby and within a radius of twenty miles, and 
eleven farms have been entered to compete in the three classes 
of Large Dairy Farms, Small Dairy Farms, and Arable or Mixed 
Farms. 
The Council have added the following Rule to the Stock Prize- 
sheet : — " No person who has been disqualified from exhibiting 
live-stock at any Meeting of the Society shall be allowed to act 
as agent, representative, or servant of an Exhibitor of live-stock 
at any of the Society's future Shows." 
The rule as to shearing has been amended so as to render 
certain the identity of disqualified sheep, and now stands as 
follows : — " Inspectors will be appointed by the Council to 
examine the Sheep on their admission to the Show-yard, with 
instructions in any cases in which the Sheep have not been really 
and fairly shorn bare, to mark them and to report the fact to 
the Stewards." 
In consequence of a recommendation made by the Judges of 
Implements at the Carlisle Show, the Council have decided to 
organise a competitive trial of Sheaf-binders in connection with 
the Derby Meeting, and have therefore offered a Gold and a Silver 
Medal to the Sheaf-binding Machines which, after trial during 
the harvest of 1881, shall in the opinion of the Judges be the 
best and the second best, — the binding material to be other 
than wire. 
