506 ROYAL AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, CIRENCESTER. 
On the removal of the cloth, the chairman read several letters, which 
he had received from gentlemen who had been invited, but who from 
various reasons were unable to be present. 
The national and other toasts having been given, and responded to,_ the 
Chairman said he had now reached the especial business of this convivial 
meeting, the healths of the gentlemen who were their guests (cheers), 
and whom they had invited there to-day under circumstances which were 
not very pleasant to their feelings, although it was not his intention, nor 
was it the wish of any individual, to allude to those circumstances fur¬ 
ther. The toast was connected with double feelings as it were. Tirst, a 
feeling of delight, arising from the advantages which we have all received 
from the long residence amongst us of those gentlemen—advantages 
derived not merely from their qualifications in their several departments, 
but what was of far more importance, their willingness and earnest desire 
to convey to others those truths of science which they had acquired by 
hard study during the earlier periods of their lives (cheers). They had 
so long had the advantages of these gentlemen’s knowledge, so freely 
given, that their loss was accompanied by the greatest regret at the sepa¬ 
ration, though he trusted they would not be far separated. He trusted 
that in other districts to which they might remove they would still convey 
their peculiar knowledge to others, particularly to the agricultural com¬ 
munity. They had all their lives been in the habit of teaching theory, 
and though they had not engaged in practice, they had urged with the 
greatest force upon practical men the importance of their understanding 
the principles by which all sound practice is regulated (hear, hear.) 
For they must know very well that though they ploughed and sowed as 
their ancestors did, by habit and by rote, the principles connected with 
agriculture were some of the highest principles of nature and the God of 
nature. Those principles and laws had no inferior origin to God himself. 
The principles which these professors had been engaged in teaching were 
the law of God which had been revealed to man, but revealed especially 
to those men who had devoted themselves to acquire the knowledge. 
They had filled their offices so long, and in such a friendly, such an agree¬ 
able, and such a loving way, that it was our bounden duty—they being 
separated from us, or rather we from them—heartily to thank them for what 
they had done (hear, hear, and cheers). There certainly could not be 
two opinions about that. He was sure that every individual present would 
heartily thank them for the liberality and kindness with which for so long 
a period they had not merely conveyed their peculiar instruction to the 
Royal Agricultural College, but had always been ready to aid individuals 
and societies in acquiring the same important knowledge. Having made 
these general remarks, it was proposed to drink the health of the pro¬ 
fessors singly, because they were not common men who didn’t know what 
to say or how to say it, but men who occupied a superior rank in their posi¬ 
tions, and whom they might never have such an opportunity of he.aring 
together as this evening. They were not met to learn, but in some little 
degree to carry out the teaching which these gentlemen had so long been suc¬ 
cessfully engaged in. He asked them first to drink the health of Professor 
Buckman (loud cheers). That gentleman was first noticed because he 
had been the longest resident, and was the senior professor. He had 
had the advantage of a personal acquaintance with him during the whole 
of his residence in Cirencester, and he had found that he was always 
ready to assist others with the peculiar information he possessed—always 
ready and willing to point out the advantages, the beauty and the delights 
of science. He had taken them into the fields and shown them the 
beautiful creation of God in the vegetable kingdom, and had pointed out 
