The news in this publica
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
Published weekly by the
tion is released for the press on
jvEVA/S T.ETTEI?
University of North Carolina
the date indicated below.
A ^ Vw jm Jk JL AbI Ailb
for its Bureau of Extension.
august 4,1915
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. I, NO. 37
Board! B. C. Branson, J. G. deR. Hamilton, L. E. Wilson, Z. V. Judd, S, R. Winters, L. A. William-;. Entered as second-class matter November 14, 19U, at the postofEoe at Chapel Hill, N. C., iiuder the act of August 24,191?.
NORTH CAROLINA CLUB STUDIES
ELBOW-ROOM FOB HOME-
SEEKERS
A fundamental problem in the South
io our imniense wilderness area, some two
linndred million acres, our sparse popu
lation, and tlie scarcity of fa^-m labor.
We need more folks in North Carolina.
Our population is too sparse. Our rural
-opulatiou in the state-at-large is only 39
to tlie square mile. We have 9 counties
i with fewer that 20 iieople and 3 countics
■c
wcr than 15 people to the square
lvT
■Tule.
And in these 9 couuties there are three
«iillion wilderness acres. In the Cape
Fear Country, the uncultivated area in
-.eleven counties almost exactly equals tlie
ejitire farni tu'ea of Belgium!
'Wq r.fced more folks; not more tenailt'^
but move one-horse farm-owners. We
jreed our share of the middle \vestern
liome-aeekers, who since the first of last
January have taken over into Canada
some twenty million dollars of wealth.
Twenty-Two Million Wilder
ness Acres
There are 22,000,000 uncultivated acres
ian North Carolina. Four-fifths of it is
valuable f‘>r farm purposes. A little
^re than seven acres in every ten'‘are
eft at present to scrub-pines, black-jacks,
as.safras bushes, mullein stalks, may-pops
nd broomsedge.
Here is a neglected area almost exactly
wice the siz;e of Belgium. Here is room for
■every manjack of the 450,000 Belgian
armers, on farms twice the average size
'of the little pocket handkerchief fields
ihey have been used toTultivating. And
•we should have some nine million acr^s
of our wilderness spaces still left for wood-
iot uses.
Calmness and Solitude
At present, only 29 per cent of our to-
al area is devoted to farms, meadows
nd pastures, orchards and gardens,
yards and barn lots! Seventy-one per
ent is devoted to what Colonel Mulberry
lellers called cahnness and solitude.
The uncultivated acreage in North Car
olina ranges from 34 per cent of the total
Sn Alamance county to 98 per cent in
l)are. We have 48 couuties, with three-
fourths or more of their area uncultivat-
-}ed; 39 counties with four-fifths or more
of it held out of productive farm uses;
nd 8 counties with nine-tenths or more
of the land lying idle.
Disappearing Chances
And this, in face of the fact that our
landless, houseless jieople in North Caro
lina, in the tow'ns and the country
■egions, numbered 1,136,000 souls in the
lensus year. Around two-fifths of our
farmers and two-thirds of our city dwel
lers were tenants and renters.
And the further fact, that our home
less multitude iiteadily increases year by
year. As communities become more and
aore populous and prosperous, the fewer
are the people w'ho li^'e in their own
homes.
Foolish Policies
1. Our tax system in the United States
--avors land-ownership l)y the few and
(land orphanage for the many,
i It allow'S one and a half billion acres in
the country-at-large to be held out of
productive farm uses, for speculative
rises in value; in the South some 200,-
000,000 acres; in North Carolina, 22,000,-
DOO acres!
In the United States, during the last
census period farm lands increased in
akie eighteen billion dollars! The rail
roads of the country did not dare to
water their stock to this amount.
In North Carolina during these ten
years farm lands increased in value
$200,000,000. Land values ranged all
the way from a decrease of 9 per cent in
Dare, to an increase of 383 per cent in
Pamlico.
I Of course the chance of land owner-
|ship by our landless multitudes is a dwin-
I dling, disappearing chance I And e\'ery-
; where it ought always to be easily possi-
I ble for the intelligent, industrious, thrif-
I ty, upright tenant to rise intcK bwner-
I ship.
I Our Chinese Wall
i 2. It is foolish for a a county or a state
! to beat tomtoms about the opportunities
[ that lie in its soils and seasons when land-
i
owners refuse to sell tf) new comers at
reasonable figures and in this way build
a Chinese wall of speculative'prices against
home-sepkers.
If the holder of a thousand idle acres
can see no business wisdom in selling off
500 acres at fair prices to ten new farm
families and tliereby trebling the value of
his re>iiaining land by increasing the
pojiulation of his community ten tunes
over; if landlords in general with 22 mil
lion wilderness acres on their hands in
Gnrolina Cfthnot deveiop what
Calhoun called a i»Ucy of !ntell.is.'ent self-
interest in tills liiatter, then in sheer self-
defense the state will be driven to adopt
New Zealand’s gradnsted lajid tax, sensi
bly inodilied to suit prevailingoonditions.
HOom fof 2S0j000 New Farm
Families
In the table that follows, Mr. O. L.
Goforth of Durl'.am county and Mr. L.
L. Lohr of Lincoln county, students in
the University Summer Sciioql, exhibit
(1) the per cent of uncultivated area in
each county and (2) the room there is
for new farm families, allowing 75 acres
to each family and reserving 50,000 acres
in each county for wood-lot uses.
AVe have in North Carolina on our
present uncultivated areas room for 250,-
000 home-seeking farm families. This
number would almost exactly double the
farms we have at present, and still leave
5,000,000 acres for wood-lot purposes.
The room for new' farm families ranges
from 55 in Alleghany to'7,000 in Bladen
county.
WHAT DOES YOUR SCHOOL
DEVELOP?
Any form of school that weakens
the child’s interest in the life of his
communitj is deficient in tlie elemental
requisite ot the school as an agency of
civihzatior Something is radically
wrong w itl a school in an agricultural
community that develops motormen,
stenographers and typewriters and
fails to develop farmers, dairymen and
gardners. A course of stud'' prepared
with the view of correcting this condi
tion is the first step in reform,—Re-
pdrt of "^’*',.Qjont Education Conunis-
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
LETTER SERIES NO. 38
HiLLSBORO LEADS
■ RSCeiit town ordinances lii Millsboro
specify, water-tight, fly-proof receptacles
for all surface closets; provide a scaven
ger service to empty these recejjtacle^
once a week and to dispose of the con
tents properly; and a sanitary officer to
see that th(i health ordinances are faith
fully enforced.
Here is an intelligent, vigorous as
sault upon the one source ef home»bred
typhoid fever. It will also lessen other
intestinal diseases. It will decrease the
high summer death rate of infants.
It is passing strange that we cannot
everywhere realize the deadly menance
of unsanitary surface closets.
THE CASE OF WAKELON
Down in the eastern part of M'^ake
county seven years ago there were two
little school districts in which there was
neither town, village, nor railroad. The
schoolhouses in the two districts were not
worth five hundred dollars, .and their
combined seating capacity would not ac-
coiTunodate more than one hundred pu-
nilij—a sorry jirovision for the children in
j an area oE twenty square miles.
i Tbe Farmers TaKe a Hand
I The farmers in the districts fell to
the lack of education their
thinking .- '-"iripd
children, were sufTerlng, and tney
that something must be done, and some
thing was. done that transformed that
whole section of the county and made it a
model for other communities throughout
^ the state." - ■
j What ihe Farmers Did
The farmers first and foremost cousoli-
I dated the two districts and then they
! voted a special local scliool tax of 30 cents
i
I
and a $10,000 bond issue for the erection
of a schoolhouse. Five years later a rail
road came into the neighborhood, proper
ty \-alues increased and these same farm
ers found themselves able to make an
other bond issue, tiiis time for $15,000
without increasing their tax rate; and
therefore, unafraid to assume a small
debt for their children’s good, they bor
rowed $1,000 from the state, got an ap
propriation of §8,000 from the county
fund, raised additional funds by private
subscription, and with this money doubled
the size of their building so that today
they have
* '*'Hirty-Five Thousand Dollar
Schoolllouab
heated by steam tind equipj)ed with tins
best modern furniture. In addition tliey
own nhieteen acres of land nearby on
which they are beginning to establish a
farm-life school, and all this happened in
one of North Carolina’s fiinning coin-
munities when tlie farmers determined to
act.
HENDERSONVILLE ACTS
Here is ,-mother alert little city. The
town council has just ordered all surface
closets along.sewer mains to be connected
therewith or otherwise abolished. All
UNCULTIVATED AREAS IN NORTH CAROLINA
Census 1910
O. LeR. GOFORTH, Durham County, L. L. LOHR, Lincoln County.
Total in North Carolina 22,380,000 acres; or 71^ of the total.
Room for 250,000 new farm families, on 75 .acres each.
Rank County
Per Cent
Room for
Rank County
Per Cent
Room for
uncultivated
new' families
uncultivated
new' families
1
Alamance
34.1....
2,100
49
Hertford
67.8....
1,320
2
Alleghany
35.9....
55
51
Mitchell
69.0. ...
1,500
3
Ashe
38.2....
800
51
Wilkes
69.0....
3,620
4
Watauga
50.7,...
815
51
Orange
69.0. .. .
1,630
5
Catawba
51.8....
1,140
54
Durham
70.7 ...'
1,160
6
Davie
52.5 , . , ,
490
55
Yancey
71,2....
990
7
Mecklenburg
53.3... ,
2,050
56
Randolph
71.4.. .
4,250
g
Lincoln
Greene
53.8
700
'57
Scotland
71.9
9
53.9
500
58
Martin
72.1....
2,020
10
I5dgecombe
54.2
1,690
58
Rutherford
72.1....
2,620
11
Rowan
54.3
1,600
60
Sampson
72.6....
5,180
11
Granville
55.4
1,980
60
Haywood
72.6....
2,720
13
Cabarrus
56.2
1,200
60
Henderson
72.6.. .
1,560
14
Gaston
57.1 ....
1,140
63
Chatham
72.7....
15
Halifax
57.2
2,640
64
Camden
74.1 ...
1,260
16
57.6
2,226
65
Duplin
Bertie /■
76.3... .
.4,430
16
Franklin
57.6
1,700
66
77.0....
3,950
16
Forsyth
57.6
1,200
67
Caldwell
77.2 ...
2,700'
19
Buncombe
58.1
2,690
68
Cherokee
78.1
3,95o!
20
Clay
58.4
880
69
Lee
78.3 ....
1,090'
20
Person
58.4
1,270
70
Burke
79.0 ....
2,930
20
Cleveland
58.4
1,760
71
Currituck
79.4, ...
1,310
20
Union
58.4
2,130
72
Harnett
79,8
. .■ 3,390
24
Vance
59.0
740
73
Macon
80.5
2,840
25
26
Yadkin
Wilson
59 1
970
74
Polk
81.6....
1,060 1
59.3 .. ..
1,290
75
Jackson
82.7 ....
2,780
26
Madison
59.3
1,540
75
Gates
82.7
1,700
28
Davidson
‘59.6
2,230
77
.Jones
83.1
2,170
29
Caswell
59.7... .
1,380
78
Richmond
83.9
3,030
30
Johnston
60.7
2,930
79
McDowell
84.0
2,500
31
Lenoir
60.8
1,390
80
Cmiiberland
84.5
6,580
31
Perquimans
60.8
770
81
Montgomery
84.6
2,920
3f
Northampton
60.8
1,950
82
Craven
86.5 ...,
4,100
31
Wayne
60.8
2,530
82
Washington
86.5
1,670
35
Surry
64.1
2.170
84
Beaufort
86.8
5,560
36
Alexander
64.3
925
85
]\Ioore
87.4
4,090
36
Pasquotank
64.3
560
86
Pamlico
86.6
1,950
3S
Wake
64.5
3,980
87
Columbus
88.0.. ..
6,300
39
Stokes
64.9
1,990
88
Transylvania
88.1.....
2,190
40
Pitt
65 .1
2,680
89
Graham
88.3
1,580
41
Hyde
65.2
4,100
90
Bladen
89.5
7,000
42
Warren
65.9
1,760
91
Pender
90-0
5,600
43
Nash
66.1
1,300
92
Onslow
90.1
4,870
44
Rockingham
66.2
2,600
93
Swain
90.4
3,600
45
Stanly
67.0
1,720
94
New' Hanover
93.0 ....
1,050
46
Guilford
67.1
3,130
95
Brunswick
93.5
47
Anson
67.2
2,520
96
€arteret
94.5
3,950
48
Robeson
67.6
5,400
97
Dare
98.4
49
Chowan
67.8
290
The State
71.0
250,000
surface closets in the unsewered portioris
of tile city must be made water-tight and
fly-proof. Night soil must be removed
regularly and properly disposed of.
Milk, meats, fruits and vegetables must
be screened in the shops, markets and
delivery wagons. Stables must be cleaned
out once a week, and so on and on.
Chapel Hill and Carrboro and many
other towns in North Carolina must move
fast to catch up wittf Hillsboro and Hen
dersonville.
A DOMESTIC CANNING CLUB
We found it in the home of an Orange
county farmer over in Bingham town
ship. It numbered thirteen members,
Mr. Thompson, his wife and eleven chil
dren.
Last year the record of the club was
2,100 cans of apples, pears, -peaches and
tomatoes. The entire output was readily
sold, almost all of it locally. The jirofits
were a snug sum for the family purse.
INEXPENSIVE WATER
WORKS
An Orange county farmer, Mr... Monroe
.Smith, in Bingham township, has solved
the problem of running water for his
home, simply and at small expense.
His ram, the necessary plumbing, and
the little water-house at ius kitchen door
breaking task of carrying water daily
from tht^ far-away spring.
May his tribe increase!
WATCH WESTERN CAROLINA
Western North Carolina has entered
vigorously upon an era of livestock and
dairy farming.
It means larger areas in {permanent pas
ture, abundant winter cover crops, more
grain, hay and'forage, more and better
bre.eds of dairy and beef cattle, more pigs
and poultry, butter and eggs, fruits and
vegetables.
It means a rapid increase of farm
wealth, better farm homes wdth more
comforts, conveniences and luxuries,
more money with w'hich to support
churches and schools, and greater atten
tion to good roads and public sanitation.
GOOD FOR PAMLICO
During the last ten years, school dis
bursements in Pamlico co^unty, says
Superintendent Attmore, have' risen from
^8,000 to over 3'33,000 a year. Only 15
per cent, or about 500 of the children, go
to the old-fashioned, one-teacher schools;
3,000 are in schools taught by two or
more teachers.
Every school has a library and more
than half the white schools have pianos.
Two-thirds of the w’hite children have a
chance at seven months of schooling each
year.
School money raised by local taxation
is greater than the general property tax
revenues of the county.
Nobody in the county has been sent to
the penitentiary or to the county chain
gang in over three years. Fines, forfeitures
and penalties have amounted to less than
1)75 a year during this period.
The one post-otfice in the county in 1872
has grown to 20, with seven rural routes.
There is a double daily passenger and mail
service on two railroads.
Pamlico looks good to home-seekers.
READY TO BE SCOURGED
Here is a little community of 321
homes. .-Shere are 188 unsanitary sur
face closets, open to flies or domestic ani
mals or both and sources of contamination
to the 93 wells and springs that are in
constant use.
The homes that are entirely unscreened
against flies and mosquitoes number 137.
Tliere have been 83 known cases of
typhoid fe\'er in the 321 homes of thia
community in the years gone by, to say
notliing about the cases of diarrhoea,
cholera infantuui, and other intestinal .
diseases; and nothing about the 44 post-
ponable or preventable deaths in the
county last year.
In 1913 there were 18 .deaths in these
321 homes; 12 of these deaths occumid
during the fly-infested months; 4 of these
deaths were of infants less than a year
old; 5 of them, of children less than five
years old!
It looks as though this community
could aftbrd to get busy; that is to say,
if loved ones in the family circles are
really loved—in particular, the babes and
little children!
One hundred and eighty-eighty surface
closets breeding flies to scatter human
filth upon the food of 137 unscreened
homes challenge prompt attention by an
intelligent people.
DEVELOPING FARM ENTER
PRISES
In ,Iune 1910, the creamery butter pro
duced in North Carolina was less than
10,000 lbs.; in June 1915, the creameries
of the state produced 150,000 lbs. West
ern Carolina is the region of develojiing
ci'eameries and cheese factories.
The Monroe creamery has more than
doubled its output since last April, and
the Mooresville creamery has done the
same thing since last March.
The two cheese factories in Watauga
are turning out 250 lbs. daily. In a sin
gle year these two cheese factories will
hav'e made more cheese than the whole
state produced five years ago.
North Carolina consumes around four
million pounds of cheese yearly. So far
we are producing about one-fortieth of
this amount.
Iredell county farmers have thirty silos
more than were in existence tw'o years
ago.
These counties and this region of the
state are on the broad highway to i«r-
manent, not merely seasonal, prosperity.
OUR CORPORATION INCOME
TAX
The corporation income tax in North
Carolina paid to the Federal Government
for the year ending June 30, 1914 was'
$173,267.
Five Southern states paid more—Vir
ginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and
Texas; six states paid less.
The corporations, firms, companies,
associations and the like numbered 4,585;
their capital stock was $286,251,000; and
the taxable net incomes amounted to a
little more than 5)24,000,000.
THRIFTY YANKEES
Thrifty people in the South in 1914 had
in the Savings Banks deposits amounting
to 197,000,000, all told.
New Hampshire alone had 1102,000,000
in her Savings Banks; or more than the
saving deposits of the Southern states all
put together.—Figures from the last Re
port of the Federal Treasurer.