The news id 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
(or its Bureau of Extension.
UNE 28, 1916
CHAPEL HILL, N. G.
VOL. n. NO. 31
editorial Board. B. 0. Branson, J. (J. deH. ttamiltou, L. tt. WUaoii, L,. A. Williams, B. H. Thornton, Gf. M. MoKie. 'Britered as seooad-olas3 matter Noyember U, 1914, at the^'>o3toffloe at Chapel Hill, N. 0., mider the act of Augast 24, lf»li!
NORTH CAROLINA CLUB STUDIES
more than 800 PRESENT
As tlie University News Letter goes to
press, tlie first week of . the Summer
'chool, the enrollment reaches 922 or
rly a hundred more than were regis-
,tered during the entire session last year.
And still they come. The total looks
like a thousand this summer.
This increasing enrollment represents
the response of the State to the increas
ing advantages offered by the University
to the teachers of North Carolina.
A LAND OF HOMES
Legislation which opens or closes the
door of opportunity to the man who
wants a home and is worthy of it touches
the very vitals of society. Give us aland
i of homes and the people will take care
■of the problems of government.
Uec-rease the percentage of homes and
the very foundation of government is
weakened.
The relative number of honie-owners
in the United States is rapidly decreas
ing. This is not an evidence of national
\weakening merely; it is national weaken-
;;ing in process.—Congressman H. W.
.Sumners.
OUR COUNTY EXHIBITS
I feel like I’m robbing my county when
i take money for printing our county fi
nancial exhibit year by year, said a North
Carolina editor the other day.
What he was saying was not quite so
clear to us at the time as it is now. The
files of The North Carolina Club are be
ing filled with the yearly financial exhib
its of the counties, clipped from tiie
county pajiei's as they come in.
Most of them are beyond understand-
.iig or interj)retation. Some of them are
an affront to the taxpayers; they really
are a sinful waste of printers ink. It is
-jonceivable that a student with weeks of
«ttbrt could group expenditures, reduce
them to classified accounts and really
know something definite about county
.finances; but in many or most instances
it would be a hard task for an expert ac-
•countant.
Usually 110 exhibit of receipts is shown;
,110 exhibit of bond indebtedness, or coun-
■ty assets, or unpaid, outstanding, current
accounts. How the county really stands
at tlie end of the year, nobody can tell
from the published exhibits, in the \'ast
majority of instances.
And by the way, the Orange County
•financial statement for 1915 has nev'er
yet been given to the public as the law
requires.
Three counties are to be congratulated
iuj)on their published exhibits—Wake,
'Oranville, and Surry. There may be
others in this class, but their exhibits
have not yet come under examination in
our Club studies of North Carolina.
By the way, if county officials 'or
ihoughtful citizens anywhere would like
to see a simple, understandable financial
.balance sheet for a county, drop us
postcard and we will take pleasure in
mailing them the very best one we have
so far found in the South.
comes from crop sales descend like an
avalanche during a brief market season
and disappear almost as quickly. Profits
upon investment, time, and labor turn
upon market quotations as upon the spin
of a roulette wheel.
Small Farms Devoted to Cash
Crops Alone
Small farms, devoted to cash crops main
ly or merely, do not yield safe, steady,
reasonable dividends from year to year.
This fact appears in a region of small
farms, devoted to hand-made crops like
cotton and tobacco. For instance, our
investment in North Carolina in work-
stock and farm inpleineuts, on a per acre
basis, is not far below that of Iowa. In
North Carolina, the average is one work-
animal per 25 cultis'ated acres, and 12.10
worth of implements for each cultivated
acre. In Iowa the average is one work-
animal per 19 cultivated acre?, and $3.23
worth of implements for each cultivated
acre. But in North Carolina the farms
average only 37 cultivated acres. In
Iowa they average 130 acres.
We average barely more than one
work-animal per farm; they average
seven per farm. They can invest profit
ably in labor saving machinery, and dis
tribute hand and horse power evenly
throughout the year, with a minimum
waste of time and energy. We are crop
farmers mainly on small farms. They
are livestock farmers mainly on medium
size farms.
As a result 605,000 farmers in North
Carolina i>roduced crops and animal
products in the census year worth 5>180,-
000,000; while 341,000 farmers in Iowa
produced farm wealth worth $596,000,000.
That is to say, barely more than half the
number of farmers in Iowa produced
more than three times the wealth. While
the North Carolina farmer produced an
average of $290 in farm wealtu the Iowa
farmer produced an average of $1,680; or
nearly six times as much.
But the contrast is even more startling
when the per capita country wealth of
the two states is compared: in North Car-
oUna it was W22 in the census year, but
in Iowa it was j3,386.
Livestoch Farming on Medium
Size Farms
Here, then, is the reason in the very
nature of things why ■ farmers borrow
money on personal security at an average
total cost of 7-9 per cent in Iowa,, and
10.2 per cent in North Carolina. And
wliy loans on land mortgages cost Iowa
farmers an average of 5.9 per cent and
North Carolina farmers 7.7 per cent.
And also why the insurance companies
let Iowa farmers have $150,000,000 at less
than 6 per cent on farm lands. The in
surance loans on farm lands in this one
state are more than in the entire South.
The whole story lies in the fact that
farming in Iowa is a sound, safe, \Nell-
establislied business. It yields
able returns upon the inv
COMMONWEALTH
BUILDING
Attorney-General T. W. BicKett
The obligation and the opportunity
of the hour is to make life on the farm
just as profitable and just as attractive
as life in the town. The man who
most deeply feels this obligation, who
most clearly sees thi.3 opportunity will
most surely serve hLs day and genera
tion. He who would render this high
service must bring to his task a serene
faith, superb common sense and su
preme unselfishness.
The first step to be taken is to give
to ev6ry man who tills the soil a fair
chance to own it. This is the mud
sill upon which alone can be builded
a profitable and attractive rural civili-
/,ation. The small farm owned by the
man who tills it is the best plant-bed
in the world on which to grow' men.
A landless population will always
make a Mexico, but the citizen stand
ing in the doorway of his own home is
at once the builder and the bulwark
of the commonwealth.
Statesville
Tarlioro
Thomas ville
Washington
Wilson
' Wilmington
and
30
40
40
45
30
Winston-Salem
90
120
120
135
90
are
omitted from the above table because the
schools of Wilmington are included in
the country school system and paid for
out of the general fund. The schools of
Winston-Salem are supported out of the
general fund of the city, ijeing considered
part of the city government.—P;. C,
Brooks, in N, 0, >».lucation,
THE IRON LAW OF TRADE
Keep producers and consumers as far
apart as possible; pass commodities from
one to the other through as many hands
as possible; pay producers as little as pos
sible; charge consumers as much as pos
sible—sucii is the iron law of trade.
The unorganized, whether producers or
consumers, are the legitimate prey of the
organized; and trade is a closely knit or
ganization down to the last man and the
detail involved in it. As a result the
consumer gets too little for his money
and the farmer too little for his products.
Team>Work Necessary
Artificial interference with the laws of
trade has far less to do with the farmer’s
end of the problem than teamwork in
production, teamwork in lowering cost
units of production, teamwork in grad
ing and standardizing products to suit
trade demands, teamwork in warehous
ing and trading, teamwork in securing
market infoi'iuation, and teamwork in
assembling collateral and borrowing
er for worker we fell behind 43 states of
the Union.
Food for Reflection
The contrasts are startling. In North
Carolina 605,000 farm ^-orkers on 8,813,-
000 cultivated acres, produced crop
values amounting to }il42,890,000. But
in North Dakota 132,000 farm workers,
on 20,455,000 cultivated acres, produced
crop values amounting to Jil80,635,00)
That is to say, we had more than four
times as many farm workers as in North
Dakota, we cultivated less than half as
many acres, but they produced greater
crop wealth by nearly $40,000,000. In
per-acre production we beat North Da
kota two and a half times over; in per-
worker production North Dakota beat us
nearly six times over.
Here indeed is food for reflection. Our
soils produce abundantly, but our farm
ers produce meagrely.
The Counties That Lead
The production of crop wealth per
farm worker in North Carolina in the
Census year ranged from $111 in Cherokee
to $692 in Edgecon^be.
Six counties in North Carolina lead all
the rest by a large margin. Named in
descending order they are Edgecombe,
Scotland, Robeson, Greene, Johnston,
and Wilson. Production per farm work
er in Edgecombe was $692, and in Scot
land $604. In all these counties the bulk
of the crop wealth produced consists of
cotton or tobacco or both—the two most
valuable of the standard farm crop.=, in
per-acre yields.
Thirty-six counties more were above
the state average of $236. For the most
part tliey are in the cotton and tobacco
region.
The Counties That Lag
Only seven counties in the state pro
duced less crop wealth per farmer than the
French farmers, whose average is $126.
Named in descending order they are Hen
derson, Graliam, Swain, \Vatauga,
\Vilkes, Mitchell, and Cherokee. They
are all mountain counties, and the Inilk
of their crop wealth is produced by grain
and forage crops. The per acre value of
such crops is everywhere small when
campared with that of cotton and tobacco.
In some of these counties, as Alleghany,
Ashe, and Watauga, the cultivated acre-
money
, «ome of these things must have the
yieiiis rea' i lygi^iatioii, but here again the
,estmeii , an . action of lawmakers, state
AN UNSTABLE AGRICULTURE
Here is a phrase used so often in dis-
'oussing the market and credit problems
•of the farmer that is it worth while to ask
what it means.
A farm civilization is financially un
stable, unsound, and unsafe when the
ifarm income is derived from crop sales
merely or mainly, whether the crop be
cotton, tobacco, w'heat, corn, or whatnot.
For instance, m South Carolina,
ieorgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas
anore than three-fifths of the crop wealth
irom year to year is produced by cotton
alone. In 24 counties of North Carolina
more than three-fifths of the crop wealth
is produced by cotton or tobacco or both;
in Anson, Wilson and Itobeson, more
than three-fourths, and in Scotland coun
ty more than four-fifths of it. In North
Dakota where interest rates are so high,
nearly nine-tenths of the farm wealth is
produced by crops alone, and barely one-
tenth of it by livestock. In South Dakota
ffiore than seven-tenths of the annual
iarm wealtli is produced by crops alone.
All these are regions of high interest
irates. They are all deficient in livestock
farming. Soils deteriorate. Cash in-
can be safely counted upon to do so ui; national, can be secured ojily by
any kind of season or upon any turn ot.
the market. It is livestock farming based ^ consumers and producers can af-
on soil building instead of ‘■'•’oP _ of gen Franklin’s saying
based on soil waste. Farm properties stead- hang together or we shall all
ily increase in value. Farm land in such a ^ -separately.
region is worth more and more in the, j)g(,j.gasing the distance between pro-
oi>en market and in the credit center=. ] consumers io a market prob
These are some of the things co\ere , [gm gf importance to both,
by the teriii safe, agriculture.
CROP WEALTH PER FARM
WORKER
The table in this issue is the work of
Mr. 0. L. Goforth of Durham county.
' It is based on the 1910 Census volumes
' on Agriculture and Occupations,
i It is one of some forty-odd studies by
I University students on The Small Per
' Capita Country Wealth of North Caro
SPECIAL CITY SCHOOL TAX
RATES IN NORTH CAROLINA
City
Burlington
(Jhapel Hill
Charlotte
Concord
Durham
Edenton-
Eli‘zabeth City
Goldsboro
Graham
Greenville
Henderson
Hickory
High Point
Laurinburg
Lenoir
Lexington
Lumberton
Marion
Morganton
Mount Airy
New Bern
Raleigh
Reidsville
Rocky Mount
Sahsbury
Property
3U
58 1-3
30
40
20
30
40
31 1-3
30
40
30
40
45
40
66 2-3
65
30
60
.60
35
25
35
30
40
20
Poll
90
175
90
120
60
90
120
age is small. Large areas are in perma
nent pasture, and the cash income is
from livestock sales. The crop wealth
produced per farm worker in Alleghany
was only $172, but the per capita rural
wealth in farm proj)erties was $560.
Edgecombe leads in per capita crop pro
duction, but Alleghany leads in i>er capi
ta rural wealth.
Ashe ranks 84th in the production of
per capita crop w^ealth, but 6th in the
power to retain farm wealth per inhabi
tant. Watauga ranks 93rd in the per
capita production of crop wealth, l)ut
14th in the power to retain farm wealth.
A large part of the farm prosperity of
Alleghany, Ashe, and Watauga lies in
the livestock farming of this region.
Tenancy a Fundamental Evil
We shall always need to grow cotton
and tobacco in North Carolina, but we
must learn to produce larger yields on
the same or smaller areas, and to lower
production costs.
We need farms of larger average size.
In North Carolina they average 34 culti
vated acres, in North Dakota 275 acres.
We need farms large enough to re-enforce
human labor advantageously with horse
and machine power. In North Carolina
the farm worker cultivates only 14 acres
upon an average; in North Dakota 156
acres.
We need more farms cultivated by
owners and fewer by tenants, or we shall
not cease to be crop farmers merely or
mainly. We need to rise into livestock
farming as in Iowa where the i>er capita
wealth in farm properties is $3,386 against
$322 in North Carolina. Livestock farm
ing in a tenancy region is well nigh an
impossibility. Our farm system needs to
be well-balanced, stable, and safe, and in
this all important matter farm tenancy is
a rock of oftense.
The greatest hindrance to agricultural
development in tlie South today lies in
tenancy farming; and for two weeks or
so we have had a chance to study this
problem at close range in Mississijipi,
where the evil is most acute in the United
States, Later we shall be submitting
some notes on Mississippi, made on our
zigzag journey throughout the state in
early .Tune.
CROP PRODUCTION PER FARM WORKER IN NORTH
CAROLINA, 1910 CENSUS
0. LeR, GOFOHTH, Durham County, University of North Carolina
94 ‘hna. In the Census year it was only
90 ] $322 against J995 in the country-at-large,
$860 in Oklahoma, and $3,386 in Iowa.
They have been hunting down the
Causes for our feeble wealth-retaining
power in North
quences, aud the Keiuedies.
120
90
120
135
120
200
195
90
100
180
105
75
105
90
120
60
Carolina, the Conse-
In the Census year, the production of
' crop wealth per fann worker ranged
•from $135 in New Mexico to $1,378 in
! North Dakota. In North I'aroliua our
'average was $236, and our rank was
44th Only Louisiana, Mississippi, Ala
bama, and New Mexico made a poorer
showing.
Acre for acre we outranked 40 states in
power to produce crop wealth; but work-
Rank County
oiidLt; V
Per Capita
Rank County
Per Capita
Production
Production
1 Edgecombe
692
50 Lincoln
233
2 Scotland
604
50 Hyde
223
3 Robeson
465
52 Chatham
222
4 Greene
429
53 Pasquotank
218
5 .lohnston
411
54 Stanly
215
6 Wilson
404
55 Onslow
212
7 Pitt
377
56 Washington
311
8 Wayne
370
57 rumberland
208
9 Lenoir
366
58 Craven
206
10 Halifax
341
59 Yadkin
204
10 Anson
341
60 Pender
198
12 Cleveland
- 334
61 Tyrrell
194
13 Mecklenburg
328
62 Perquimans
190
14 Martin
323
63 Randolph
189
1^ Nash
312
64 Surry
_ 188
16 Hertford
311
65 Polk
187
17 Wake
305
66 Rockingham
186
17 Jones
305
67 Buncombe
183
19 Northampton
302
68 Bladen
176
20 Guilford
301
69 Forsyth
175
21 Pamlico
290
69 Clay
175
22 Sampson
288
71 Alamance
174
23 Warren
275
72 Alleghany
172
24 Person
273
73 Montgomery
170
25 Dare
270
74 Alexander
165
26 Camden
268
74 Davie
165
26 Union
268
76 Rutherford
158
28 Duplin
365
76 Haywood
158
29 Beaufort
264
78 Caldwell
157
30 Richmond
258
78 Moore
157
31 Bertie
258
80 .Jackson
146
32 Gates
256
81 Yancy
145
33 Casweli
255
82 Transylvania
143
34 Catawba
253
83 Brunswick
142
35 Vance
252
84 Ashe
136
36 Cabarrus
251
85 Madison __
134
37 Stokes
245
85 Carteret
133
38 Franklin
241
87 Macon
130
39 Davidson
240
240
87 Durham
130
39 Granville
89 McDowell
127
39 Chowan
240
89 New Hanover
127-
42 Harnett
238
91 Burke
126
43 Iredell
236
92 Henderson
124
44 Rowan
233
93 Graham
122
^4 Columbus
233
93 Swain
122
46 Gaston
230
93 Watauga
122
147 Lee
227
93 Wilkes
122
47 Orange
227
97 Mitchell
118
49 Currituck
1
225
98 Cherokee
111