Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3CHAPTER III THE "WEEKLY OBSERVATIONS" AND GENERAL HISTORY OF THE SOCIETY. (1736-1750) An important step was taken, on the 2nd of December 1736, when the Society decided on publishing weekly in the Dublin textit{News Letter, a paper on some useful subject, which soon became known as the Dublin Society's " Weekly Observations." The Society arranged to take 500 copies at half a guinea per week. The papers were communicated to other journals, as they appear in Pue's textit{Occurrences and in Faulkner's textit{Dublin Journal. On the nth of December the following statement appeared in the former : " Whereas the Dublin Society do intend to begin in January to publish their observations on Husbandry and other useful'arts, which are to be inserted by their order in this paper weekly, that they may at the cheapest rate fall into more hands, and that their instructions to Husbandmen and others may become more useful by being more universal: By this method the public will be furnished with the best pieces on agriculture and c., at a trifling expense, and by getting them in small portions, they will insensibly be led into a knowledge which otherwise, by the expense, want of time or proper books, they would be ignorant of. Such gentlemen as live in the country and are not already supplied with this paper, and who are willing to encourage so useful a work, are desired to sendnotice thereof by the beginning of January next, and they shall constantly be supplied with the same; also with the best collection of news, both foreign and domestic." The Society printed a further statement on the 8th of January 1737 :—" The gentlemen who by a voluntary association formed themselves into a Society pretty well known at present by the name of the Dublin Society, having already given the public some general account of the desi...