Management of a Farm in Prince Edward 114 Draining..

Lime..

The Livingston County Plough.. Payments to the Southern Planter

BOOKS, PIANOS, MUSIC, &c. ASH & WOODHOUSE, Wholesale and

HE RICHMOND AND PETERSBURG

Constantly on hand, a full supply of stand

ard AGRICULTURAL WORKS. oct-tf

AGENCY FOR THE PURCHASE AND

SALE OF IMPROVED STOCK. TOCK Cattle of all the different breeds,

chased to order, and carefully shipped to any part of the United States, for which a reasonable commission will be charged. Apply to

AARON CLEMENT, Philadelphia. Refer to Gen. W. H. Richardson, Richmond, Virginia.

inform farmers living on the Roanoke River and on the line of the Raleigh and Gaston Rail Road, that they are transporting tobacco and other produce between Richmond and Petersburg with promptness and despatch, run ning daily trains of eight wheel covered cars, securing tobacco and goods from damage. Rail Road Agent, Petersburg, will be forTobacco consigned to the care of J. Lynch, the Agent at Gaston will be forGoods purchased in Richmond and consigned warded, free of commissions, to Richmond.

warded up the river without charge for forwarding. THOS. DODAMEAD, Sup't R. & P. R. R.

June 24, 1851-tf

AND PRINTING executed

ly attended to.

ap-if

Office South Twelfth Street.

For the Southern Planter.

SOCIETY.

Report on Premiums adopted (with amendments) bythe Executive Committee of the Virginia State Agricultural Society.

The sub-committee to whom was referred the subject of premiums, and the selection and designation of subjects thereof, in discharging the duty have kept strictly in view the resolution adopted by the Virginia State Agricultural Society, requiring that premiums shall be awarded only to subjects of utility to agricultural improvement and profit. In obedience to that rule, the following scheme has been devised, and the subjects divided under

different heads or branches.

The number of subjects to be specified, and the value of the premium offered for each, ought to be in accordance with the amount of funds of the Society to be so used, and which amount for the current year cannot be known at this early time. Therefore, even if this general plan shall be approved by the executive committee, it will be proper for the present to limit the number of subjects for reward, perhaps to fewer than will now be suggestedand certainly to far short of the number that it is hoped may be rewarded hereafter. For the like reason, it will be premature to name the precise money value of each premium. It is, therefore, proposed at present merely to designate the relative values of premiums by grades-from the first or highest grade, to the 6th and lowest; and the precise value of each to be affixed and made known hereafter, and before the time of the claims and awards being made. These grades may be proportioned to the following numbers: 1st grade as 20; 2nd 15; 3rd 10; 4th 5; 5th 2; 6th 1. When the precise value of the several grades shall have been determined, it is proposed that a portion of the premiums, of values VOL. XII.-5.

GENERAL SUBJECTS OF PREMIUMS.

1st Branch.-Experiments, agricultural or scientific, to ascertain the correctness or errors of agricultural practices, or of opinions or theory important to practice.

2nd Branch.-Essays, or other written communications, for the elucidation of either experimental, scientific, or other useful and practical subjects of agriculture.

3rd Branch.-For the best farming improvements and practice in Virginia.

4th Branch.-For the best crops, averaged to the acre, through the entire field (or the usual extent of such cultivation on a farm) and according to the established or designed rotation and system of culture.

5th Branch.-For the best specimens of live stock, for farming uses or profits.

6th Branch.-For the best agricultural machines and utensils.

7th Branch.-For the discovery or introduction of any new principle, process of agriculture, or other improvement by which important service has been rendered to the agricultural interests of Virginia.

8th Branch.-Special premiums for miscellaneous subjects of useful investigation, which may not belong to any of the foregoing heads,

9th Branch.-Premiums of not less than $20 value for each, may be offered through the Society, by, and at the expense of, any public-spirited individual, or association of individuals, who may desire thus to induce experiment or investigation on any particular subjects of inquiry, which shall come under the general design of the Society. In any such case, the premium shall be offered in and by the name of the individual donor, or association, but shall be awarded, as all other premiums, by the Executive Committee acting under the general instructions of the Society.

soil.

duct.

7th. Benefits and products of guano, compared to costs; to be tested by not less than three different experiments, made under circumstances more or less different.

8th. Benefits or profit of preserving and applying human excrements as manure, whether prepared for sale and distant transportation or otherwise; but the whole operation to be in Virginia.

9th. Tide-marsh mud, or swamp muck, or peaty soil (either kind to be accurately described and characterized) as manure, in compost with lime or other materials, or otherwise.

10th. Value of charcoal as an aid to fertility.

11th. Value of sulphate of barytes as a manure, especially for clover.

rich, or good, and subsequently exhausted by severe cropping.

2d. On draining.

3d. On rotation of crops.

4th. On the accumulation, preparation and application of stock-yard and stable manure.

5th. On the "green sand" or "gypseous earth" of lower Virginia as manure-and the facts, and causes of effect or non-effect.

southern pea (or "corn-field pea" of any 6th. On the properties and value of the variety) and the culture thereof; whether for saving the peas ripened, or ploughing under the growth, green or dry, for manure, and as a preparation for wheat, or other grain crops.

7th. On the cultivation, curing, prizing and preparation of tobacco for market, a premium of first grade.

BRANCH III.-Best Farming in Virginia-having reference as much as may be to all the territory of the State. Honorary testimonials for the twelve best farms, fit and profit in reference to the following which have been managed to greatest beneof soil, fertility, or production-increase of great objects of cultivation: improvement farming capital-sufficient annual profitsand general arrangement and procedure tending to best secure profitable and enduring results. Greater superiority in one or more of these requisites may compensate for deficiency in others.

BRANCH IV. For the best product, averaged to the acre, of each of the following and for an entire shift of the farm accordcrops raised in 1853 on a bona fide farm ing to its usual or designed rotation—a premium of first grade:

1. Best average product of Indian Corn, 6: Wheat,

2.

3.

4.

66

66.

Clover,

Tobacco;

ments.

13th. Culture, cost and profit of cultivation, and comparative feeding value of rye. BRANCH II-Essays or written Communications-For each of the best five on any of the following subjects, a premium of first grade:

lat. On improving and enriching poor land-whether naturally poor, or naturally

5. Oats.

6. Peas (southern or cornfield either among corn or separate) in grain or in green manure.

7. Timothy or other artificial grass for

hay.

BRANCH V.-Live Stock Exhibited.— (The grades and values of these premiums to be hereafter affixed and published.)

1st. For best stallion for breed of draught horses.

Whenever the best subject for which is offered a premium has not merit or value to deserve such distinction, no premium shall be awarded in that case.

Except as to farms, crops and live stock, and new discoveries, &c., (branches 3d, 4th, 5th and 7th,) or other particular exceptions stated elsewhere, the competition for premiums is open to all residents of the United States.

Any animal, machine, or utensil, (branch 5th and 6th,) which shall have a premium awarded it once, as being the best of its kind exhibited, shall not thereby be debarred from claiming and obtaining the like distinction, so long as the particular subject shall be still deemed the best at subsequent exhibitions of the society. But in such cases, after two premiums in different years may have been awarded to the same subject, any subsequent honor to the same may be a testimonial only of its continued superiority. No other subjects except the last named shall obtain a pre

mium more than once.

The kind of admissible testimony, cannot be prescribed in advance. The committees for examining claims for premiums must judge of the value of the testimony offered, as well as of the value of the claim in other respects.

As in regard to experiments, farming, crops, &c., no other witness is usually available, every claimant must testify in his own case, unless he has obtained and prefers to offer the testimony of others also.

REMARKS ON PARTICULAR SUBJECTS.

BRANCH I.-All experiments submitted for premiums, will be compared as to merit, whether they relate to one or to different subjects. The superiority of merit, or value of any experiment, or series of experiments, in comparison with others, will be decided in reference to the nearest approximation to all the following conditions: 1st. The comparative extent and completeness of the processes of experiment, and the apparent accuracy of the procedure; 2d. The clearness of the report.

BRANCH II.-Essays-The form and manner of each is left to the discretion of the writer. The award of superiority will be made in reference to the probable útility of each writing to agricultural interests, as well as to the ability of the treating of each subject. In matter designed to instruct, or to guide practical labors, clearness and fulness of details will be

deemed a high claim to merit-and next conciseness. Nothing necessary for direction should be omitted-and nothing included that can be omitted without injury to the value of the instruction.

BRANCH III.-Best Farms-Competitors for these honors must furnish a sufficiently minute, yet concise general statement of the former and present condition and products, the mode of improvement and course of general management, so that the statement may be instructive to other farmers, who can avail themselves of the like means for improvement.

To no one farm shall this distinction be awarded more than once. In subsequent awards, the farms previously distinguished shall simply be omitted from consideration, and the award to be made to the best conducted of all other known farms, without its being designed by such award, to indicate that these later distinguished farms are either superior or inferior to any which had been honored in that manner

at earlier times.

BRANCH IV.-Heaviest average Product of Crops-To compete for these premiums, it is required that the field producing the crop shall have been accurately measured (by survey) and the crop also, if of grain, by cubic contents, or otherwise. Crops of grass, &c., may be estimated by the actual weight of a small measured space of supposed average growth, such space being not less than one twenty-fifth part of the whole field.

The general measurement of the crop be stated concisely in writing. in preparation, manuring and tillage should

BRANCH V.-Live Stock-If a competitor claims any thing on the score of the breed of an animal, he must submit the pedigree in writing.

The committee will award the premiums to the animals supposed to be most valuable for farm purposes, and will at their discretion, estimate the value of the breed, as well as all other points constituting value. Unusually large and useless size, or extreme fatness, alone, will be deemed no merit. If there has been anything peculiar in the manner of feeding and other treatment of an animal, bearing on its value or profit, the facts should be submitted in writing. No unprofitable animal will be a proper subject for a premium.

BRANCH VI.-Machines and Implements-In judging of comparative merits, regard will be had not only to the effec