IN SCOTLAND.

429

with pleasure ; and amidst the innocent gratifications of socialintercourse, the interests of agriculture, and the improvementof the country, are promoted.

4. There are many difficulties which would startle the mostpowerful individual, which vanish before the combined effortsof a numerous association, when it is possessed of informationand influence, and funds adequate to the objects they un-dertake *.

5 . The proceedings of a respectable association, have a greateffect in liberalizing the minds of men, and in exciting all themembers to reflection and exertion in the cause of improve-ment. By such means, plans of good management, usefulpractices, and other objects connected with the improvementof the country, come to be better understood and more gene-rally extended.

6. When such a body of men act on a proper plan, andpossess the combined powers of skill and influence, a know-ledge of every useful fact, or new discovery, is speedily diffus-ed ; and it is of incalculable importance, that such an associa-tion can speedily decide on the merits of any new sugges-tion ; and whether it be adapted to the particular districtwithin the sphere of their influence, by subjecting it to actualexperiments, which farmers will often be prevailed upon toundertake, (where a proper spirit is raised), and to report theresult j-.

In the last place, many benevolent results spring fromsuch institutions. The aged and the infirm, the fatherlessand the widow, who reap the happy fruits of such institutions,are living monuments of the inestimable advantages whichflow from them.

* Ross-shire Report, p. 332-3-

■\ TXimfries-sliire Report, p. 485.