xlviii  Report  to  the  General  Meeting. 
Finances  of  the  Society  ; and  to  submit  to  the  members  the  half- 
yearly  balance-sheet  of  the  general  account,  and  the  special 
balance-sheet  of  the  country  meeting  at  Exeter,  along  with  the 
quarterly  statements  of  income  and  expenditure,  assets  and 
liabilities,  funded  property,  and  current  cash  account,  laid  before 
the  Council  by  the  Finance  Committee  and  Auditors. 
The  Journal  of  the  Society,  transmitted  postage  free  to  the 
members  in  August  last,  will  have  borne  to  them  in  its  own  pages 
the  best  evidence  of  its  intrinsic  value.  The  succeeding  part, 
now  on  the  eve  of  publication,  will  no  less,  the  Council  believe, 
sustain  the  high  character  of  its  predecessor,  and  still  further 
evince  to  the  Society  the  high  privilege  its  members  enjoy  in 
being  favoured  with  so  large  an  amount  of  the  devoted  attention 
of  Mr.  Pusey,  who,  in  his  capacity  of  chairman  of  the  Journal 
Committee,  effects  that  selection,  arrangement,  and  elaboration 
of  matter  for  its  pages,  which  results  in  so  valuable  a collection 
of  data  for  immediate  application  in  given  cases,  and  for  the 
further  advancement  of  agricultural  knowledge.  “ Books,”  it  is 
true,  as  Mr.  Pusey  himself  remarks,  “will  not  teach  farming; 
but,”  he  adds,  “if  they  describe  the  practices  of  the  best  farmers, 
they  will  make  men  think,  and  show  where  to  learn  it.  If  our 
farmers  will  inquire  what  is  done  by  the  foremost  of  them,  they 
will  themselves  write  such  a book  of  agricultural  improvement, 
as  never  was  written  elsewhere,  in  legible  characters,  with  good 
straight  furrows,  on  the  broad  page  of  England.”  The  Council 
trust  that  the  best  practice,  whether  obtained  from  the  pages  of 
the  Journal  or  from  personal  inspection  of  the  best  farming,  will 
be  thus  transferred  to  the  hitherto  neglected  lands  of  the  king- 
dom, and  lead  to  results  alike  satisfactory  to  all  parties  connected 
with  them.  The  Council  are  gratified  to  find  that,  of  all  the 
Journals  sent  to  the  members  by  post,  amounting  in  number  to 
nearly  30,000  copies,  only  one  case  has  been  made  known  to 
them  in  which  a Journal  has  not  eventually  reached  its  destina- 
tion : and  they  regard  this  fact  as  not  only  important  to  the  So- 
ciety, but  as  reflecting  the  highest  credit  on  the  postal  establish- 
ment of  the  country. 
