8 
Agricultural Progress and 
The foregoing account of the Society's affairs shows that during 
the last twenty-three years it has received the steady personal 
support of 5000 of the leading agriculturists of the kingdom, and 
that, including the Country Meetings, the total receipts have 
been 12,000/., and the total expenditure 11,500/. per annum, the 
balance having been invested as a guarantee fund to meet any 
temporary emergency. 
On a review of the whole period, the Council may, therefore, 
fairly claim — 1st, That the result of their management has been 
to place the finances bf the Society on a sound and satisfactory 
basis ; and 2ndly, That when tested by the results of their 
annual Exhibitions of Stock and Implements, the course pursued 
by the Society is shown to have secured increasing popularity 
and steady progress. 
Improvement of Agricultural Machinery. — Having thus far 
confined our attention to the position of the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society itself, we proceed to trace its connexion with the 
rapid development of British agriculture, which is so evident 
to everyone connected with rural pursuits, and yet is so diffi- 
cult to measure or state in definite terms. The first branch 
of this inquiry which claims our attention is that of Agri- 
cultural Mechanics. It is this department which has made 
the most rapid advance since 1838 ; and many of the most 
striking of the recent improvements in British husbandry would 
have been impossible without the number of new inventions and 
the more skilled manufacture of all farming implements which 
have characterized the period in question. In order properly to 
appreciate the extent of the change which has taken place in 
farm machinery, it will be necessary to recall the position 
occupied by this department twenty-five years ago. In 1837, 
the writer of this article took an active share in the meetings 
which were held with a view to the formation of the Yorkshire 
Agricultural Society. These meetings were attended by the 
late Lord Spencer and a number of the leading agriculturists of 
Yorkshire from all the three Ridings. The principles on which 
the Society should be conducted underwent the most thorough 
consideration and discussion, and the first prize-sheet may be 
taken to represent the deliberate estimate formed by the best 
Yorkshire farmers of that day of the relative importance of Stock 
and Implements. 
The following were the amounts offered as prizes at that 
Society's first Meeting at York in 1838 : — Stock, 424/. ; Speci- 
mens of Wool, Ronts, and Seeds, 65/. ; Essays and Reports, 80/. ; 
Implements, 30/. So that out of a total of G00/., 30/., or 5 per 
cent., was thought sufficient to give " For the invention and 
