GENTLEMEN:

Having been awarded the first premium by the American Institute, for the best cultivated farm of one hundred acres for the present year, in obedience to the rules of your institution, I send you the following statement of my mode of cultivation :

I observe in the first place, that as far as possible, I adopt the following rotation of crops: indian corn upon green sod; potatoes after corn, with a second crop of turnips or cabbage the same year; potatoes the following year, followed by wheat sown in the fall with timothy, and in the spring adding red clover seed. Thus stocked, the meadow is permitted to remain so long as it yields two tons of clean hay to the acre, which is usually five or six years, without top dressing. Each crop is thoroughly manured, except the turnips.

Manure. The manure heap is made up from the barnyard, the horse stables and the hog pens, composted with muck or mud from the salt meadows, leached ashes, ground bone, charcoal dust and guano. I form the compost as follows: charcoal dust at the bottom, wet muck, then ashes, then barnyard, hog and stable manure, then bone dust, and so on in rotation, until the material is exhausted. Then cover the whole heap with charcoal dust, and cover the charcoal dust with a heavy coat of seaweed and drift, which is thrown up in great abundance from the bay on the farm. By means of such covering, the manure heap loses none of its ammonia, and other fertilizing qualities. Immediately previous to applying the manure to the crops, the heap is turned, and thoroughly mixed and made as fine as possible, then through each load as it is taken to the fleld, a small quantity of Peruvian guano is sprinkled, equal, say fifty pounds to the acre. I have never known a tree, vine, or vegetable, upon my farm, that did not thrive on manure composted according to the above receipt; and any success which I have had in agriculture, I attribute mainly to the practice of giving every animal, and every tree, vine, and vegetable, plenty of food, and in such variety as to ensure good health and condition.

My agricultural year commences on the 1st of December. I then commence preparing my hot-beds, which consist now of

four hundred feet of glass; in these beds are placed at the bottom, leaves gathered from the woods, about six inches in depth; upon which fresh horse manure is laid about nine inches deep, with a layer above of fine rich loam. Three crops of lettuce are usually sold from these hot-beds, before the outdoor lettuce comes in competition with it. After the first crop of lettuce, cucumbers are planted, so as to be ready to occupy the hot beds as soon as the last crop of lettuce is turned out. A large yield of early cucumbers then comes into market, by the time or before a cucumber seed would be planted in the open air. These hot-beds are very profitable, and enable the farmer near the city to keep his men employed during the winter, instead of discharging them to spend their summer earnings before the next spring. January and February are spent chiefly in marketing and collecting and forming the manure heaps. The 1st of March, or the earliest period that the frost leaves the ground potatoes are planted.

Preparation for planting potatoes.-I harrow the ground, then plow, then harrow again, then form drills in these open drills. I place the seed about 8 or 10 inches apart, cover the seed with manure from the compost heap, then cover the whole with the plow by a furrow thrown on each side. This covers the seed quite deep, so that it is uninjured by the spring frests; when past danger from the frost, the drills are harrowed down. I plant Mercer potatoes principally; usually about 3 acres of white, called here the English white, or Aulgee potato; they are dug and carried to market before they are fully grown, and are sold at a very high price.

Corn I cultivate five varieties of Indian corn, viz: the Long Island white flint, the Jersey white dent 12 rowed, the large eight rowed yellow, the evergreen sweet corn, the twelve rowed sweet corn. I plant the white flint corn from the 1st to the 15th May, sweet corn every two weeks until the 1st of July. I manure in the drill with the compost, adding a little extra guano. I sow all my root crops in drills after sub-soil plowing. I use the composted manure above referred to, well mixed with the soil in the drill before sowing.

Wheat.-Immediately after the potato crop is removed, the ground is cleared of every vine and weed; it is then harrowed and plowed repeatedly, until the soil is mellowed fine, and a thorough manuring from the compost heap follows. This is plowed and harrowed in. Timothy seed is also sown thick. In the spring, red clover is sown, followed by the roller, which completes the process. I usually sow the white Bergen wheat, which has so often taken the premiums at the Fairs of the American Institute, until it was supplanted by the Australian wheat, which in my judgment is not fit to be raised in this climate.

My corn during the last year has averaged about 60 bushels to the acre. Wheat do 28. Mercer potatoes do 150. Carrots do 325. Rutta baga 450. Red top turnips, (white,) 510. The hay crop is lighter than usual, the crop averaged full two tons to the acre. Rutta baga and red top turnips are raised as a second crop after potatoes, and without any additional manure.

The following is the product of three acres of land, from which I have this year raised two crops: 1st. The whole three acres were planted with early potatoes on the 1st of March, from the sale of this crop I received in the month of July, $383.25. After the potatoes were removed, one acre was given to celery, one to spinach, and one to Ruta baga. My turnip crop is about five hundred bushels, estimated at least at $100. My celery is not yet sold, but I have been offered $350 for it, as it is now put up for the winter market, which was refused. The spinach is very large, and well covered, waiting for the spring market. At the usual price for that season, I cannot fail to get less than $200 for the crop. Here is a product of over $1,000 from three acres. The potato crop was thoroughly manured; the turnip and spinach crops were not manured. The celery was enriched with manure taken from the hot-beds, which had already produced 3 crops of lettuce, and one of cucumbers. It is unnecessary for me to describe my mode of raising and treating of fruits and fruit trees, as that is fully set forth in the report of your committee of last year, and to which I refer respectfully.

ELIJAH H. KIMBALL.

FARM OF ROBERT B. COLEMAN.

Your committee respectfully report, that on the 25th day of June last they visited the farm of Robert B. Coleman, Esq., of the Astor House, at Flatlands, L. I., situated about 8 miles from the city of New-York.

This farm contains about 51 acres, besides some 20 or 30 acres of salt marsh land, mostly lying under water, but producing a large growth of swail or coarse grass. It is bounded on the north and east by the farm of Elijah H. Kimball, Esq.; on the southeast side it fronts on salt water, forming a portion of Jamaica Bay. The soil of the farm is apparently of a late formation, composed of a rich sandy loam, and along the salt water shore a handsome breadth of black peat soil of an unknown depth presents itself. Mr. Coleman informed your committee that he purchased this farm in the fall of 1845; that he paid $129 per acre; the salt grass land was thrown in the bargain; that the condition of the farm when he purchased it was deplorable indeed, without a fence to protect it, or a dwelling house which was habitable; the soil was full of hedges and noxious shrubs and weeds.

This farm, when subdued, is easy of cultivation, few, or no stones are found upon it.

Since the farm has come into his possession, he has erected 580 feet of iron wire fence, the cost of which was $1.80 per rod; 7,000 feet of picket fence at the cost of $1.25 per rod. He has put up 400 feet of glass frames for hot beds, in which are raised early lettuce, cucumbers, and other vegetables. He has also erected 300 feet of arbor for grapes, ten feet high, and eight feet wide, which is now covered mostly with young and thrifty vines of the Isabella and Catawba varieties; there are now growing 150 young vines and plants. The dwelling house has undergone many alterations and repairs. In front of his house is a young and elegant grove of shade trees, which not only afford a pleasant retreat for his family and guests in the summer, but is visited hourly by birds, which render it vocal by their songs. Your committee witnessed several flights of songsters into this

grove, which had become tame by feeding, and by social and kind treatment.

Mr. Coleman's farm is now filled with luxuriant crops, abundance of fruit, and a large number of young trees just coming into bearing.

The location of this farm is undoubtedly superior in many respects; it is adjacent to Jamaica Bay, and on the easterly side of Long Island, a short distance of two miles from the ocean. Sloops come to a dock erected on his farm.

Mr. Coleman raised this season past sixteen acres of potatoes; they were of the Mercer and Western red varieties, looked unusually well on the ground, the vines were free from disease, and filled abundantly with blossoms; the crop produced was from 150 to 200 bushels per acre; they were valued at 87 cents per bushel. He also raised five acres of turnips as a second crop on the ground when he dug his early potatoes; the turnips yielded 450 bushels per acre. He raised 2 acres of winter wheat, production 50 bushels per acre; four acres of Indian corn, production 150 bushels of ears per acre; one acre of sweet corn; half an acre of Lima beans; one acre of carrots; one-third of an acre of cabbages; two acres of spinach; fifteen thousand celery plants; one acre of strawberries; Hovey's seedling and Boston pine; they were in full bearing when your committee saw them; they produced very large fruit of a good flavor, and many of them approaching the size of Madeira nuts. Mr. Coleman plants his strawberries in hills about two feet apart, dressed in the fall season with barn-yard manure, and with a light covering with seaweed to protect the plants from frost and snow. In the spring it is raked off. Weeding and trimming are the only care required to produce a luxuriant crop. Your committee would recommend this method of cultivating the strawberry, as economical and practical. There were also in his garden a bed of four hundred plants of raspberries; these produce an abundance of fruit. He has set out in his orchard six hundred pear trees, grafted on the quince stock; these are of choice varieties, of which one hundred were in bearing; one hundred apple trees were bearing grafted fruit. Mr. Coleman adopts the plan of plowing among his apple