1 Juny, 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 47 
The next paper was by Mr. Jonny Frenprye, of the Lockyer Farming and 
Industrial Association, Blenheim, Laidley, and was as follows :— 
AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES IN THEIR RELATION 'O THE GENERAL 
PUBLIC. 
The existing relationship and the regard in which agricultural societies are held 
by the great bulk of our people are not, to my mind, nearly so close or as respectful as 
the case should be, and as I believe they might become if we could secure on the part 
of the societies a more progressive and ever improving up-to-date line of operations, and 
on the part of the general public (who are at present wrongly regarded as patrons of 
the societies) a recognition of the services rendered them by dropping the air of 
patronage and adopting instead a sympathetic co-operation. I hold the view that it 
1s possible to improve matters very much, that ways and means exist to adapt the 
methods of working our societies so as to commend them to the attention and support 
of a great majority of our people, and I shall be pleased if my small effort shall induce 
some serious thought on the subject. 
In the first place, we have to note what is the present relationship. It is well 
known what splendid services to the State, agricultural societies have rendered in every 
country where they have existed during the century just passed, and it is well to know 
and to acknowledge the work that our fathers did in the interests of agriculture and, 
therefore, of the State. And it is well known that the improvement of every branch 
of knowledge in agriculture has been largely developed by the establishment of 
agricultural societies. In Great Britain,in 1798, the Board of Agriculture was 
established and received an annual grant from Parliament. The Bath and West of 
England Society published its transactions shortly after that date. The Society of 
Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland was established in 1723. It 
is now entitled The Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland. In 1844 the 
Agricultural Museum at Edinburgh was aided by a Parliamentary grant of £5,000. 
The Royal Agricultural Improvement Society of Ireland was established in 1841. 
These institutions seem to be the original ones that enabled our fathers to compare 
their products, and incited to emulation in industrial and intelligent agricultural enter- 
prise ; and when we think how these institutions have been multiphed, and in their 
increased capacity, the wonderful influence they have exercised for good the wide 
world over, we can well afford, as we meet here in agricultural conference, under the 
Southern Cross, with its differing conditions of agriculture, as sons, many of us, of the 
old land, and possibly, too, sons of the very founders of the original societies in old | 
Treland, Scotland, and England—“ the United Kingdom’’—yes, and it well becomes us 
to look back with feelings of pleasurable pride, and to unite in paying homage to the 
memory of an ancestry whose sowings for the public weal have borne such splendid 
fruit. 
But if they did their duty so must we. We cannot live on their reputation. The 
societies of to-day, if Lcan judge (and I have had some years of experience with one, 
and I haye made constant inquiries as to others), live a very precarious and uncertain 
life. As the individual cannot develop arobust and effective life without proper food, 
so an agricultural society cannot develop a strong useful life to the community unless 
adequately saute by that community. In the face of necessity, recourse has had 
to be made to the State rear and, in the shape of endowment on receipts, help 
is given by the Government, and without this help it would be impossible for any 
society to carry on its work in the way of offering prizes for agricultural productions 
that would incite to or secure competition; and while it is eminently right that the 
State should exercise the power to compel the recipient of a benefit (whether it be 
the hospital for the care of his sick, or the society for the improvement of his 
seed, his stock, or his implements of husbandry) to help pay the endowment, we 
think it would be much better if all the help came voluntarily. Seeing the useful 
work our societies are doing, one would think there must be good reasons why more 
voluntary help is not forthcoming and the relationship remains unacknowledged except 
by compulsion. 
According to the conditions surrounding any life, so that life will be vigorous and. 
useful or otherwise, and the conditions aie which our societies are working are not 
of the best, and are producing their natural results. In the first place, the agriculturist 
as a class is not in touch with the majority of our societies ; andif the head of the body 
is deranged, what else but confusion can we expect? The agriculturist should be the 
head and a great part of the body too of all our agricultural societies. But on close 
inspection we find that many societies are agricultural only in name; that, in almost 
every case, more attention is paid to the general effect as a show-conducting society, 
the show to consist of jumping and log-chopping exhibitions, &c., and the collection of 
