New Works on Agricultural Botany Statistics affecting British Agricultural Interests The Weather during the Agricultural Year, 1901-1902 Summary of Members on the Register, December 11, 1902 Balance Sheet for 1901, with appended Statements of Ordinary Income and Expenditure, and of Receipts and Expendi- ture at the Cardiff Meeting, 1901 Donations to Permanent Show Fund Table showing the Number of Governors and Members in each Year from the Establishment of the Society Proceedings of the Council in 1902 . February 5, xxv; March 5, xxxiii; April 9, xxxvii ; Proceedings at the Anniversary General Meeting, May 22, 1902 lxi xciii clxxvi Statement of Receipts and Expenditure at the Carlisle Meeting, Plan of the Royal Agricultural Society's Permanent Showyard Prize List for London Show, June 23 to 27, 1903 Papers set at Examinations of 1902 for the National Diplomas ERRATA IN VOLUME 62, 1901. In line 8, on page 33, for "foot-rot" read "liver-rot.” In line 6, on page 36, for "1 per cent." read "0.1 per cent." Re-Numbering of the Volumes of the Journal. IN view of the difficulties which have been experienced in giving effective references to previous Volumes of the Journal, owing to three Series of it having been issued, each with Volumes bearing the same number, it has been decided by the Council that, to avoid confusion, the Volumes of the Journal shall be re-numbered from the beginning. Thus the Volume issued in four Quarterly Parts during 1900 will in future be described as "Volume 61, 1900," the Volume for 1901 will be described as "Volume 62, 1901," and the present bound Volume will be described as "Volume 63, 1902." A Table showing the new numbers of each of the Volumes which have been issued since the first appearance of the Journal in 1839 is subjoined. TABLE SHOWING THE VOLUMES OF THE JOURNAL (with the Old and New Numbers). Vol. 1. (1839-40) Vol. 39. 1878 ... I. (v.) IL (vi.), & III. (vii) 40. 1879 1. Parts I. (i.), II. (ii.), III, (iii), Vol. 38. 1877 ... Vol. XIII. Parts I. (xxv.) and II. (xxvi.) and IV. (IV.) XIV. 1. (xxvii.) and II. (xxviii.) I. (vii.), II. (ix.), & HII. (x.)ļi I. (xxix.) and II. (xxx.) 63. 1902... Issued as a bound Volume. Vol. 51. 1890 ... Vol. IV. (4) 52. 1891... II. 1892 ... III. " I. (9), II. (10), III. (11), and IV. (12) 54. 1893 ... IV. 55. 1894 V. 57. 1896... VII. I. (xxxi.) and II. (xxxii.) T. (xxxiii.) and II. (xxxiv.) J. (xxxv.) and II. (xxxvi.) I. (xxxvii.) & II. (xxxviii.) I. (xxxix.) and II. (x1) I. (xli.) and II. (xlii.) I. (xlii.) and 11. (xliv.) I. (xlv.) and II. (xlvi.) I. (xlvii.) and II. (xlviii.) THIRD SERIES I. Parts L (1), II. (2), III. (3), and 59. 1898... 1899 ... 61. 1900... I. (13), II. (14), III. (15), and I. (17), II. (18), III. (19), and I. (21), II. (22), III. (23), and IV. (24) I. (25), II. (26), III. (27), and I. (29), II. (30), III. (31), and I. (33), II. (34), III. (35), and I. (37), II. (38), III. (39), and I. (41), II. (42), III. (43), and 62. 1901... Issued as a bound Volume. (The numerals within brackets indicate the numbers as printed on the several Parts of each Series.) JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND. WILLIAM COBBETT. OUR greatest poet has told us that “ one man in his time plays many parts." There are few people who have more fully demonstrated the truth of this trite saying than the subject of this memoir. The son of a small farmer, he became successively an attorney's clerk, a private soldier, an ardent Tory, a red-hot reformer, a newspaper editor and proprietor, an agriculturist, a political economist, and a Member of Parliament. Not only did he play many parts, but in each he achieved success; and at the present day, when well-nigh seventy years have elapsed since his death, his name is still remembered as one of the foremost pioneers in the struggle for the reform of our Constitution. William Cobbett was born on March 9, 1762,1 the third of the four sons of George Cobbett, a small holder, living at Farnham. The father, considering his station in life and rudimentary education, was a man of superior attainments, and his knowledge of land surveying was sufficient to constitute him an authority when disputes as to boundaries arose between his neighbours. He was, in fact, an honest, hardworking, self-taught man, who did his best to make his sons equally independent and self-reliant. Cobbett himself tells us that he was not allowed to be idle, and that he cannot remember the time when he did not earn 1 Cobbett himself always believed that he was born in 1766; but it seems certain that his birth could not have been in a later year than that given here. VOL. 63. B his own living. His occupations did not differ from those of other boys in a similar condition of life. His agricultural education commenced with bird-scaring; next he was put to weeding wheat, then was promoted to leading a horse, and finally he attained the honour of "joining the reapers in harvest, driving the team and holding plough.' But he was a typical English boy, fond of adventure; and when, on a visit to Portsmouth at twenty years of age, he first beheld the sea, he was fired with the ambition to become a sailor, and made several fruitless attempts to join the Royal Navy. Afterwards he confessed that the cause of his disappointment at this time was in reality a piece of good fortune. Foiled in his efforts to join the Navy, Cobbett returned home to the farm; but he was evidently unsettled in his mind and anxious for a more exciting life. In the spring of 1783, he followed a sudden impulse and journeyed to London by coach. Here he found employment for a time as clerk in the office of a Gray's Inn attorney, which was so uncongenial to him, and filled him with so much disgust, that in later life he gave utterance to the following apostrophe in the form of an imaginary prayer: Gracious Heaven, if doomed to be wretched, bury me beneath the snows of Iceland, and let me feed on blubber; stretch my limbs under the burning line, and deny me propitious dews; nay, if it be Thy will, suffocate me with infected and pestilential air of a democrat's club-room; but save, oh, save me from the desk of an attorney. Still cherishing the idea of a sailor's life, and having one day seen an advertisement for recruits for the Royal Marines, he proceeded to Chatham, took the King's shilling, and then discovered that he had joined not the famous "Sea Regiment," but the 54th Regiment of the Line. Cobbett spent a year at the Depôt at Chatham before being sent to join his regiment in Nova Scotia. Considering the class of men from whom the Army was then recruited, it must have been a hard and distasteful life. But, from the first, he seems to have made up his mind to succeed, and, as will be seen, his rapid promotion was little short of marvellous. He made good use of his twelve months at Chatham. Not only did he learn his drill, but he read with avidity every book that came in his way. He also succeeded in teaching himself grammar, actually going to the pains of transcribing the whole of his text-book more than once, of learning it by Early Life of Marriage. 3 heart, and of repeating it all through every time that he was "on sentry-go." That this labour was not in vain is shown by the purity of his English and the grammatical construction of his sentences, which are marked features of all his works. Early in 1785 Cobbett went out, with a detachment, to join his regiment at Halifax, whence he proceeded a few months later to New Brunswick. His strict attention to duty, his sobriety, and his good education were soon the means of gaining for him the corporal's stripes, and not long afterwards of raising him to the post of sergeant-major. Despite the jealousy and ill-feeling that must have been created by the sudden advancement of a soldier of three years' service, and a mere orderly-room corporal, to be the senior non-commissioned officer in his regiment, Cobbett held his own; and, according to his own account, he never had an entry against his name during the nine years that he served in the Army. It was during his service abroad that he met his future wife, Ann Reid, the handsome daughter of a sergeant-major in the Artillery. From the moment that he first saw her, as a mere girl, he resolved to marry her. The marriage took place on February 5, 1792, and to the end of his life Cobbett always had reason to bless his discrimination in his selection of a wife.1 Throughout his life Cobbett was always waging war against corruption in various shapes and forms. Immediately on leaving the Army he brought serious charges of fraud against three officers of his late regiment, but he failed to appear at the Court-martial and the officers were acquitted. This abortive prosecution was used afterwards as a weapon of attack against Cobbett, but the full account of the whole proceedings, which he gave in his Political Register for June 14, 1809, remained undisputed by his enemies. It shows not only the perseverance which he invariably displayed in his self-appointed task of fighting corruption, but also the difficulties and dangers which he had to encounter. His experiences in connection with the Court-martial appear to have influenced Cobbett's design to leave England and settle abroad. Accordingly, after a few happy months spent in France, he and his bride set sail from Havre, and in For further details as to Cobbett's youth and political career, the reader is referred to a sketch of his life prefixed to the Rev. Pitt Cobbett's edition of the Rural Rides, published in 1893. |