THE PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE. 
447 
Shrewsbury — 1846, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne — 1847, at North- 
ampton — and, in 1848, they visited the ancient city of York. 
There was a proportionate increase at each of those places; the 
numbers, therefore, are at the present time exceedingly great, and 
are daily increasing. 
We shall now turn to the vast importance, not only of agri- 
culture generally, but also of great public bodies like the present, 
and even of minor local societies, for the promotion and improve- 
ment of the culture of the soil. When we look at the necessities 
of man, and when we consider that the proper cultivation of the 
soil is the ordained means of providing for those necessities, the 
great importance of husbandry then becomes apparent. Its chief 
worth, however, is not fully developed until an increasing popu- 
lation brings with it an augmented demand. Then, and not till 
then, is ingenuity put to the test ; and the cultivator of the earth 
calls to his aid the acuteness of the mechanic and the wonder- 
working science of the chymist. To direct their operations in one 
powerful and combined progression, and to extend the requisite 
information far and wide, requires sacrifices and an energy which 
cannot be expected from solitary individuals. Hence the great 
importance of Agricultural Societies of every description ; but 
more particularly of National Societies, such as the one to which 
we are alluding ; for they give life and influence to minor bodies, 
and rouse to active usefulness even the drowsy rustic of modes 
and years gone by. Socrates seems to have thought agriculture 
very important, for he termed it “ the nurse and mother of all the 
arts.” Sully, one of the ablest statesmen of his time, has used a 
similar figure of speech. And Gibbon has declared husbandry 
to be the foundation of all manufactures, because art is provided 
by Nature with its materials. In short, so great an importance 
has been attributed to agriculture, that the total neglect of it in 
Ireland has been deemed one of the principal causes of all its 
miseries. Scotland, also, was not much better than Ireland fifty 
or sixty years ago; but the agricultural movement in England has 
now extended across the Scottish borders, and it is greatly im- 
proving its march in this truly important science. 
The present rapid progress, and the certain duration and con- 
tinued improvement of agriculture, to the end of time, shall now, 
in conclusion, be briefly noticed. A very few years have passed 
away since the British farmer was a mere automaton, moving as 
if by instinct in the beaten track of his “ rude forefathers.” The 
modern progress we have named, however, through the power of 
agricultural associations, broke upon his vision with renovating 
effect. He saw, he wondered, and, finding nobles and heroes of 
the land engaged in the movement, he soon welcomed its advan- 
