The news in this publica
tion is released for the press on
the date indicated below.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEW
LETTER
Published weekly by the
University of North Carolina
for its Bureau of Extension.
JULY 14, 1915
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. I, NO. 34
Editorial Boardi E. C. Branson, J. G. deR. Hamilton, L. E, Wilson, Z. V. Judd, !S. R. Winters, L. A. Williams. Entered as second-class matter November 14, 1914, at tlie postofBce at Chapel Hill, N. C., under the act of August 24,1912.
Jl
NORTH CAROLINA CLUB STUDIES
OUR FARMERS OF TO-MOR-
ROW
Ttie farm boys engaged iu club activi-
vties ill the South hi 1914 lumibered
53,000. Three liundred and thirty-four
■of them made 100 bushels of eoni or
more per acre; Carl Graves of Mississippi,
202 bushels, at a cost of only 14 1-2 cents
_ger bushel'.
The Pig, Poultry and Corn Club boys
•sf North Carolina will be meeting for
summer school instruction at the Agri
cultural and Mechanical Coll|ege, August
17-20. And nothing more important in
the state will occur during this brief
period.
DAVIE TO THE FORE
Davie is the third county in North Car
olina and the fourth in the United States
to have a Connnunity Buildiirg. The
•order is Washington County, Penn.,
Rowan, Stanley and Davie in North Car-
iOlina.
The Davie County Conunissioners have
■given the old courthouse for this purpose.
■Under the direction of the ladies of
.Mocksville, it will be remodeled and re
painted.
It will contain a rest room for the
farmwives, a museum, and an auditorium.
■A great step forward.
OUR HAY TAX
Aliens and strangers in other states and
sections take out of the South around
seventeen and a half million dollars for
hay that our, farmers fail to raise at home
from year to year, according to a recent
report of th(> Federal Department of Agri
culture.
We import about a fifth of the hay we
consume—a billion, three hundred thou
sand tons a year! And these are recent
figures.
In the census, year, 76,SOO farmers in
Nortli Carolina, or nearly a third of them
all, paid upon an average S41 apiece for
feed for farm animals. And it was farm
ers that did that.
It was the biggest tax of any sjrt they
paiti-^that year, but they probably grum
bled more about the school or the roacl
tax they were called U))on to surrender.
DUST AND DEATH
The death rate from tuberculosis varies
;according to the amount of dust, says the
North Carolina Board of Health.
Per one hundred thousand wage earn-
■ers, the death rates are as follows:
Farming ,
Cotton manufacture 202
Bra.ss work 279
Copper work 294
)Glass making 295
lEarthenware 333
■Cutlery 383
JFile making 402
FRENCH FARMERS |
If a French farrner pays out a cent for j
anything iie can raise on his own farm, '
bis neiglibors think he is headed straight
for the poor house or the bug house.
They set him down as an inc.uralile fool
and laugh him to scorn.
The a^'erage annual income of the
French farmers is only $122 apiece; but
they manage to put away .J16 of it under
a corner brick in the hearth, or in a , sav
ings bank, or in national bonds.
And in 1870 these same farmers loaned
the government a thousand ndllion dol
lars iu gold, or the most of it, to pay the
war penalty Gerniany levied upon France.
EARLY BIRDS AND SCHOOL
GARDENS
At 6:30 the other morning we found
Miss Henrietta Bowen, a teacher in the
•Chapel Hill Graded School, at work with
live of the young girls on the four-acre
school garden just outside the windows
■ of The University News Letter.
Here is a school garden cultivated for
■ canning purposes; and it sets us to think
ing-
The all-tlie-year-round garden habit, a
>score or so more of poultry, another or a
•better pig, a good milch cow in every
.home, and a revival of the old time house
hold arts of canning, preserving and jel
lying in the South would go far toward
sponging out our enormous bills for im
ported food—nearly a billion dollars in
■the censtis year.
Of course a garden pays. It paid nine-
■ty-four lollars apiece in 55 farm homes
in Gaston county in 1913. More than a
fourth of the living of these families came
from the garden and orchard alone!
NORTH CAROLINA FARMERS
In 1910, the the average income of the
farmers in North Carolina was 1233
aj>iece, but their per capita wealth was
less tlian a third the average for the
country at large; $322 against $994.
AVhy? Plainly because we are not
self-financing farmers. ^Ve, are not self-
fijiancing because we are not self-sup
porting. And we are not self-supporting
because we do not raise our own supplies
at home, or as nearly so as possible.
How else can we ever hold do\yn the
wealth we sweat out year by year?
We have many a lesson in thrift to
learn from the French farmer.
TOO LITTLE WEALTH IN
NORTH CAROLINA
The estimated true value of all property
■and of specified classes of property in
jSlorth Carolina in 1912 was a little more
than one billion, eight hundred million
•dollars, says a recent Census Bureau Bul
letin.
In this particular our rank among the
states of the Union is 32rd; in the South,
10th. In per capita wealth Nortli Caro
lina stands next to the last in the South
•and in the United States: only Mississip
pi has a smaller per capita wealth.
The wealth of the Southern States is as
follows;
Rank Total Per Capita
1 Texas ®6,859,900,000 $1,697
2 Oklahoma 4,581,000,000 2,475
3 Georgia 2,382,800,000 883
4 Virginia 2,289,900,000 1,086
5 Kentucky 2,267,700,000 977
6 Louisiana 2,164,400,000 1,260
7 Alambama 2,127,000,000 964
8 Tennessee 1,920,300,000 864
9 Arkansas 1,829,500,000 1,120
10 North Carolina 1,807,500,000 794
11 Solith Carolina 1,351,400,000 869
12 Mississippi 1,344,860,000 726
J3 Florida 1,049,100,000 1,307
MAN FOR MAN-POOR, TOO
POOR!
Total wealth is one thing and per capi
ta wealth is another. Dividing total
wealth by total popidation gives us the
per ca])ita wealth of the different states.
On this basis North Carolina is next to
the poorest state in the I'nion; only Mis-
sissii)pi. is poorer.
The per capita wealth of the iieojjle of
the United States as a whole in 1912 was
$1,965. It ranged from $726 in Mississip
pi, a cotton growing state, to $3,539 in
Iowa, a well developed food producing
StU.t6.
The per capita wealth of the Southern
States, all property considered, •was as
follows, according to a recent Bulletin of
the Census Bureau:
1 Oklahoma $2,475
2 Texas 1,679
3 Florida 1,307
4 Louisiana 1,260
5 Arkansas 1,120
6 Virginia 1,086
7 Kentucky 977
8 Alabama 964
9 Georgia . .. 883
10 South Carolina 869
11 Tennessee 864
12 North Carolina 794
13 Mississippi 726
RELIGION AND THE UNI
VERSITY
President E. K. Graham
The religious perc.eption of our time
in its widest application is the con
sciousness that our well-being lies in
intelligent co-operation.
The staU' university in its sympa
thetic study of relations that reconcile
the divisions of society, while not con
cerned with differences in r('ligious or
ganizations, is inc'-itably and pro
foundly concerned with religion itself.
All of iisstudy of uien and things
leads through the co-operating chan
nels that connect them beyond the
sources of immediate life to the one
great unity that binds all together.
The human mind, whatever its
achievement, in whatev er field of en-
leavor, “w ith the yearning of a pil
grim for its home, will still turn to
the Mystery from which it emerged,
seeking to give unity to work and
thought and faith.”
The state university in its passion
ate elfort to fashion this unity into a
commonwealth of truly noble propor
tions of work and worth and worship,
reverently pray as it follows the star
of its faith: “Oh (Jod, I think Thy
thoughts after Thee.”
wealth of the South iu the census year
was as follows:
1 Oklahoma $829
2 Texas 821
3 Jventucky 500
4 South CaroUna 449
5 Mrginia 424
6 Tennessee 380
7 Georgia 325
8 Arkansas 324
9 North Carolina 322
10 Florida 321
11 JMississippi r 302
12 Louisiana 286
13 Alabama 230
The United Ttates $ 994
Illinois 2,655
Iowa 3,386
]\IcLean County, III 3,685
Note that Oklahoma is the greatest
food-producing stati' in the South, and
also the ricliest.' The state produces food
enough for home consumption and had
iu 1909 a twenty-million dollar surplus to
export. ’
Every other Southern state neeiled to
import tooil and feed in amounts ranging
from twenty-seven million to one hundred
aKd fifty-ftve million dollars.
MEAGER COUNTRYSIDE
WEALTH
Dividing the value of all farm property,
as it appears in the 1910 census, by the
country population of each state, brings
us close to the per capita rural wealth of
the United States.
We say close, because the census fig
ures upon faiW property tlo not cover
cash on hand, bank deposits, solvent
credits, stocks, bonds, notes, mortgages '
and such like money equivalents. But
the calculation puts all the states upon
the same footing, and the results serve
for fair comparison.
On this ba.sis, the per capita rural
LIGHTNING ROD INSURANCE
It is a common belief that hay attracts
the lightning, and this has been held to
be the reason why barns are so likely to
he struck by lightning. It is quite true
that barns are more likely objects of a
destructive stroke, but it is now (piite cer
tain that the hay in the barn has nothing
to do with it.
If a barn filled with hay is in an exposed
position it .stands a good chance of being
struck. If this same barn were empty,
however, the chances of its being struck
would be precisely the same, for the same
underlying cause that makes the light
ning select the Ijarn as the object of its
wrath still remains—namely, a good sub
stantial “ground” resulting from the
drainage from the live stock.
A Warning
Thatmore barns, and other buildings are
not protected against damage or destruct
ion by lightning is due no doubt to the
unfortunate campaigns a number of yearo
ago of charlatan “lightning doctors” who
left on the farmer’s hands a lot of junk
on which the latter paid exorbitant prof
its. Not only that, but most of the
lightning rods that were sold for absolute
protection were really positive sources of
danger, and instead of protecting actually
increased the danger, as the farmers in
most cases soon found out.
Help Offered
ProiJerly installed lightning rods actual
ly do reduce the chance of serious damage
to a very small percentage. It has bet'u
so proved by the careful analysis of fire
insurance reports all over the country. In
fact, proper rodding is almost certain
protection against total destruction. Fur
thermore, this insurance can be obtained
at a very reasonable cost, varying from
about $10 to $20 depending on the size
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
LETTER SERIES NO. 36
A FARM-LIFE SCHOOL FOR
YOUR COUNTY
farm-lil'e school”! The name
sounds well and the thought back of the
name is even better than the name itself.
A farm-life school, as we are trj'ing to
have it in Xorth Carolina, is a prof(>ssion-
al school which attempts to train for life
on the farm, and thus to give to the pros
pective farmer and his wife _:uid sister a
chance to'prepare for a definite life work
just as f»ther ])rofessional schools give one
a chance to prepare for law, medicine,
pharmacy, dentistry, architecture, en
gineering, and many other professions.
W’hat al)0ut such a school for the boys
and girls ill j'onr comity?
The Subjects Taught
In adlition to the subjects taught, in
the rural high school, the curriculum of
the farm-life school offers instruction in
agriculture, sewing, iiousehold econoiriics,
and many other farm-life sultjects of
practical, every-iiay \alue. People who
belie\'e that certain subjects should be
studied in order to train the brain are
coming to believe that it does train the
brain when one studies and atlem|)ts to
master the ditlicultaud intricat(‘ problems
of the nian who is to run the farhi. Does
your county have such a .school for the
training of its l)oys and girls?
Helps the Grown-Ups
A farm-life .school will ju'esent to the
fanners of the county the best methods of
cultivating crops, the splendid results of
carefully planned rotation of crops, the
use and care of the latest and best types
of farm machinery and impk'ments, the
care of annuals on tlie farm, and the care
of, orchards and vineyards. Would a
fafm-'life school that did these things help
the grown-u|)s in your county?
A Center of Enthusiasm
The farm-life school is clestined to be
the center f)f a genuine, and spreading en
thusiasm that will have a constructive in-
tiuence upon the whole country. Big
summer picnics will he held at the farm-
life school, and fine growing crops out in
the well-tilled fields around the school
will he practical lectures on agriculture,
lectures st) clear and so convincing that
all will heed with interest and profit as
they look around the well kept farm.
Does your county need such a c('nter of
constructive enthusiasm?
Cost of a Farm-Life School
The cost is not great and the state will
help the counties that are willing to helji
themselves. .\ny county may have a
farm-life school, if it will provide the re
quired equi|)ment and make an adequab^
approiirialion for its support. W'hatever
it provides in money for the support of
the school, up to $2,500.90, the state wi;\
duplicale. Superintendent .loyner is ever
ready and anxious to confer with the
scfiool authorities in any county who
wish to know about the details of estab
lishing a farm-life .school.
Twelve Counties Have Them
At least twel\(' counties in North Caro
lina have taken advantage of the present
lau permitting the establishment of farm-
life schools, and there are now in these
counties as many as fifteen farm-life
schools. The number will increase rapid
ly as the years go by. Tlie boys and
girls in one of these schf>ols, \’isited by
the writer, were enthusiastic about their
school and their studies and on com
mencement day said to him, “We are
going right to work tomorow and show
folks we know something about farm
ing.” And these boys and girls will be
thinking all the summer about what they
have'learned at schof)l.
Does your county need ii school that
will hold the attention of its pupils during
the whole vacation?
and shape of the building.
The Deiiartment of Electrical Engineer
ing at the University will be glad to aid
in reducing the lightning bill of the state.
For information and advice write to
Professor P. H. Daggett.
A CAROLINA DINNER
A detail of County I’l'Ogress Day in
Community Service AN'eek next fall.
Proposed by the Chapel Hill Comnum-
ity Club to the North Carolina Communi
ty Service AVeekCoiumittee, the Women’s
Clubs and the ChanilH'rs of Commerce in
the state.
1. Carolina Products
AN EXHIBIT in every couuty-site
town of
(a) Home-raised Gai'den, Field, Dairy
and Poultry products. Kitchen and Nee
dle products.
' (b) Industrial ))roducts, made by
hand or machinery, seeking markets at
home or al>road.
2. A Carolina Dinner
A DINNER, with menu containing
nothing but home-raised [iroducts (ex
cept cott'ee, tea, sugar, and the condi
ments); to which the farmers, and the
town dwellers are invited.
Recently 700 people sat down to a din
ner of this sort in M'isconsin—town and
comitry together.
3. CaroUna Toasts
TOASTS—brief suggested pi-ograni:
a. Our Food-Producing Power.
b. What we Raise and What we Buy;
a Community Balance Sheet.
c. Getting Producers and Consumers
together: Why and How.
d. Our County; where it Lt>ads and
where it Lags.
e. Solving our Local Market Problems.
f. Our Prize Winners.
4. Preliminary
BEGIN at once to—
a. Campaign the idea of Home-raised
Community Products—by personal letters,
by newspaper articles, and keep it up—
until Clubs and Boards of Trade catch
the idea and begin to prepare for the
event next fall,.
I). Arrange a prize list appealing to( 1)
boys, (2) girls, (3) housewives, (4) farm
ers, (5) indu,strial concerns, (6) schools,
(7) clubs.
c. Secure the prizes—from the people
and busine.ss men of the communitx-
(I. Advertise promptly, widely—and
repeatedly as tlu' day approaches. A
preliminary prize for the best dinner
menu of home-raised foods .stirs up great
interest.
e. \Vork through the teachers and the
school children largely.
5. Organization Details
' APPOINT Committees on—
a. Promotion and Publicity.
Prize List and I’rizes.
Arrangements.
Diversii ms
Awards.
b.
A FINE RECORD FOR CAR
THAGE
Some weeks aero a member of the Uni
versity faculty di'livered the commence
ment addre.ss at Carthage. The follow
ing are a few very interesting facts which
he gathered from Superintendent C. G.
Credle:
Not a single member of the graduating
class, consisting of sixteen members, had
l>eeu tarly during the last two years.
Not a single member of the 9th grade,
consisting of twenty-six members, had
been tardy during the past year. Two-
thirds of this number live from one to
six miles from the school building.
During the past year there were twenty-
nine pupils who were neither absfuit or
tardy.
RURAL LIFE CONFERENCE
WEEK
Rural Conference Work at the Univer
sity Summer School found 674 ])eople in
attendance, representing 86 counties of
the state and 13 states of the Union—Vir
ginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida,
Tennessee, Louisiana, New York, New
Jersey, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio,
Kansas, and the District of Columbia.
The Summer School registration the
third week numbered nearly one hundred
more than the registration for the entire
session last year.