University of Virginia Library

Section C. Agriculture.

There are five libraries in Virginia which contain material
on agriculture in considerable quantity and of some distinction;
namely, the libraries at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, at
Hampton Institute, at the State Library, at the University of Virginia,
and at the College of William and Mary.

There is a very live collection on this subject at the Virginia
Polytechnic Institute. It covers all fields except tropical
agriculture. There are sets of 253 periodicals, eleven of which
reach back before 1850. Of the publications of the United States
Department of Agriculture, of state departments of agriculture,
and of agricultural experiment stations there are 6,500 volumes;
and there are about 400 volumes of foreign agricultural publications.
The biography and the history of agriculture are represented,
and books on travel supplement the historical material.
Works on agricultural biology, agricultural chemistry, and agricultural
physics also support the main collection. Altogether
there are at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute 13,767 volumes
in this subject.

At Hampton Institute also there is a live collection on

agriculture. This is strong in its holdings, a fair proportion
being complete, of the publications of the state departments of
agriculture and of the agricultural experiment stations. Of these
the different titles number 260. The collection offers material
on practically all phases of the subject, and numbers altogether
4,794 volumes.

The large collection at the State Library numbers 15,563
volumes, of which about 4,500 are publications of state departments
of agriculture and of agricultural experiment stations and
about 8,700 volumes - practically all that have been issued, in
fact - of the publications of the United States Department of
Agriculture. The foreign publications represent England, Scotland,
France, Italy, and the Philippine Islands. All subjects
are represented, including soils and soil conservation.

At the University of Virginia itself there are 7,799 volumes
on agriculture, and two special libraries located elsewhere
supplement the general material. These two are the laboratory
libraries at the Blandy Experimental Farm in north-west
Virginia, which has several hundred books and over 4,000 pamphlets,
with special stress on genetics; and at the Seward Forest
in south-east Virginia, which has about 300 books and approximately
1,200 pamphlets on forestry. In addition to the supporting
material from the biological sciences, there is, at the University,
a collection of 1,986 volumes on rural social economics.

A smaller collection at the College of William and Mary
affords special interest through a considerable group of eighteenth
and nineteenth century works on gardening which were
known to and used by the colonial settlers and early planters
of America.