462 THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY’S 
the number of landed proprietors who took an interest in agri- 
cultural pursuits. This he conceived likely to be beneficial to 
many tenant farmers, from believing that those who really knew 
what farming was were generally the most considerate and best 
landlords. The society had infused into many landlords, who 
previously from want of due consideration or proper repre- 
sentation from their agents had not been famed for it, a spirit 
of liberality in assisting their tenants in the requisite expenses for 
the improvement of their land, and erecting all necessary farm 
buildings, with convenient yards, to enable their arable tenants 
to winter the required number of cattle to turn their straw into 
good manure. It was to be hoped that such liberal spirit would 
prevail in all the landlords of the country. He was rejoiced to 
have this opportunity of dispelling the idea that in his agricul- 
tural writings he had held science in too slight estimation. It 
probably might have appeared so from his having felt somewhat 
piqued on being told, on the establishment of this society, not 
by the scientific themselves, but by some would-be farmers, who 
had formed many extravagantly high notions of what was to be 
effected by science, that he and others, who had devoted a great 
part of their lives to the study and practice of agriculture, knew 
but little, and must be taught by the scientific. He did not 
mean to say that the present farming throughout the country 
had arrived at such at state of perfection that it could not be 
improved ; on the contrary, he believed, that from mechanical 
science, which had brought about such great improvement in 
agricultural implements, and combined with chemical and 
geological aid, some of the mysteries of nature might possibly 
be so developed as to enable the cultivators of the soil to obtain 
a larger produce from it than they hitherto had ; expressing at 
the same time his firm conviction, drawn from his own practical 
experience, that although, by patent manure, a great quantity of 
produce could be obtained, yet there was a boundary beyond 
which nature and the soil could not be forced to produce corn. 
There were many new, and some he believed to be valuable, 
manures ; but he doubted whether any of them would be the 
means of causing such an increase of produce as would repay 
their great cost, with the henceforth expected low price of grain. 
