Writing on the subject of the Society, Mr. Handley[615] spoke of the wretched modes of farming still to be seen in the country, especially in the case of arable land, though there had been a marked improvement in the breeding of stock.  Prejudice, as ever, was rampant.  Bone manure, though in the previous twenty years it had worked wonders, was in many parts unused.  It was felt that what the English farmer needed was ‘practice with science’.  The first President of the Society was Earl Spencer, and it at once set vigorously to work, recommending prizes for essays on twenty-four subjects, some of which are in the first volume of the Society’s Journal.  Prizes were also offered for the best draining-plough, the best implement for crushing gorse, for a ploughing match to be held at the first country meeting of the Society fixed at Oxford in 1839, for the best cultivated farm in Oxfordshire and the adjacent counties, and for the invention of any new agricultural implement.

In 1840 the Society was granted a charter under the title of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and its career since then has been one of continued usefulness, and forms a prominent feature in the agricultural history of the times.

In 1839[616] the first country meeting of the Society was held at Oxford, and its 247 entries of live stock and 54 of implements were described as constituting a show of unprecedented magnitude.  According to Bell’s Weekly Messenger for July 22, 1839, the show for some time had been the all-absorbing topic of conversation not only among agriculturists, but among the community at large, and the first day 20,000 people attended the show, many having come great distances by road.  Everybody and every exhibit had to get to Oxford by road; some Shorthorn cattle, belonging to the famous Thomas Bates of Kirkleavington, took nearly three weeks on the road, coming from London to Aylesbury by canal.  But such a journey was not unusual then, for cattle were often two or three weeks on the road to great fairs, and stood the journey best on hay; it was surprising how fresh and sound they finished.[617] The show ground covered 7 acres, and among the implements tested was a subsoil plough, Biddell’s Scarifier, and a drill for depositing manure after turnips.  There were only six classes for cattle—­Shorthorns, Herefords, Devons, Cattle of any other breed, Dairy Cattle, and Oxen; one class for horses, and three for sheep—­Leicesters, Southdown or other Short Wool, and Long Woolled; with one for pigs.[618] The Shorthorns, with the exception of the Kirkleavingtons, were bred in the neighbourhood, and many good judges said long afterwards that a finer lot had not been seen since.  The Duchesses especially impressed all who saw them.  The rest of the live stock was in no way remarkable.