different cows within the three months preceding the 1st of June in the year of the show.

5. No alteration to be made in the limit of age for Cows, but that every Cow in-milk and not in-calf must be certified to have had a live calf within the twelve months preceding the date of the show.

6. No Heifer entered as in-calf to be eligible unless certified to have been bulled before the 1st of March in the year of show, and not to have been again in bulling subsequently to that date; nor her owner afterwards to receive the Prize, unless on the production of a further Certificate that she has produced a live calf before the 1st of February ensuing.

7. No Cattle or Sheep to have been fed with milk subsequently to the 1st of January in the year of the show.

8. No Boar or Sow to be shown that cannot walk on account of overfatness.

The District for the Country Meeting in 1856 has been deter mined to consist of the counties of Huntingdon, Cambridge, Bedford, Buckingham, Hertford, and Essex.

The Council have the continued satisfaction of referring to the successful manner in which the practical operations of agriculture are directed by improved principles gradually adapted to each particular case by an extended knowledge of conditions; and of witnessing the same spirit of improvement that has so long sustained and encouraged the Society in the prosecution of its objects, now animating other agricultural communities in every part of the civilized world, and leading them to find their mutual advantage in friendly communication and the interchange of scientific and practical results.

By order of the Council,

JAMES HUDSON,
Secretary.

Chemical Grant: half a year

Transfers of Subscriptions

23 2 0 2.15 10

Royal Agricultural Society of England.

GENERAL MEETING,

12, HANOVER Square, Monday, May 23, 1853.

REPORT OF THE COUNCIL.

THE Council have to report that, since the last General Meeting in December, 47 Members have been lost to the Society by death, and the names of 134 other Members have been removed, on retirement or otherwise, from the list; while 170 New Members have during the same period been elected into the Society, which now consists of

90 Life Governors,

147 Annual Governors,

739 Life Members,

3928 Annual Members, and
19 Honorary Members;

making a total of 4923 Members.

The current cash-balance in the hands of the bankers at the commencement of the present month was 33007., of which sum the Council ordered 8007., on account of life compositions, to be invested in the public funds; the capital of the Society now being 10,7647.

The Council have the satisfaction of reporting, that the great practical objects, for the development of which the Society was originally founded, continue to receive a powerful impulse through the communications in its Journal; the trial and exbibition of Implements, show of Live Stock, and assemblage of farmers, at its Country Meetings; the practical discussions at its weekly Councils; and the personal co-operation of its

Members distributed throughout the kingdom. The two classes of direct investigations instituted by the Society-1, for the purpose of discovering new modes and conditions of chemical action in reference to animal, vegetable, and mineral matter; and 2, for obtaining a more exact acquaintance with the origin, nature, and treatment of diseases prevalent from time to time among the live stock of farmers-have been pursued with vigour by the professors of the Society, and have already led to important results in the one case, and to much valuable experience in the other. Progressive knowledge in agriculture is like that in every other art dependent on science for its advancement: as its sphere of operation becomes more extended, and its indications more accurately defined, it opens wider views of the application of those new principles, which are founded on incontrovertible facts, and have been deduced by the aid of science. As instances, however, are constantly occurring of hasty generalisations and illogical deductions, made in the application of science to agricultural data, and of the very different laws assigned, even by distinguished writers, to explain the production of the same phenomena, the Council recommend to the Members of the Society a strict adherence to that inductive process attendant on the comparison and discussion of actual facts, which regards abstract science as only the referee to be consulted, or the prime mover, whose subtle agency, like that of steam or electricity, is only available for practical objects, when its power is coerced, and its action restrained within required limits. The invaluable results which have already been obtained by such union of practice with science, lead the Council to the well-grounded expectation that still greater success will attend the future operation of that combined influence in promoting the cause of a sound and rational agricultural economy. The ensuing number of the Society's Journal, now in the press, will contain the following, among other communications:-1. Professor Way's Lectures before the Society, on his discovery of a natural source, in great abundance, of soluble silica, adapted for the preparation

of the double silicates, on which he believes the absorptive power of certain soils for manure to depend; and on his analytical results of investigations into the comparative nutritive value of natural and artificial grasses and weeds. 2. Professor Simonds's report of experiments made in this country, by direction of the Society, on animals affected with pleuro-pneumonia, and in which, by inoculation, according to foreign practice, with a morbid fluid taken from diseased lungs, the powerful counterirritation of gangrenous inflammation to a certain extent in the system, rather than the production of pleuro-pneumonia itself, appears under certain conditions either to have subdued the ordinary symptoms of that fatal malady, or to have been in many cases the immediate cause of death. 3. Mr. Lawes's continuation of his valuable experiments on the feeding of animals. And, 4. Professor Wilson's Lecture before the Society, on the agricultural and technical treatment of flax.

next.

The Gloucester Meeting will be held in the middle of July The entries of Implements, as will be seen by the following tabular statement, are more numerous than in former years, the area engaged for their exhibition amounting to 105,000 square feet, and the shedding required being nearly a mile in length :

The entries for Live Stock will not close until the 1st of June,