20110896 Ver 1_More Info Received_20120402

Strickland, Bev
From: Mcmillan, Ian
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 10:43 AM
To: Strickland, Bev; Dennison, Laurie
Subject: FW: Orton follow -up
Attachments: 3 -27 -12 Ag. Dept. Letter.pdf; 3 -27 -12 CGRF Paper.pdf
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E -mail correspondence to and from this address may be subject to the
North Carolina Public Records La-,i- and may he disclosed to third parties.
From: Coburn, Chad
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 8:42 AM
To: Mcmillan, Ian
Subject: FW: Orton follow -up
FYI. Sorry that I didn't call you back last week. I was on annual leave on Thurs & Fri.
From: Steve Morrison [mailto:smorrison(a)lm roup.net]
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 11:58 AM
To: Coburn, Chad
Cc: Gregson, Jim
Subject: Orton follow -up
Chad,
I believe our meeting yesterday regarding Orton Plantation's project was productive and I appreciate the input from both
you and Jim. Following comments by the agencies at the beginning of the meeting, Peter Talty was able to elaborate in
detail on the project's purpose and need by touching on several supporting efforts. They include:
Coordination with SHPO for the inclusion of the entire rice field system within the listing for the National Register of
Historic Places (as detailed within the Project Purpose Supplement, Appendix E, recently circulated to the review
agencies)
Request for Orton Plantation listing as a National Historic Landmark to the National Park Service (as detailed within the
Project Purpose Supplement, Appendix E, recently circulated to the review agencies)
Receipt of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation's white paper synopsis regarding and supporting rice production at Orton
Plantation (copy attached)
Receipt of the endorsement letter supporting the restoration of the rice fields and infrastructure from Steven Troxler,
Commissioner of the NC Department of Agriculture (copy attached)
We believe that between the information provided within the Project Purpose Supplement materials, the discussion during
the meeting of the need to protect and restore the rice fields (as a defining element of the plantation) for their historical

and agricultural significance and considering the unique direct ancestral linkage to the plantation of the principal of Orton
Plantation Holdings, LLC, that the project's purpose and need has been sufficiently demonstrated. Please confirm that this
is satisfactory for your review purposes and let me know if you should have any further questions. Thanks again for your
assistance.
Steve Morrison
LMG
910- 452 -0001

Orton Plantation Rice Production — Past, Present & Future
Overview and Synopsis
Prepared by the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation
Introduction and History
Between 1700 and 1775 no colony in British America experienced more impressive
growth than North Carolina, and no region within the colony developed as rapidly as the
Lower Cape Fear. Totally uninhabited by Europeans in 1700, this isolated corner of
North Carolina 's southern coast is particularly noteworthy for its relatively late
colonization and its rapid rise to economic prominence , first settled in 1725, the region
grew to be the most prosperous in North Carolina by 1775. The study of the eighteenth -
century settlement of the Lower Cape Fear is a prime example for understanding North
Carolina and the entirety of colonial America as a patchwork of regional cultures
(Bradford, J Wood, 2004).
One family, the Moore's, proved to be pivotal in the development of the Lower Cape
Fear. During early 1700's they shaped the regions political and economic importance
within North Carolina. The Moore's provide an instructive if exceptional example. As the
most powerful family in the region, they articulated an elite model of behavior many
other families no doubt emulated. The Moore's like many other settlers clearly
developed impressive and complex kinship ties to the Lower Cape Fear. Maurice and
Roger Moore were powerful men, coming from one of South Carolina's most prominent
families. Maurice's father, James Moore, came to South Carolina from Barbados in the
1670's and served as Governor of South Carolina between 1700 and 1703. These
connections insured that two of the 10 siblings, Maurice and Roger, would become
wealthy and influential plantation owners.
Orton and Kendall plantations were created on lands granted by the Lords Proprietors in
1725 to Maurice Moore, who along with brothers Roger, Nathaniel and a group of
settlers founded Brunswick Town (now within Historic Brunswick Town District). Maurice
established lands further up river and passed ownership of the land to Roger. Although
the Moore's had originally emigrated from Ireland via Barbados, Orton and Kendall were
named after the Moore's ancestral homes in the Lake district of North of England. Roger
Moore was among the first settlers to build a distinctive plantation system along the
Cape Fear River. Some fragmentary business accounts reveal that by 1735 Moore
already exported lumber, turpentine and wood shingles from Lower Cape Fear. At this
time Moore also traded with connections in both South Carolina and Barbados.
These accounts probably provide only a small glimpse of the range of activities on
Moore's Orton & Kendall plantations. Fifteen years later, Moore's will revealed that his
resources included "Twenty Odd Thousand Acres of Land & Near Two Hundred and
Fifty Slaves ", making him almost certainly the wealthiest plantation owner in North
Carolina.
Page I Carolina Gold Rice Foundation 3232012
Orton Plantation Synopsis

Sometime between 1726 and 1730 Roger Moore established a modest house on the
10,000 acre site to be called Orton. The house was burned down by Cree Indians and
his next home was established on neighboring land which subsequently became Kendal
Plantation. However, by 1735 he had moved his family to a more suitable brick mansion
situated on the original Orton house site. Over time and subsequent ownerships the
original brick structure was enveloped and extended to create a Greek Revival
Antebellum house that is one of the most recognized in North Carolina today.
Orton Plantation's rice fields as seen today were constructed sometime between 1726
and 1750 together with the damming and construction of Orton pond, which was
essential as a reserve to supply the rice fields with water. The pond and rice field layout
is recorded on many early historic navigation plans of the Cape Fear River. Research is
ongoing and current thinking suggests that the `back' rice fields contiguous to Orton
pond, protected by higher ground and most easily fortified against the brackish Cape
Fear River, were developed first as a beta test site to experiment with rice cultivation.
Due to their success, a large dike impoundment was built out into a shallow portion of
the Cape Fear River. This was equipped with extensive irrigation and water control
structures to modulate water levels. At the same time sluices drained the fresh water of
Orton pond through a series of paddies and canals within the original "Back" rice fields
to the 200+ acres of rice fields that provide the magnificent foreground view from the
front of the plantation house. Although cultivation of rice and other crops has been
intermittent in the last few decades, the original system of water controls, sluices, canals
and embankments are largely in place and functional.
Orton was the first rice plantation in the Lower Cape Fear Region and one of the largest
in North Carolina and because of his vast land holdings, Roger Moore was referred to
as `King' Roger. The amount of slave labor that was needed to build the original pond
and back rice fields was significant but with commercial success even more slaves were
imported to build out and cultivate the massive front rice fields. This horrendous and
cruel labor system gave way after the civil war to large agrarian employment and
eventually more mechanized cultivation.
Upon his death in 1750, Moore left his Orton and Kendal estates and 250 slaves to his
sons, half- brothers George and William. William died seven years later and passed
Orton to wife Mary and son Roger (the younger). Orton was thereafter passed through
various ownerships:
Richard Quince: 1770 -1796.
• Benjamin Smith: 1796 -1826, grandson of Roger Moore and Governor of North
Carolina (1810 -11). 1800, Brunswick census lists 199 slaves
• Dr Fredrick Jones Hill: 1826 -1854. 1830 Brunswick census lists 55 slaves. 1850
census shows profitable Sawmill, Corn mill and Rice Threshing Machine
producing 15000 bushels of rough rice (annual production of 325,000 pounds of
Rice) with 77 slaves
• Thomas Calezance Miller: 1854 -1872. Rice plantation flourishes until end of Civil
War. 1860 Brunswick census lists 144 slaves in 40 houses
Page 2 Carolina Gold Rice Foundation 3232012
Orton Plantation Synopsis

• Isaac B Grainger: 1874 -1876 \
• Currer Richardson Roundell: Feb 1876- July 1876
• Col. Kenneth McKenzie Murchison: 1884 -1909
• Luola Murchison Sprunt and James Sprunt: 1909 -1924
• James Laurance Sprunt: 1924 -1973
• James Laurance Sprunt Jr., Laurance Gray Sprunt, Kenneth Murchison Sprunt,
Samuel Nash Sprunt
• 1978 -2010 Louis Moore Bacon (descendant of Roger Moore), as principal of
parent company to Orton Plantation Holdings LLC.
Current rehabilitation of National Register nominated Orton Plantation house and
gardens together with the proposed rehabilitation and restoration of the rice fields
highlighted the need to connect the plantation house, gardens and rice fields as one
historic entity, hence the desire and importance of including the rice fields on the
National Register. In order to understand the rice field systems as agricultural features,
the fields should be considered in context of the plantation, plantation house, slave
villages, kitchens, outbuildings and burial grounds. As cultural landscapes, rice fields
consist of interconnected systems of land, water, vegetation and wildlife that
differentiate them from other cultural resources.
The rice grown and produced at Orton was of a high quality, fine grain which was highly
prized and sought after as seed rice by the larger southern plantations. The annual
production of seed rice was critical in order to maintain the vast economies and rapid
growth of rice plantations in the southern states. Orton and other Lower Cape Fear
plantations were a key factor in the maintaining the development and success of the
Southern based rice economy. Orton Rice fields have the potential to be primary
sources from which researchers can gain understanding about Colonial and Antebellum
periods of North Carolina and the Cape Fear Region.
Extensive slave labor made the economic development of the Lower Cape Fear
possible and the circumstances surrounding slavery did as much to differentiate the
Lower Cape Fear form other regions as anything else. Contemporaries acknowledged
that there were many more slaves in the region than could be found on inland territories.
Although fiercely independent of South Carolina, Governance and Tax structure, Lower
Cape Fear rice plantations, represented the most northerly position of the Carolina Low
Country and is known as the upper most limit of the "Deep South ".
Orton's rice fields are the last of the many rice plantations of North Carolina. They stand
as tangible record of the skill and labor exerted by enslaved laborers. Although the
noted Civil War battlefields of Fort Fisher and Fort Anderson flank the southern
boundary of Orton, the reason for the war itself was the demands of the slave labor
practice that built and cultivated the plantation's rice fields that will hopefully be restored
as its own 'battleground' testimony.
Page 3 Carolina Gold Rice Foundation 3232012
Orton Plantation Synopsis

Map of Orton Rice Fields
Golden Seed Rice History
Although rice was planted as a market crop in the Carolina Low country near
Charlestowne by 1685 and proliferated North and South rapidly along the Carolina and
Georgia coasts over the next century to become a major pre - revolutionary commodity
export, rice did not become a distinctive American export crop with respect to its
morphology, taxonomy and unique identity until after our revolution.
Dr. David Shields writes extensively about the genesis of Carolina rice in his
introduction to The Golden Seed... "Some time before the Revolutionary War, the `Gold
Seed' rice was introduced (from what precise quarter, and how, has not been accurately
ascertained) which, owing to its superiority, soon entirely superseded the white." Dr.
Shield notes that "more precise commentators pinpoint its (Carolina Gold rice)
introduction to the period after the cessation of hostilities between the United States and
Great Britain form 1783 -1785.
Page 4 Carolina Gold Rice Foundation 3232012
Orton Plantation Synopsis

Even though we cannot state with certainty the origins of Carolina Gold Rice, we can
site planter - naturalists of the era who presented the first informal characteristic
description of Carolina Gold rice: "The ordinary crop rice most highly esteemed and
therefore universally cultivated, an oblong grain 3 /8ths of an inch in length, slightly
flattened on two sides, of a deep yellow or golden color, awn short; when the husk and
inner coat are removed, the grain presents a beautiful pearly -white appearance —an
ellipsoid in figure, and somewhat translucent."
The meteoric rise in acreage devoted to Carolina Gold rice after our revolution followed
the trajectory of improved practices characterized today as the scientific agricultural
movement. Over 100,000 acres of rice lands were in production and those acres
demanded pure seed. Scientific farmer /breeders moved aggressively to develop
vigorous pure Carolina Gold seed to combat the increasing incidence of weedy red rice
in Carolina Gold production fields. Their routines against foreign variety and weedy
contamination were extensively researched and trialed after 1800. R. F. W. Allston, E.
T. Heriot, and Joshua John Ward rose as South Carolina scientific breeders whose
seed rices were legendary for purity and vigor in their regions. It is no small coincidence
that Dr. Frederick Jones Hill, Orton's owner from 1826 to 1854, worked closely with his
South Carolina colleagues and was equally respected with regard to his research,
weedy rice suppression protocols, seed selection, and market production. In short,
Orton was one of only five great rice research stations strung along the Carolinas and
Georgia devoted to breeding and horticultural science during that era. Orton's many rice
fields were used to develop and trial Carolina Gold rice in any scale from small isolated
100 sq. ft. rice plots to massive field trials on hundreds of acres for production.
Golden Seed Rice History at Orton Plantation
Orton Plantation, under Dr. F. J. Hill, became the vital Northern supplier of pure
Carolina Gold Rice seed to support the vast market rice production across all ricelands
extending deep into Louisiana beginning in 1830. Orton's reputation for pure seed was
legendary and critical to national rice horticultural advances between 1830 and the Civil
War.
Dr. Shields writes of Orton's rice seed history:
"During the 1830s, 40s, and 50s, Orton Plantation was the northernmost producer of
Carolina Gold rice seed, replenishing the production stock of planters nationally. The
plantation's owner during this period, Dr. Fred J. Hill, belonged to the rigorous network
of planters extending from the Santee River to the Cape Fear who exchanged seed
stock and policed seed purity. The entire southern rice planting system depended upon
seed produced by these breeders. Careful planters as far away as Louisiana improved
their rice plantings with an infusion of `northern seed' [the 19th- century designation for
production from this area north of the Santee and PeeDee] on a three year cycle; less
careful, on a six year cycle.
Page S Carolina Gold Rice Foundation 3232012
Orton Plantation Synopsis

Sowing Rice at Orton Circa 1890
Hill embodied the experimentalist spirit that enlivened the most successful southern
planters during the second quarter of the 19th century. Because of a fire that destroyed
Orton's mill and grain processing infrastructure in 1824 during the Governor Benjamin
Smith's final years of residence, Dr. Hill, when he took possession in 1826, rebuilt with
state of the art engineering the finest rice hulling and milling factory in the region. He
installed gates on the water system, and created a fully functional tidal irrigation scheme
on the S.C. model. He sought seed partnerships with important rice breeders in South
Carolina —R. F. W. Allston, E. T. Heriot, and Joshua John Ward —to secure the best
available seed stock. As the most learned of the Cape Fear Planters, he became the
resource for the growers at Belvidere, Buchoi, Clarendon, Lilliput, Kendal, Hilton, and
Sans Souci Plantations in Brunswick County, providing advice on insect infestation, red
rice pollution of fields, and declining field production.
The heyday of rice production ceased with the Civil War. Orton was declared
abandoned by the Federal Authorities and briefly turned over to occupancy by
freedmen. The lands lay abandoned for fifteen ears. When K. M. Murchison secured
ownership of Orton in the final quarter of the 19t century, the expense of rice planting in
Carolina made in non - competitive with high - yielding Honduran white rice planted in the
Southwest. Even John F. Garrell, the greatest agricultural savant of the region after the
War, could not make Sans Souci plantation's rice (despite its superior taste, mouth -feel,
and appearance on the plate) compete in the commodity market against rice from
Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana.
In 1911, the U. S. D. A. in 1911 funded the draining of wetland rice fields at Orton
Plantation to determine whether they could be converted to dry field agriculture. This
attempt at secondary usage failed. A hurricane later in the year effectually brought an
end to commercial rice production in the Carolinas until its revival in the 21St century.
[Annual Report of the U. S. Department of Agriculture 1911, p. 762]"
Page 6 Carolina Gold Rice Foundation 3232012
Orton Plantation Synopsis

Ploughing Ortons Fornst Rice Fields Circa. 1890
Heirloom Rice Foodways, Farming and Cultural Notes
Carolina Gold rice market farming created a unique set of foods that eventually evolved
into a complete cuisine. Sweet potatoes, brassicas, oats, barley, buckwheat, benne,
emmer, bread rye, wheats, maize, cowpeas, broad beans, etc. were involved at the
height of 19th century science supported market farming in an elegant sequence of
mixed crop rotation prior to industrialization. We have completely lost these
combinations and rotations in modern times.
These rice crop rotation crops formed the cuisine associated with our market farming
and eventually attained stature in Europe and on our tables. There is renewed interest
in our rice cuisine, known today as the Carolina Rice Kitchen, and all of the plants and
systems that once vaulted it onto the global stage. Dr. Shields is about to publish a
definitive work on the plants and foods of our 19th century market farming.
There has been explosive media interest in Carolina (including North and South) rice
cuisine in the last 18 months since Dr. Shepard, Dr. Khush and Dr. McClung released
their new rice "Charleston Gold."
We are witnessing our youth becoming aware of their own food legacies and we see
them returning by the tens of thousands to their local tables nationally. This
phenomenon is moving ahead with alacrity and is constant in homes, farmers markets,
food kiosks and restaurants. Everyone in the "older" generation in our major urban
centers where these food systems are beginning to take hold economically, is adapting
or being left behind.
Page 7 Carolina Gold Rice Foundation 3232012
Orton Plantation Synopsis

In the South, particularly the Virginia to Southern Georgia region, there is renewed
global interest in our local food heritage beyond urban gardening and hobby cropping
for the first time since the mid - nineteenth century. There are growing clusters of nascent
heritage food farmers encircling our larger cities.
The latest Southern entry onto the world stage sourcing quality ingredients from this
movement is Husk Restaurant in Charleston and Husk's Chef Sean Brock. Brock is
equally a farmer and a chef and has been featured in major media here, in Europe and
in Asia more than any other American chef over the last year. Brock's food philosophy,
garnered from his time with Dr. Shields, marries local food history and Brock's modern
locale. Brock is reviving lost foods at a rapid clip. Husk restaurant is living the Carolina
Rice Kitchen and they are booked solid 30 days in advance right now. Brock is
unabashedly drawing Carolina Rice and its companion foods back into the Southern
pantry while the world watches.
Orton should be a major presence in this grand movement toward sense of place and
local identity. Simply, there is deep cultural meaning in repatriating North Carolina rice
for the people of North Carolina. Our rices were always Carolina rices... they were the
legacy of the Lowcountry without cultural borders.
Comment on Landrace Genetics and Farming
Most modern breeders are focusing upon nano and gmo seed improvement and many
of our young geneticists are no longer working in the public realm. It would be folly to
deny that we must address carrying capacity and the rising challenge to feed a growing
global population. This is a given within our pursuits.
But we are aware of adaptive weaknesses in these modern systems. The CGRF set out
at our inception to explore our mission scientifically and apply the results to modern rice
agriculture systems. We know that landrace cereals regress in small populations and
can exhibit more vigor and new traits in large populations. We are also aware that large
cereal populations increase frequency of beneficial mutation and sporting in unintuitive
ways. We know that there is little chance for this genetic expression in a seed bank
replication plot, especially when the stated purpose of the plot is true type replication.
Our position on landrace farming is that we should all keep focused upon the mission to
feed the world while leaving scientific and practical breathing room to support and study
landrace plant systems that have been adapting to pest pressure and climate change in
larger populations for centuries and many times millennia. The Carolina Gold Rice
Foundation is following this mission to the letter. Dr. Shepard, Dr. Khush and Dr.
McClung cooperated, pro bono, to develop Charleston Gold Rice, an effort stretching
nearly a decade and a half. Last year, 100 acres of commercial Charleston Gold Rice
came to harvest. This year, over 300 acres of Charleston Gold rice will go in and
interest is growing. We expect over 500 acres for 2013.
Page 8 Carolina Gold Rice Foundation 3232012
Orton Plantation Synopsis

Landrace plant systems are based upon survival through vigor and flavor... Dr.
Shepard, et al, have certainly imbued Charleston Gold Rice with the best flavor traits of
Carolina Gold Rice while improving its vigor and field performance four fold.
One last comment. Drayton recorded over 100 varieties of landrace rices grown in the
Carolinas by 1800. All of our efforts should be focused upon obtaining local landrace
rice food security by diversifying beyond the two rices we have in production now.
Agriculture — Purpose & Intent
Interpretation — Heirloom Rice Agriculture and Culture
The cultural interpretation of rice husbandry at Drayton Hall, Magnolia Plantation,
Middleton Place and Brookgreen Gardens is impressive and enjoys international
presence and respect. But none have working fields. Middleton Place stands alone in
interpretation of Antebellum rice husbandry with a small plot of Carolina Gold rice below
the butterfly ponds. The Middleton Place staff employs only authentic manual tillage
with period implements, heel and toe manual planting, and manual harvest, threshing,
pounding and winnowing... all with authentic implements. Middleton also engages
authentic rice art and crafts, elite and common rice music and architecture within its
interpretive programs. All of these historic plantation interpretive programs present and
reflect upon the historic social justice issues and interpretive aspects of slavery as well.
America and no interpretation program focuses upon the importance of separate seed
protocols in landrace rice husbandry. There is a growing awareness that the massive
contributions and tribulations of slavery will not be embraced with respect to Antebellum
rice production until a true vista of a working Antebellum rice field in scale can be part of
our national experience. Orton Plantation, of all the Antebellum rice plantations,
possesses this vista if her rice fields return to their original purpose... Carolina Gold rice
seed research and production. Orton's facility and potential presence of scale are
unmatched with respect to our surviving collection of Antebellum rice field landmarks.
Landrace Rice Seed — Demonstration of Need
The rapid increase of local food gardening and farming continues unabated across
America. This movement is driving the establishment of mid -scale local and regional
food hubs and is accelerating demand for local niche rice here in the South and
elsewhere in America. In South Carolina and Georgia, these food hubs have lacked
mid -scale cereal post- harvest handling and processing capabilities and there is no infra-
structure for rice seed processing.
In North Carolina, a similar deficit has impeded local cereal production. In response to
this situation the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation helped develop a mid -scale heirloom
rice seed cleaning, processing and storage facility located in central SC beginning in
2010.This facility is now operational.
Page 9 Carolina Gold Rice Foundation 3232012
Orton Plantation Synopsis

We're not aware that there is a local fully equipped facility for heirloom rice seed or
production processing in NC or Georgia at this time. There is a color sorter in the 2013
budget of the central SC seed facility which will bring it fully online for quality seed (a
dedicated color sorter is essential for rice seed quality and weedy rice prevention
management, especially in landrace rice seed systems).
Regarding landrace rice seed production... there is no certified foundation rice seed
production facility in NC, SC or Georgia at this time, even though we have access to
sufficient breeder seed stock to support at least one now. We envision the need for mid -
scale certified foundation rice seed and rice production, processing and storage facilities
in NC, SC and GA by 2015 based upon current growth rates and the unpredictability of
our ongoing and future contracts with TRIA. Orton Plantation is strategically and
geographically situated to maximize rice seed and production security (if it is in
production) against catastrophic loss due to storms in SC, GA and TX. This was Orton
Plantation's strategic role during the first half of the 19th century as well. Without Orton,
we cannot achieve rice seed and production continuity in our region in the future.
Landrace Rice Seed Market — Demonstration of Need
The growth of acreage planted to Carolina Gold and Charleston Gold production rice is
about 10% per year over the last four years as the niche market for heirloom rice
accelerates nationally. Landrace (heirloom) Carolina Gold rice seed and Charleston
Gold rice seed, produced in head row, breeder and certified foundation protocols has
been produced only in one facility in the USA... Texas Rice Improvement Association in
Beaumont, TX.
As of January this year, head row and breeder Carolina Gold and Charleston Gold rice
seed stock will be grown out at Dale Bumpers Institute in Stuttgart, AR, only. TRIA will
continue to produce certified foundation seed from DPI breeder. The CGRF asked TRIA
to produce 300 cwt each of 2011 Certified Foundation Carolina Gold Rice seed and
Charleston Gold Rice seed to serve niche landrace rice growers in South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama and Texas. The CGRF produces an additional 300 cwt VNS rice
seed per year to assist in seed availability and act as reserve against catastrophic loss.
The niche rice market is growing rapidly and this season, record acreage of Carolina
Gold Rice and Charleston Gold Rice will be planted in the above mentioned Southern
states. These acreages are split evenly between conventional and organic rice
production management. TRIA will reach their maximum security allocation for CGR
and CHASGR certified foundation seed production in 2014. We estimate this at 500 /cwt
for each rice. The CGRF has capability of producing another 500 cwt VNS as a backup.
Although we may have additional VNS capability for these rice varieties, we will need
additional sources for certified foundation heirloom rice seed thereafter.
This overview does not account for our new variety research programs for Carolina
Long Rice, Black Tribute rice and the Italian cultivar associated with first rice at Caw
Caw wilderness South of Charlestowne by Italian growers in the late 1600's... tall straw
Italian heirloom rice including Vialone Nano.
Page 10 Carolina Gold Rice Foundation 3232012
Orton Plantation Synopsis

Having only one certified foundation seed production facility for the growing number of
Carolina Gold and Charleston Gold rice farmers in the South is an increasing security
risk. A hurricane in Beaumont could easily wipe out a year's seed production. Weather
completely wiped out our seed crops at TRIA once in the last decade and took down
half of our seed crop 2 years ago.
The Carolina Gold Rice Foundation is funding the establishment of 50 acres of seed
protocol fields off the Savannah River fed by well system and protected from coastal
storm systems to a fair degree.
We need Orton rice seed production for strategic security against catastrophic loss as a
landrace seed facility at the very least. We also project demand for local rice in NC will
grow vertically, once available. We advocate for the restoration of Orton Plantation's full
array of fields for rice seed production and, especially, Orton's larger fields because
they can be deployed for scale -up field trials to be able to assess genetic stability in
landrace rice seed.
Orton Rice Farming Infrastructure
• All field dykes restored to proper height to prevent over - topping by storms or
passing ships.
• Install authentic trunk systems in back fields. Install modern control devices in
front fields.
• Install spillways for deluge rain events to prevent overtopping from source or field
water.
• Remove dredge spoil from Front rice fields
• Replace topsoil in affected fields.
• Restore integrity of canals, ditches.
• Level fields and install quarter drains.
• Phragmites eradication: Phragmites control The Phragmites will be treated with
an EPA - registered herbicide (Glypro® or Rodeo®) and surfactant (L1700).
Glypro® and Rodeo® are glyphosate -based products. Then controlled burn. All
year one.
• Salt Intrusion. Trap crop ... 2 row barley clover under story. Then standing deep
water.
Page 11 Carolina Gold Rice Foundation 3232012
Orton Plantation Synopsis

The Future of Rice at Orton Plantation
There are multiple approaches to rice farming at Orton and we recommend concurrent
conventional and sustainable horticulture management for seed and production rice.
Conventional and Sustainable base plans. Initial crop plan after dyke and trunk
restoration and field leveling.
Conventional: can be as abbreviated as clover year 1 to flood summer then fall clover
year 2 to spring rice and fall Ratoon. Then clover to summer flood year 3. Then fall
clover to spring rice and fall Ratoon year 4. Deep water fallow year 5. Or you can
alternate soy beans and wheat with rice every other year, etc.
Basic sustainable starting rotations:
Year 1: Winter 2 Row Barley Clover Understory. Spring Buckwheat turndown. Mid -
Summer Cowpeas for Hay. Fall different cultivar 2 Row Barley Clover Understory.
Year 2: Spring Rice. Fall Ratoon. Winter Emmer Clover Understory.
Year 3: Spring Benne and Cowpeas, Late Summer Buckwheat, Winter Rye Clover
Understory.
Year 4: Spring Rice, Fall Ratoon, Winter Oats Clover Understory
Year 5: Late Spring Buckwheat and then deep water fallow
Prepared for: Orton Plantation Holdings LLC
Prepared by: The Carolina Gold Rice Foundation
Authors / Contributors;
Glen Roberts - President / CEO
Dr B. Merle Shepard, Vice President
Ph.D., Director of Clemson University, Coastal Research and Education Center,
Program Chair
Dr David S. Shields, Chairman of the Board
Ph.D., McClintock Professor of Southern Letters, Departments of English and
History, University of South Carolina
Date: March 2012
Page 12 Carolina Gold Rice Foundation 3232012
Orton Plantation Synopsis

Steve Trox1er North Carolina Department of Agriculture
Commissioner and Consumer Services
March 26, 2012
Peter Talty
Vice President
Orton Holdings LLC
9149 Orton Road, SE
Winnabow, NC 28479
Dear Mr. Talty:
I appreciate this opportunity to comment on the planned restoration of the rice fields and
associated farming infrastructure at historic Orton Plantation. As North Carolina's Commissioner
of Agriculture and a proud farmer, I have a keen and enduring interest in our state's long and
rich agricultural. history. Thomas Isern, professor of history at Emporia State University, once
wrote, "If you know nothing of agricultural history, then you cannot understand American
history." Nowhere is this statement more accurate than in North Carolina.
Orton's rice fields are the last remnants of numerous rice plantations that once existed
along North Carolina's Cape Fear coast. Our state is extremely fortunate that this small portion
of a once-thriving industry has remained largely intact for almost 300 years. The planned
restoration and operation of these historic rice fields, as described in the Carolina Gold Rice
Foundation Orton Plantation Synopsis, represents a tremendous opportunity to protect this
unique example of'North Carolina's agricultural heritage. It would be extremely unwise and
shortsighted to fail to seize this opportunity. As a result, I strongly endorse the planned
restoration of the rice fields and associated rice farming infrastructure at Orton Plantation. I look
forward to seeing these fields restored to their full productive capacity in the near future, and
eagerly anticipate the return of this once - important crop to our state.
Sincerely,
Steven W. Troxler
Commissioner
Steve.Troxler@ncagr,gov - vvvvw,ncagr.gov
1001 Mail Service Center Raleigh NC 27699-1001 • [phone] - Fax [phone]