JOURNAL 
OF THE 
ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 
OF ENGLAND. 
I. — Agricultural Progress and the Royal Agricultural Society. 
By H. S. Thompson, M.P. 
The Royal Agricultural Society was formed in 1838, and inscribed 
on the title-page of its Journal the significant motto " Practice 
loith Science." The present volume will end the first series of 
that publication, and the occasion seems a fitting one for review- 
ing and registering the results which Practice, aided by Science, 
has been able to accomplish during the intervening quarter of a 
century. 
The period in question has been remarkable for several events, 
each of which has left its distinctive mark upon British agricul- 
ture, and any attempt to chronicle the progress of agricultural 
improvement since 1838 would be incomplete and even deceptive 
if it did not point out the important consequences resulting from 
the adoption of free trade, the rise and progress of the railway 
system, and the application of steam power to the operations of 
husbandry. 
Before entering on these and other important questions con- 
nected with the subject before us, it will be proper to give a brief 
account of the progress and present position of the Royal Agri- 
cultural Society itself. 
Commencement and Progress of the Royal Agricultural Society. — 
The commencement of the Society took place during one of those 
recurring fits of associative activity to which Englishmen are 
periodically prone. The Yorkshire Agricultural Society (for 
many years our largest provincial Agricultural Society, with a 
prize-list of 800Z. to 1000/. per annum) was formed in 1837 ; the 
Royal Agricultural Society in 1838 ; the Royal Irish Improve- 
ment Society in 1841. The formation of these and numerous other 
local societies within a very brief period, and on an unusually 
extended scale both as to numbers and resources, was, in fact, the 
application to agriculture of the same tendency to organise com- 
panies which was so strongly developed about that time, and 
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