456 ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND. 
on every class of the community.” Mr. Handley, when observing 
that he had long contemplated the formation of such a society, very 
truly remarked, that “ there is not a single department of farming 
but what is capable of vast improvement.” ( Farmer's Magazine , 
vol. viii, p. 48.) 
A short time after this discussion, there appeared a very excel- 
lent pamphlet from the late Mr. Handley, dated from Culverthorpe, 
in January, 1838, entitled “ A Letter to Earl Spencer (President 
of the Smithfield Club) on the formation of a National Agricultural 
Institution.” In the course of this, he very justly observed (and 
the answer to his concluding question can only be made in one 
way) “ great attention and expense, spirited emulation, and well- 
directed experiments, grounded upon scientific principles, have 
succeeded in producing that near approach to perfection in breed- 
ing and feeding cattle, which was so remarkable at the late Christ- 
mas show. Why, then, should not the same combined efforts be 
united in the application of science to the sister art, agriculture, 
which your lordship has justly pronounced to be still in its 
infancy I” 
The public impression of the value of such a society to the ad- 
vancement of agriculture now became too general to fail of pro- 
ducing the expected results, and in the early part of the following 
month of March an advertisement appeared in the public papers, 
to the effect that several noblemen and gentlemen “ having ob- 
served the great advantages which the cultivation of the soil in 
Scotland has derived from the establishment and exertion of the 
Highland Society, and thinking that the management of land in 
England and Wales, both in the cultivation of the soil and in the 
care of woods and plantations, is capable of great improvement by 
the exertions of a similar Society, request that those who are in- 
clined to concur with them in this opinion will meet them on 
Wednesday, the 9th of May, 1838, at the Freemasons Tavern.” 
To this was attached the signatures of the Dukes of Richmond 
and Wellington, the Earls Fitzwilliam, Spencer, Chichester, Ripon, 
and Stradbroke, Lord Portman, R. Clive, B. Portman, B. Baring, 
Sir James Graham, Sir F. Lawley, J. Bowes, E. Buller, R. A. 
Christopher, H. Blanchard, W. T. Copeland, J. W. Childers, 
R. Etwall, H. Handley, C. S. Lefevre, W. Long, W. Miles, 
J. Neeld, E. W. W. Pendarves, P. Pusey, E. A. Sandford, R. 
A. Slaney, J. A. Smith, R. G. Townley, W. Whitbread, and 
Henry Wilson. 
In consequence of this address, on the 9th of May a very 
numerous and influential meeting was held, at which Earl Spencer 
presided, and at which, after some attempted interruption by one 
