The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-01 00:00:00

GOOD FURNITURE AT MODERATE PRICES.
THOMAS FOX, 93, B ishopsgate -street, Within,
respectfully invites the Public to inspect the stock of
CABINET and UPHOLSTERY FURNITURE and BEDDING,
at his establishment, consisting of every requisite for the Mansion
or Cottage, of a quality, fashion, material, and workmanship , not
to be surpassed, and offered at prices scarcely exceeding those
commonly charged for showy but unsubstantial furniture.
Also, a most complete and beautiful collection of Chimney, Pier,
and Console Glasses, Decorative Painting, Paper-hangings, and
other Ornamental Embellishments, at the most moderate and rea-
sonable prices.

Parties requiring really good articles, will find at Thomas Fox's
astock so extensive and various as to afford every facility for advan-
tageous selection, at prices as low as are possibly compatible with
first-rate quality.
93, Bishopsgate-street Within.

LANCASTER AGRICULTURAL
MEETING.
(From the Lancaster Gazette.)
On Thursday this meeting took place, as usual, in the
Prince William Henry's field, at the top of Penny-street,
when every accommodation was provided for the occa-
sion. On the ground were J. Wilson Patten, Esq.,
M.P. • J. T. Clifton, Esq., M.P.; T. Greene, Esq., M.P.;
E. G. Hornbv, Esq., J. Satterthwaite, Esq., J. Roth-
well, Esq., W. Lamb, Esq., John Stewart, Esq., W.
Armstrong, Esq., T. Rawsthorne, Esq., J. Stuart, Esq.,
E. Dawson, Esq., &c., &c. Tho stock shown was not so
numerous, but it was decidedly superior to former exhi-
bitions. It may be taken for granted that as these exhi-
bitions rise in quality, they will diminish in quan-
tity; for mere speculation will be put an end to • so that
farmers will not be at the expense and trouble ofsending
cattle to such exhibitions when they know that they
have not a " shadow of a chance" of obtaining a prize.
The re-assembling of the friends of agriculture was
at dinner under the Assembly Room. J. W. Patten,
Esq., took the chair, and was ably assisted as Vice-
Chairmen by those two most enlightened and valu-
able " practical farmers "—Mr. Ellison, of Sisergh
Castle, and Mr. Thomas Jackson, of Borwick
Mill. Amongst those at table were—Talbot Clifton,
Esq., M.P., T. Greene, Esq., M.P., E. Dawson, Esq.,
E. D. Salisbury, Esq., T. Rawsthorne, sen. and jun.,
Els., A. R. Ford, Esq., J. H. Bateman, Esq., W. Gar-
nett, Esq., J. Clark, jun., Esq., J. Walmsley, Esq., W.
Lamb, Esq., J. Stuart, Esq., &c. On the cloth being
removed,

The dIIAIRMAN gave the usual routine toasts—Her
Majesty the Queen ; the Duchess of Lancaster ; the
Queen Dowager, Prince Albert, and the rest of the Royal
family ; and Fowden Hindle,tEsq., the High Sheriff of
the county ; the Lord Lieutenant of the county, the Earl
of Derby.
[The meeting was a very good one, and several good
speeches were made by the Hon. Chairman, Mr. Raws-
thorn°, Mr. Ford, and others, but we have not room for
a word. The Lancaster meeting happens to fall the last
in order of the many important gatherings of a similar
character we have to report this week, and hence this
very reluctant curtailment. Professor Owen was pre-
seat, and as everything coming from so high an autho-
rity must needs be valuable, we have found space for
the speech delivered by that gentleman, on his health
being drunk.]
Professor OWEN returned his best thanks for the
hearty manner in which his health had been drunk, and
for the honourable and grateful duties which had been
confided to him in proposing success to the Lancaster
Agricultural Society. Although he had a vote in two
counties, his freeholds were not of that nature or extent
which entitled him to any consideration at an agricul-
tural meeting, neither had he any claim to their atten-
tion from a practical acquaintance with the business of
agriculture. He believed he owed the present distinc-
tion to the circumstance of having devoted a great por-
tion of his life to the pursuit of science ; and, if he were
assured, and he could not hesitate in feeling that assur-
ance in the presence of the intelligent and energetic
agriculturists here assembled—that the reception he had
here met, was the expression of the conviction of the
present meeting that scientific principles were the only
true basis for the successful practice of agriculture,
he should rejoice in the opportunity which the Lan-
caster Agricultural Society had seized to add their
public testimony to the now almost universal re-
cognition of this most important and fertile
principle in the production of vegetable and
animal food. The development of vegetation from the
surface soil, and the fattening or accumulation of nutri-
tious matter in the bodies of cattle, are both great che-
mical and physiological processes : the endeavours to
accelerate and improve these processes are essentially
great chemical and physiological experiments. He who
best understanels the principles of those sciences will,
ceteris paribus, have the best success with his experi-
ments. Practical farming is the carrying on of these
chemiCal and physiological experiments • and where the
practical farmer has had an eye to the resultt and
modified his processes according to the indications of
success, he has gone beyond his neighbour, who may
have continued stationary and content with the results
which his forefathers had obtained for him. But the
rapidity and the certainty of the success which attends
improved practice are much more striking, when the ex-
periments have been based upon a knowledge of the
scientific principles of agriculture. As an exemplifica-
tion of this fact, he would cite the condition of the land
now farmed by Mr. Rawsthorne, at Heysham, and ask
them to compare it with that of the neighbouring
fields which continue to be cultivated upon the
old sptern. Some may say, perhaps, that
this is the effect of the application of capital
beyond the means of the generality of farmers in that
neighbourhood, or in this part of Lancashire ; he would
leave his friend to state how little foundation there was
for the idea that money and not science had been at the
bottom of the successful farming to which he had al-
luded. It frequently happened that the sagacious and
active agriculturist who had freed himself from the
fetters of the practice of his forefathers, not unreason-
ably rejecting what custom sanctioned, but trying ail
things, holding fast to that which was good, it generally
happened that he attained that perfection, the reason of
which could only be explained by scientific principles,
which then justified and established the practice. He
could give many instances of this sort, did time permit ;
they were very striking in regard to the opinions held
by the best breeders of cattle on the good and bad points
of the animals reared for food or draught—but as he was
desirous of saying a few words on a more important sub-
ject connected with agriculture ; the application of
the sewerage of the towns to the improvement
of adjacent lands—he should limit himself to a
single instance. He had been struck by an
observation he had heard at York, in 1838, from
his friend Mr. Bates, the celebrated cattle breeder
of Kirkleavington, that a beast with a quiet good-natured
eye fattened sooner and more kindly than ono with a
restless startled look. What, it might be asked, had the
character of the eye to do with the acquisition of fat ?
The physiologist knew that the eye was the index of the