Pfiport of Meetings of the Society. 
Meeting held 20th January, — Mr. R. G. Duncan, 
President, in the Chair. 
Members present 18. 
Eleftions. — Associates : Messrs. John Duke Smith, 
Jun., Edwin Thomas, Benj. McDougal and John 
Cunningham. 
The President gave the following inaugural address :— 
Gentlemen, 1 see the Secretary has published an ad- 
vertisement saying that I would deliver an inaugural 
address, but I should be very sorry to call the few rough 
notes 1 have put together by such a high-sounding 
and ponderous name. I will crave your attention for a 
few minutes, while I refer briefly to what I may call 
" Our Agricultural position," I will first refei to our 
soils, then to our main industry, and lastly, to other 
agricultural industries, labour, &c. 
We possess in British Guiana an enormous tra6l of 
country undeveloped and to some extent unexplored. 
When the Royal Commissioners arrived here last year, 
they were accompanied by Dr. Morris of Kew Gardens. 
This gentleman, during his brief stay, journeyed a short 
distance up the tidal portion of one of our rivers, and was 
pleased to speak and write of the soil of the interior of Bri- 
tish Guiana as being of amazing fertility. The alluvial 
lands along our seashores, and the lands adjoining our 
rivers and creeks in their lower reaches, are undoubtedly of 
wonderful fertility, but as regards the enormous inland 
territory of the Colony, I would rather be guided by the 
opinion of those who have traversed large portions of it. 
