472 THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY’S 
whelming number shewn that greatly increased the difficulties of 
the judges. The office was, in the best of times, a painful and 
responsible one, but much more so on an occasion such as this. 
With respect to the assistance they were deriving from the labours 
of men of science, he looked forward with confidence to much 
greater advantages for the future than what they had derived 
from the past. They would also learn to appreciate the immense 
advantages they were deriving from the improvement of agricul- 
tural implements ; and he would impress on them the paramount 
importance of affording trials and comparative tests to those 
agricultural implements. 
Professor Owen was next called on by the Chairman. He 
said that he had come among them seeking for information, and 
little thought that he should have been called upon to address 
them. In attending one of their large meetings for the first time, 
he had done so in order to have the opportunity of carefully ex- 
amining the anatomical configuration and peculiar qualities of 
those prize cattle of which they were so justly proud ; and in 
acquiring information of this nature he hoped to be able to give 
back somewhat of that knowledge to agriculture again. It had 
been sometimes asserted that prize animals were, from an exube- 
rance of fat, in a morbid or diseased state ; but their power of 
accumulating flesh was one of the best proofs of health. In the 
tropical climates. Nature had wisely ordained that the ruminat- 
ing animals should be endowed with the peculiar property of 
accumulating nourishment with rapidity ; and they were thus en- 
abled, in the course of five months, to lay up a store in the lumps 
on their backs, that on which they had to subsist for the remain- 
ing seven months of the year. Agriculture was by no means of 
modern origin ; but it was only latterly that it had begun to 
discover how much the knowledge and practices of our fathers 
and forefathers in this art might be improved. He begged to 
propose “ Success to agriculture all over the world.” 
Mr. Henry Colman , the agricultural commissioner for the 
State of Massachusetts, felt grateful for the welcome given to 
him, and the succession of kindnesses and hospitality received 
from Englishmen since his arrival in this country. He considered 
agriculture to be the art of all arts, the foundation of all wealth. 
