chambers of agriculture* 
661 
and is received by the auricles, so that the blood is passed 
on in relays and according to measure. There is, therefore, 
no possibility either of confusion or accident. The lecture 
was illustrated by a large number of diagrams and by 
specimens. 
CHAMBERS OF AGRICULTURE. 
What special purpose has been served by the institution 
of chambers of agriculture ? That they are of some use in 
promoting agricultural improvement no one doubts, hut in 
this respect they are no other than the older “ farmers’ club.” 
Many an important practical question has been discussed 
•with useful effect before both, during the three or four years 
which have elapsed since Mr. Charles Clay, of Wakefield, 
published the letter from which the chambers date; and 
many an important agricultural question, as steam cultivation, 
tenant-right, the game laws, and agricultural education— 
not to name the whole field of detail of which the theory and 
practice of agriculture consist—had been discussed by the 
older form of agricultural society long before the younger 
organization had been started. We had imagined that the 
idea of establishing chambers of agriculture throughout the 
country rose out of the impatience with which the rule for¬ 
bidding the discussion of political questions at agricultural 
meetings was regarded. This, though generally an unwritten 
law, had, nevertheless, come to have force, if only as a 
custom, and at a time when many points of agricultural 
interest seemed ripe for legislation—when the “ country ” 
party were supposed to have a fairly definite programme, and 
landlords and tenant-farmers were believed to see eye to eye 
on most of the political questions of the day—it was intoler¬ 
able that they should be hindered from combining for wdiat 
promised to be effective urgency upon Goverment through 
the operation of an obsolete idea. The old prejudice, how¬ 
ever, had to be respected, and so landlords and farmers 
united in the new form of association. That we believed to 
be the origin of the chamber of agriculture; but a recent 
meeting of the Cheshire Chamber of Agriculture throws some 
doubt upon this theory. Certainly, if the report of the 
council of this chamber is to be taken as authoritative, we 
need to reconstruct our ideas on the subject. It conveys the 
desire that in future members will abstain from expressing 
in the chamber their own political views, when there is 
