lxxv 
Tuesday , May 22, J 894. 
on his behalf. He could only say 
that since he had been a member of 
the Council, and, in fact, since he had 
been a member of the Society, he had 
taken the greatest interest in its work 
and should always continue to so. 
Knowing how ably he would be 
assisted by the Society’s staff, he had 
no doubt that he would be able, as 
other Presidents before him, to bring 
the important business of the Society 
to a satisfactory conclusion. 
Ke-election of Council. 
The Trustees and Vice-Presidents 
having been re-elected by show of 
hands, the election of twenty-five 
members of Council was proceeded 
with, and the President appointed the 
Hon. Alex. Parker, Mr. Arthur Carey, 
and Mr. H. J. Greenwood to act as 
scrutineers of the voting papers. 
These having been duly collected, 
and the report of the scrutineers 
thereon received, it was announced 
that the twenty-four members of 
Council who retired by rotation had 
been re-elected, together with Mr. 
Howard P. Evland, of Moxhull Hall, 
Erdington, Birmingham, who had 
been duly nominated to fill the 
vacancy caused by the retirement of 
a member under Bye-Law 23. 
Report of Council. 
The Secretary then read an 
abstract of the Report of the Council 
to the meeting (see page 301). 
Viscount Cross, in moving the 
adoption of the report, said it was to 
his mind a highly satisfactory one, 
and he was sure that everyone who 
had taken the trouble to read it would 
be perfectly satisfied with the number 
of members and with the state of the 
finances. They might congratulate 
themselves that they were very soon 
to take possession of a house worthy 
of their great association. He was 
sure that the arrangements for the 
Cambridge Meeting, as set out in the 
report, would give satisfaction to 
everyone. At all events, the Society 
was fully alive to the duties it had to 
perform, and the Cambridge Meeting 
would add another triumph to those 
which the Society had achieved in the 
past. It was a matter of great 
satisfaction to see that the Board of 
Agriculture were making a deter- 
mined effort to put a stop to swine 
fever, which had been so disastrous 
from one end of the country to the 
other. He did not think that agri- 
culturists generally took sufficient 
advantage of the results of the experi- 
ments made by the Society, or of 
their privileges in obtaining analyses, 
and he hoped these advantages would 
be utilised more frequently by mem- 
bers of the Society. Speaking as a 
farmer of many years’ standing, he 
could not congratulate the Society 
upon the state of the agricultural 
prospects. Although this year they 
were in hopes that, owing to the 
commencement of the fine spring 
weather, they would have better crops 
than for some time, as farmers had 
had weather entirely to their mind 
for the putting in of seed, yet the 
chilling effect of this winter week 
in which they were holding their 
“spring meeting” would deject the 
spirits of those who had been buoyed 
up with great hopes of the future. 
He had great pleasure in moving the 
adoption of the report. 
Mr. George Jonas seconded the 
motion. 
Mr. T. A. Dickson referred to the 
decision of the Council to discontinue 
after the present year the award of 
free life memberships of the Society 
in connexion with its annual Senior 
Examinations. He said that these 
examinations had been going on now 
for twenty-seven years. The strain 
of the different reports which had 
been presented to successive Council 
meetings in the past had been disap- 
pointment at the small number of 
candidates who had presented them- 
selves for the examination ; but dur- 
ing the last five or six years the 
number had increased, and gradually 
a greater number had been elected 
life members of the Society. As far 
as he could gather from the published 
reports of the Council meeting held 
last March, when the decision to dis- 
continue these life memberships was 
announced, the idea seemed to be 
that very few of those who succeeded 
in obtaining this great honour eventu- 
ally took up agriculture as a pro- 
fession. Looking at the last published 
