The news in this publica
tion is released for the press on
the date indicated below.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published weekly by the
University of North Carolina
for its Bureau of Extension.
AUGUST 11,1915
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. I, NO. 38
Editorial Boardt E. C. Bratison, J. G. deRi Hamilton, L. B. Wilwon, L. A. Williams.
Entered:as second-class matter November U, 19U, at the postoffiee at Chapel Hill, N. C., under the act of August 24,1912,
NORTH CAROLINA CLUB STUDIES
A SUCCESSFUL SUMMER
SCHOOL
Seven hundred and thirty-one students
from nuiety counties of the state and
fourteen states of the Union were regis
tered in ninety-four courses offered by
Jorty-tiiree instructors in the University
^lummer School just closed.
Tlie registration was one hundred and
thirty-five more than last year. The
authoriti&s are arranging for a thotisand
students next year.
One hundred and thirty-eight of the
teachers were working for college or Uni
versity credit, but mainly the students
were teaching or preparing to teach in
the pul)lic schools of the state.
VOLUNTEERS NOT CON
SCRIPTS
One hundred and thirty-two of the
teachers attending the University Sum
mer School volunteered for service in the
•war against adult illiteracy in North Car
olina.
It was an inspiring response to the pa
triotic appeal of Hon. J. Y. Joyner, our
State Superintendent of Public Instruc
tion.
North Carolina wakes up slowly but
lasts longer and goes farther than most
-«tates, said Mrs. Cora Stewart AVilson in
Haleigh last spring. Kentucky, she add
ed, must look to her laurels when North
Carolina begins to move in her moon
light school campaign against adult illit-
Acy.
North Carolina has begun to move, and
'he has patriotic courage, patience, and
ndurance enough to keep up the fight
ntil there is no smudge of illiteracy left
nywhere on her map.
CORN IS KING THIS YEAR
The corn crop of the South this year,
not counting SouthX^arolina and Florida,
as 778,500,000 bushels, says tlie Federal
Department of Agriculture. Cotton has
at last dropped into second rank in the
iSouth.
It is 176,000,000 bushels more than last
.year’s crop, and nearly 250,000,000 bush
els more than our five-year average since
the census year.
Unfortunately our crop in North Caro
lina is some three and a half million
ibushels less than that of last year.
It will l>e l>etter to feed our surplus corn
to pigs than weevils; better to turn
it into hams, shoulders and bacon—
^butchered, trimmed, cured and sacked,
rfly-and skipper proof, packer style—than
;to sell it without profit as raw pork in the
•winter time; better to market it gradually
in finished form in the jiarcels post than
to sell it for a song as corn.
There is small profit in any raw farm
l>roduct. The margin is larger when it is
converted into finished products,—cream,
hutter, cheese, ham, bacon, and shoul-
■ders and tlie like.
We need these farm industries in the
South. And now is the time to hasten
their development.
GREENSBORO’S PLIGHT
The body-waste of a tyj>hoid patient or
a typhoid carrier gets into a well—a well
safe perhaps for long years until thus con
taminated.
A milk man 'hashes his hands and cans
in the water of this well. Eesult, 44 cases
■of typhoid fever, 44 fever-stricken, anx
ious homes, heavy expense, and the toll
ing of funeral bells in a half dozen in
stances or so.
Greensboro is now cleaning up in dead
ly earnest. But is in not better for a
community to take time by the forelock
than the fetlock?
er, and (3) tell us your experience with
it.
Blue Monday is a dreadful day in the
average country home. Can not its burden
be lessened some whit?
LAND TITLE CONDITIONS
Anyone who borrows or lends money on
land knows how lost in mist and doubt
land titles are, and how difficult and ex
pensive is the abstracting of titles,—the
bill for which the poor borrower pays of
course.
But few of us know how widespread the
confusion is. It is confusion worse con
founded, to use a phrase of Milton’s;
which, being translated, means confound
ed confusion!
Mr. T. .1. Holleman of Atlanta, in the
Tri-Weekly Constitution, July 61, tells iii
detail j ust what the situation is in Geor
gia,—a most amazing exhibit by a com
petent authority.
The situation is just as bad in North
Carolina in spite of our Torrens Law;
which somebody somehow turned into a
Tarheel joke.
The Georgia Legislature is now consid
ering a law making the Attorney-General
of the State the inspector of county offi
cials and county records. It will be his
duty to render adequate, simple, uniform
and clear throughout the state the court
house records touching deeds and titles.
The subject demands attention in North
Carolina alSo.
BLUE MONDAY RELIEF
Out farm-home survey shows a wide
spread need for simple, durable, easily
operated, inexpensive laundry machines
for home use; labor-saving devices that
really lessen the back-breaking hardsliips
of wash-day in the country homes.
We know a thousand cheap machines
that for one reason or another are not
worth spending money for. We want to
know about the machines that are really
worth buyirng and using.
Send us on a post-card (1) the name of
the machine, (2) the address of the mak
THE A B C’S OF IT
The body of a typhoid patient may
swarm with germs long after the fev«r is
gone and the patient is pronounced well.
Typhoid germs may swarm in the bod
ies of people who never develop fever or
couut themselves sick.
In both cases they are typhoid carriers,
and typlioid carriers are far commoner
than people suppose.
These are some of the tlunga we have
learned at last about typhoid and other
intestinal diseases.
It is now known that surface-closets
may be contaminated with disease germs
by the body-waste of well people and
convalescents as well as sick people.
The upshot of the ^matter is to keep
people from eating or drinking the body
waste of humans—to phrase a nauseous
fact in terms polite enough to print.
Moses Centuries Ahead
Moses knew the deadly character of
body-waste. He was centuries ahead of
modern science. Verses thirteen and
fourteen of Deuteronomy twenty-three
are interesting proof of it.
The point of safety is to consider all
human body-waste dangerous, because
it may be reeking with typhoid, diarrhea,
dysentery, cholera infantum, And other
deadly intestinal germs.
What Common«Sense Demands
The body-waste of surface closets needs
to be caught in fly-proof, water-tight re
ceptacles, and kept away from flies and
domestic animals. Night-soil needs to
be buried somewhere in the earth a foot
or so deep and properly covered. Stable
manure needs to be removed and broad
casted once a week; otherwise it must be
soaked with hellebore solution or boracic
acid. Tiie dwelling must be wholly
screened against flies and mosquitoes.
Dirty dairies must be inspected and ex
posed.
There are other things that an intelli
gent community will be doing; but these
are the abc’s of the matter.
THREE STEPS FORWARD
1. CROP-FAIiMING; crops marketed
on four-wheels; margin of clearprofits nar
row and accumulated farm wealth small, no
matter how valuable the crops, how large
the yield yer acre, or how high the mar
ket prices. Per capita country wealth in
North Carohna $322; in the country-at-
large, $994; in our tobacco counties,
from $191 in the poorest to $388 in the
richest of them!
2. LIVESTOCK FARMING; crops ^
marketed on four legs; margin of profits ^
wider, and accumulated farm wealth
greater; Alleghany a livestock county in ^
North Carolina, per capita country wealth
$560, the richest county in per capita conn-
GOD’S COUNTRY
When all of our roads are good
roads; when country schools are good
schools; when farms produce larger
yields at greater profits; when farmers
unite to upbuild rural life—
Then the children of the farm will
scorn to desert this fairest of places
for (Towded cities; population will be
more evenly divided because many
who struggle tor a crust in the city
will find plenty in the country.
Wealth will be more evenly divided;
there will be less of the doctrine of
hate and more of the gospel of love.
This is the future of God’s Country
if you and I lend our aid. It means a
wonderful future—not in dollars 'a-
lone—but in a contented, successful
people, constituting an industrial and
agricultural republic, peaceful and
prosperous beyond compare.
What an incentive—what an op
portunity for the banker! Isn’t it
worth fighting for? — The Banker-
Farmer.
try wealth in the state; ditto Williamson
county Tenn., per capita farm wealth
$704; ditto. Highland county, V'a., per
capita country wealth, $990; ditto Fay
ette county, Ky., per capita country
wealth $2,150; ditto, Illinois, a well de
veloped livestock state, per capita coun
try wealth $2,655.
3. AGRICULTUKAL INDUSTRIES—
creameries, condenseries, cheese factories;
the production of bacon, hams, shoul
ders and the like; margin of profits still
wider and accumulated farm wealth still
greater; instance, Iowa, all told the best
developed state in livestock and animal
industries; per capita country wealth
$3,386.
BEYOND ARGUMENT
INIan for man, the country people of
Iowa are worth more than ten times as
much as the country dwellers in North
Carolina; on an. average $3386 apiece
against $322 apiece.
In the main, they are livestock far
mers, while we are crop farmers, for the
most part—that’s why!
And yet our crop-producing power per
acre is greater than that of Iowa. In
1914, our average crop yield was $20.18
per acre; theirs, $17.92; mainly ^because
our leading crops, cotton and tobacco,
are more valuable than their grains, hay
and forage.
Our farm wealth is accumulated for the
most part out of profits on crops; theirs,
out of crops turned into animal products
—hams, bacon, shoulders, milk and
cream, butter and cheese, poultry and
eggs, live stocksales and the like.
How They Turned the Trick
They are food farmers mainly. They
live at home and have food surpluses to
market at steadily increasing prices.
No farm community can accumulate
any great wealth buying farm supplies
with cotton and tobacco money. But
middle western farmers get rich in taking
our cotton and tobacco money for food
and feed products.
These are the hard facts, argue about
them as we may. Thirty-three hundred
and eighty six dollars per person in Iowa
speaks ten times louder than $322 in
North Carolina.
In 1910, Iowa produced, $127 worth of
animal products, 57 lbs. of butter and 44'
dozen eggs per person; we produced only
$18 worth of animal products, 12 lbs. of
butter and 10 dozen eggs per person.
The difference between crop fanning
and livestock farming is the difterence be
tween thin and thick pocket-books.
TEACHER-LEADERS
Make the teacher, the principal, the
superintendent, the secretary of the
board of trade in the home community or
county, says Robert E. Eanson, Super
intendent of the Southport Graded
Schools, in the Raleigh News and Ob-
sers'er.
Why So?
Because in his school enterprises he is
a perpetual pensioner upon the good will
of the people, and their good will is lim
ited by their wealth-accumulating power.
Because more than any other man in
the community, he ought to know about
community resources, possibilities, and
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
LETTER SERIES NO. 39
OUR TEN-YEAR STRIDE IN
EDUCATION
The recent educational edition of the
News and Observer contained nothing
that was more gratifying to the friends
of education than a most readable exhibit
of
The Results of Public School
WorK
in North Carolina during the decade
ending June 30, 1914. We are giving
some of the most striking facts omitting
details.
The Value of Public School
Property
has increased from three million to nine
million dollars, the number of original
libraries is three times as great and the
number of supplemental libraries is five
times as great as ten years ago. We have
built
3842 New Schoolhouses
in the decade, that is, 384 each year,—
or more than one every day in the year
even counting Sundays.
School Terms Lengthened
The school term has been lengthened,
six weeks, one-fourth more children are
enrolled, and the average daily attend
ance has improved 50 per cent in the last
ten years.
The Voluntary Local Tax
In the matter of a voluntary local tax,
the only sure way of providing for public
schools, there has been a splendid change
of heart as is shown by the fact that we
are now raising from that source annually
$1,367,948. or just four times as much as
was raised in this way ten years ago.
opportunities, about community condi
tions and necessities, about the problems
and puzzles of community life and enter
prise, about the ways and means of com
munity recovery or of community prog
ress and prosperity, about the foundations
of business and the sourctvs of tax rev
enue—
Unless it be the minister, who has ex
actly the same relation to the prol,)lems
of community wealth and welfare. Both
are social servants whose business is the
conversion of wealth into commonwealth.
The man who empties contribution
boxes ought to know how the comn^unity
purse is filled and how to swell bank ac
counts.
A Worth-While Teacher Leads
Because the best way fora school princi
pal or superintendent to spend a vacation
is to explore and exploit the community
in which he lives. The better he knows
his home community the better he will
be able to serve it, both as teacher and as
leader.
He is, a poor teacher who is not also a
leader of commanding, constructive influ
ence in the community.
Sujjerintendent Ranson’s suggestion is
cajiital. It is worth trying out. If the
teacher is not fit to be secretary of the
board of trade, or cannot become fit, if,
as Mr. Lincoln used to say, he is not fit-
tin to git fittin, the community needs an
other school principal perhaps.
NORTH CAROLINA FIRST
The following list exhibits the home-
state and the home-county studies under
taken by students in the University Sum
mer School during the session just closed.
In each subject the (1) counties are
ranked, (2) the results are mapped, and
(3) the significance briefly noted and in
terpreted.
1. Average Annual Salaries Paid Rural
White and Negro Teachers.—Robert P^.
Ranson, Brunswick Co.
2. Native-Born White Illiterate Vo
ters.—Dean Thompson, Randolph Co.
3. Farm AV'^ealth; Ten-Year Increases.
K. T. Futrell, Guilford Co., and Ralph
A. Reed, Winston-Salem.
4. Domestic Animals; Ten-Year In
creases.—Weaver G. Mann, Macon Co.,
and Robert E. Ranson, Brunswick Co.
5. Total Taxable Wealth: Ten-Year In
creases, 1903-13.—H. C. Miller, Catawba
Co.
6. Our Uncultivated Areas.—^O. L. Go
forth, Durham Co.
7. Our Cultivated Areas: Ten-Year In
creases or Decreases.—B. C. Brock, Da
vie Co.
8. Elbow-Room for Home-seekers in
North Carolina.—L. L. Lohr, Lincoln Co.
9. Homes for the Homeless in North
Carolina.—W. R. Tingle, Pamlico Co.
10. Non-Food Crops: Cotton and To
bacco.—Miss Elizabeth G. McPherson,
Camden Co.
11. Crop Wealth: Per Capita Produc
tion.—B. E. Weathers, Cleveland Co.,
and V. A. Perrett, Guilford Co.
12. Live-Stock Products: Per Capita
Production.—Miss Ethel Bailey, Wash
ington Co.
13. Total Farm Wealth Produced: Per
Capita Production.—J. P. Shrago, Wayne
Co.
14. Poultry; Ten-Year Increases or
Decreases.—J. P. Shrago, Wayne Co.
15. Poultry Production and Deficits.—
J. P. Shrago, Wayne Co.
16. Egg Production and Deficits.—L.
L. Hargrave, McDowell Co., and Miss N.
H. Tuck, Durham Co.
17. Farm Sale of Dairy Products; Ten-
Year Increases.—S. G. lindsey, Mont
gomery Co.
18. Farms Buying Stock Feed.—Miss
H. L. Sprout, Georgia.
19. Imported Food and Feed Stuffs in
South Carolina.—H. L. Seay, Lexington
Co.
20. Food-Production and Wealth-Re-
tention.— G, W. Bradshaw, Randolph
Co.
21. Farm Wealth in Virginia: Ten-Year
Increases.—H. II. Huff, Mecklenburg
Co.
22. A Graduated Land Tax for \^irgin-
ia.—H. H. Iluft', Slecklenburg Co.
23. Tenants and Renters; (1) Cover
ing all homes in the United States. (2)
Farm Homes in the United States. (3)
Homes in Important Cities of the United
States. (4) Farm Homes in North Caro
lina. (5) Homes in Leading North Car
olina Cities.—G. H. Cooper, Rowan Co.
24. Natural Resources of
1. Orange County.—Miss Sudie G.
McCauley, Chapel Hill.
2. Sampson County. — V. Baggett,
Salem berg.
3. Durham County.—C. C. Carpen
ter, High Shoals, Gaston Co.
25. Local Market Problems;
1. Wayne County.—J. P. Shrago,
Goldsboro'.
2. Bertie County.—W. J. Capehart,
Roxobel.
3. Lincoln County.— L. L. Lohr,
Lincolnton.
4. Rutherford County.—S. C. Get-
tys, Holliti.
5. Granville County.—Messrs. J. R.
AYeaver, B. S. Royster, andH. B.
Hester.
6. Randolph County. — Bruce H.
' Lewis.
7. Shelby County, Tenn.—Dr. Lilian
W. Johnson, Memphis.
8. Northampton County.—J. H. Las
siter, Rich Square.
26. Vance and Alleghany in Contrast.
James E. Homes, Graham, N. C.
27. How the Home-County Ranked in
the Census Year:
1. Pamlico County.—R. B. Spencer,
Hobucken.
2. Union County.—Mrs. J. T. Year-
gin, Unionville.
3. Rockingham County.—Miss Nan
nie E. Pigg, Madison.
4. Gates County.—Mrs. T. W. Cos-
ten, Gatesville.
5. Chatham County.—Dr. Lilian W.
Johnson, Tenn.
28. Orange County Farm-Home Sur-
vey.—V. W. McGhee, Buncombe.
29. Manufactures in Catawba.—E. 0.
Bacon, Newton.
30. Life Insurance in North Carolina.
—R. L. Isaacs, Durham Co.
31. Rural Credit in North Carolina.—
C. M. Farmer, A. C. College, Lynch
burg, Va., and Ralph A. Reed, Forsyth
Co.
32. Farm Organization and Co-Opera-
tion in North Carolina.—Ralph A. Reed,
Forsyth Co.
33. Farm Tenancy in South Carolina:
Economic and Social Conse juences.—H.
L. Seay, Lexington Co.