In 1805 John Farey and William Smith, received silver medals for agriculture from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, in recognition of work they had carried out on the Duke of Bedford's estate at Woburn. Today we recognise these men as leading geologists of their time, but Farey's medal was awarded for experiments which recorded the growth of timber trees in Brown's Wood over a sixteen-year period and William Smith's for turning Prisley Bog into a water meadow. While today these agricultural endeavours may appear unrelated to geology, this paper demonstrates how an increasing understanding of the substratum became an important aspect of agriculture, and how the offer of premiums for agriculture indirectly contributed to advancing the young science of geology.

中文翻译：

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地质学家约翰·费雷和威廉姆·史密斯荣获农业银奖

1805年，约翰·法瑞（John Farey）和威廉·史密斯（William Smith）从艺术，制造和商业鼓励协会获得了农业银牌，以表彰他们在沃本（Woburn）贝德福德公爵的庄园上所做的工作。今天，我们承认这些人是当时的主要地质学家，但法雷的勋章是为进行实验记录而颁发的，该实验记录了十六年来布朗森林中木本植物的生长，而威廉·史密斯则将普里斯利沼泽变成了水草丛。尽管今天这些农业工作似乎与地质无关，但本文证明了对底层的日益了解如何成为农业的重要方面，以及向农业提供保费如何间接促进了年轻的地质科学的发展。