How highly these lectures were appreciated will be evident from the terms in which they were referred to by Sir John Sinclair in his address of 1806 to the Board. He says:-- “In the year 1802, when my Lord Carrington was in the chair, the Board resolved to direct the attention of a celebrated lecturer, Mr. Davy, to agricultural subjects; and in the following year, during the presidency of Lord Sheffield, he first delivered to the members of this Institution, a course of lectures on the Chemistry of Agriculture. The plan has succeeded to the extent which might have been expected from the abilities of the gentleman engaged to carry it into effect. The lectures have hitherto been exclusively addressed to the members of the Board; but to such a degree of perfection have they arrived, that it is well worthy of consideration, whether they ought not to be given to a larger audience.” The “degree of perfection” was in no small degree due to the amount of experimental and observational work which Davy introduced into his lectures. Mr. Bernard allotted him a considerable piece of ground on his property at Roehampton for experimental purposes, and the Duke of Bedford carried out trials for him at Woburn. He studied from time to time all the operations of practical farming, examined a great variety of soils, and investigated the nature and action of manures. He was thus brought into contact with some of the largest landowners and agriculturists of his time, and was an honoured guest in the houses of men like Lord Sheffield, Lord Thanet, Mr. Coke of Holkham, and others.[E] In the practical interest he thus displayed in the most useful of all the arts he sought to emulate the example of his illustrious prototype Lavoisier, and his work constitutes the foundation of every treatise on the subject since the appearance, in 1840, of Liebig’s well-known book. [E] In the print of the “Woburn Sheep-Shearing,” Davy is represented as one of a group comprising Mr. Coke, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir John Sinclair, and Mr. Arthur Young. Professor Warington, than whom no one is more fitted to express an opinion, has favoured me with the following critical estimate of the value of Davy’s work:--