424 TlMEHRI. 
purely agricultural side of this Society can be kept 
en evidence is through benevolent co-operation between 
the Society, the Government, and the Government 
Botanist, the very first step to be urged on the Govern- 
ment being to attend to the proper drainage of the 
Gardens which has been so unaccountably neglected 
during the last 9 years. I believe these are the convic- 
tions of several, if not of all, members of the Agricultural 
Committee and I think it is a decided gain that they 
have arrived at the fixed determination not to be parties 
to any expensive planting experiment to be wholly or 
partially defrayed out of the Society's funds, whereby 
time and money would be lost, and a fruitless result 
would be the outcome. Discussion is often pronounced 
barren, but the discussions of the Agricultural Committee 
have led to the threshing out of a subject, which was 
prolific of fallacies, to a practical issue. 
It is time now to take a new departure, and I heartily 
commend this matter to the consideration of the incoming 
President. 
The commercial aspect of the Society is decidedly 
looking up, and Mr. Davis's Commercial Committee 
having been appointed, it only remains now for the 
members to act when occasion requires. This has been 
a bold thought and I hope success will prove it to have 
been a happy one : it rests with the commercial com- 
munity to make it or mar it. If it be too early for the 
colony to have a Chamber of Commerce, this Committee 
might at any rate be the nucleus of one, whereby the 
status of the colony in its outside relations would be 
much enhanced. 
We have not had many papers read at the monthly 
