Buckingham County, 1913, Part III

Dillwyn Station.  Photo by Joanne Yeck.

Need to catch up? Click here: Buckingham County, 1913, Part I

In addition to the report concerning the opening of Buckingham County schools, the September 8, 1913 issue of Richmond’s Times-Dispatch covered farming news and, of particular interest, the establishment of a county fair in Dillwyn.

Farmers and others throughout this section are showing much interest in the first county fair, which will be held in Dillwyn next month. A meeting of the fair association was held at the Odd Fellows’ Hall, in Dillwyn, on Saturday afternoon, and much business was transacted. It is generally believed that the fair will be the most important and interesting gathering ever held in Buckingham County. Already there is promise of a fine exhibit of every kind of live stock and country produce, and the cities and manufacturers promise to exhibit much in the way of machinery and manufactured products of all kinds.

This week will be known as tobacco harvest week throughout this section. Already tremendous crops of the weed have been harvested in the southern end of the county and in Appomattox and Prince Edward Counties. In the northern end of Buckingham the crop this year is exceptional in most respects, both in size and quality. A record crop in every respect will be harvested.

Corn is still maintaining its uniform condition of excellence. Farmers are saying the crop is by far the best ever known in this county. Some of the older people are comparing this year with the year of the surrender, 1865, when, apparently providentially, the crops were better than had ever been known.

While the apple and peach crops suffered an “off year,” there is enough fruit in the section for ordinary purposes and uses. Such apples as the trees bear are excellent in most respects.

Young apple orchards which have recently been planted in the section are flourishing. One orchard of a thousand trees, which was planted last fall by the dynamite process, shows a death rate of less than 1 per cent, not as many as a dozen trees of the thousand have died.

While this report from Arvonia contains many superlatives, the tidbit about the harvest of 1865 is particularly interesting, especially the fact that, in 1913, the oldest residents of the county still remembered the bounty after the surrender.

Coming next: Buckingham County, 1913, Part IV