ITEMS ABOUT TURNIPS AND OTHER ROOT CROPS. 517 



State at least. Under the wise regulations of this Society, constantly improving, 

 and especially of late years, in its administration of the office it has undertaken, 

 the winner of this turnip premium, Mr. Hastings, has doubtless been required to 

 detail with particularity the whole process, and all the expenses ; and that ac- 

 count, instead of being published at once, far and wide in the agricultural and 

 other papers, through which the whole community could get it, at a cost of a 

 cent or two, will some year probably make its appearance in a few big volumes, 

 to be given away to a few persons, all of whom are well able, but many of them, 

 too miserly to subscribe to an agricultural paper, though they can find means to 

 pay for a party sheet — or to be given out again as premiums. 



Not an agricultural journal is patronized by the Slate Agricultural Society — 

 although the Cultivator, the Agriculturist and the Genesee Farmer have done tea 

 thousand times more to diffuse knowledge and keep alive a spirit of inquiry, than 

 all the agricultural societies and institutes in the Slate, from their foundation td 

 the present day. But for the agricultural and the general Press, these institutions 

 could not sustain existence. Any one of the papers we have named, diffuses fifty 

 times as much information, and to ten times as many people, as their Vol- 

 umes of Transactions. Let agricultural journals be suspended, and we should 

 see all these Societies gasping for breath, like mice in an exhausted receiver. 

 The following were the premiums for crops : 



FIELD CROPS. 



Indian Corn. — Geo. Vail, Troy, (2 acres, 67 l)ushels per acre,) $20. 



Spring Wheat. — Robert Eells, Westmoreland, Orange Co., (2 acres, 20^ bashels per 

 acre,) $8. 



Barley. — Benjamin Enos, De Ruyter. MadLson Co., (2 acres, 39 bushels per acre,) $10. 

 E. C. Bliiis had not sufficient land for premuim. 



Oats. — Charles W. Eells, Kiikland, Oneida Co., (2 acres, 8o| bushels per acre,) $10. 

 Benj. Eiios, De Ruyter, Madison Co., (71 bushels per acre,) $8. 



Beans. — E. C. Bliss, Westfield, Chautauque Co., (3I4 bushels per acre,) $8. 



Flax. — \Vm. Newcomb, Pittstown, Rensselaer Co., (half acre,) $5. 



ROOT CROPS. 



Potatoes. — Daniel Newcomb, Pittstown, Rensselaer Co., (1 acre, 405 bushels,) $10. Mar- 

 tin Springer, Brunswick, Rensselaer Co., (360 bushels,) $8. 



Ruta-Bagas. — Joseph Hastings, Branswick, (1 acre, 1,317 bushels,) $10. 

 Carrots. — Wm. Risley, Fredonia, Chautauque Co., (half acre, .557 bushels,) $8. 



It'will be seen that Mr. Vail, the worthy President of the Society, and now, 

 like all his predecessors, a Member of the Executive Committee, ex officio, bore 

 off the premium for the heaviest crop of corn — 67 bushels to the acre on two acres. 



Fifty years ago, a wager of fifty guineas was laid between Mr. John Stevens, 

 of Hoboken, and Mr. Daniel Ludlow, of Westchester, who would make the 

 greatest crop of Indian corn on an acre of land. Mr. Ludlow made 98 bushels 

 and 14 quarts, and was beaten by his competitor, who made 118 bushels and 2 

 quarts — not far from double the State Society premium crop in 1847. What thea 

 comes of the effect of these premiums after a repetition for so many years? If the 

 Society persist in offering them, should they not require that the crop should be 

 equal, at least, to any recorded, and that it be the result of a process, lake it alto- 

 gether, which it would be advisable and frofitahle for farmers generally to follow ? 

 If the object be to ascertain merely what can be done, has not that been shown 

 every year for fifty years? We speak only of what appears to us to be the true 

 policy. It would be much easier, more agreeable, and more profitable, to praise 

 everything, or to " lay dark ; " but that 's a policy we shall not practice while 

 acting as one of the humblest sentinels over the interests of the agricultural com- 

 munity. 



(957) 



