The news io this publica-
' tion is released for the press ob
the date incbcated below.
the university of north CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published weekly by the
University of North Carolina
(or its Bureau o( Extension.
lUGUST 2,1916
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. II, NO. 36
Bditori-I Bo-rJ. B. 0. Branaon, J. Q. deB. Hamiitoa. L. 8. Wilson, I,. A. WilUams, B. H. Thornton, &. M.
MoKie. Entered as aeooad-olass matter November 14,19U, at the.poatoffloe at Chapel HiU. N.C., ander the act of August 24.1913.
NORTH CAROLINA CLUB STUDIES
THE JULY EXTENSION
CIRCULAR
Ttie Inly Circular of the University Ex-
aisiou Bureau bears the title, Our Caro-
iiia Highlanders, As usual the edition
I small. It will be mailed out free upon
application.
I' The headings are (1) Our Highlanders
! not a Peculiar People, (2) A Coming,
liot a Vanishing Race, (3) A New Era in
> Hill Country, and the Challenge to
louiitain Workers, and (4) The Type of
Education Needed.
This circular sums up the two years of
particular study put upon our Hill Coun-
l!try Civilization, in the headquarters of
If, North Carolina Club at the Univer-
Bity-
Dwp us a post card if you want it.
IMPORTANT EVENTS AT THE
A. ® M.
Four events of state-wide importance
cur at the A. & M. College in Raleigh,
k.ugust 22-31: (1> a three-day school for
tie members of the Boys’ Clubs, from the
|J2iid to the 2Sth, (2) the annual confer
ence of the ninety-odd Farm Demonstra-
jtiou agents of the State, (3) the Farmers’
Convention headed by Roger A. Derby of
Jackaon Springs, August 29-31, and (4)
at the same time the Convention of Farm
t'omcK.
The Extension Farm News of July 22
1 de\'0ted entirely to the various pro
grams. The schedule of events is exceed-
ngly attractive. It ought to be read in
every farm home in the state. Write
for it. It offers a charming vacation for
! whole family.
We heartily wisli that the limited space
of the University News Letter permitted
as to reproduce these significant programs
pi full.
composed of men who are competently
schooled and skilled in the big general
subjects of finance, banking, and credit;
but also they ought to have a competent
acquaintance with Farm Land Banking,
and a proper attitude toward the new
field that the Federal Government is ven
turing to enter with a new kind of bank
ing, new, at least, in the United States
although old enough in the old world
cou.ntries.
The South over, no other man so perfect
ly satisfies all the requirements of mem
bership on this Board as Mr. JohnSprunt
Hill of Durham. If men of this type are
appointed the farmers of the United
States may hope for the best that is pos
sible for them under our new law.
THE FATHERS TOO
The enrollment in poultry, pig, and
corn clubs in North Carolina for the past
two years has exceeded five thousand
Ipach year. Besides these main clubbers
tiiere are scattering cotton, peanut, and
otato clubs.
The boys’ fathers are taking off their
oats and getting ready to show the
joungsters that they are also in the bet-
er-production race, although a little late
bii starting.—Farm and Fireside.
FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM
New Brunswick, Canada, is a little
acre than half the size of North Carolina,
and has about an eighth of our popula
tion; but during the year ending in
March of this year her exports foreign
and domestic exceeded her imports by
|116 million dollars.—Federal Commerce
eport, July 2J.
It is an average of ^>360 per inhabi
tant—for a single year, mind you! In
^two huiidred and fifty years in North
Darolina we have managed to sas'e and
ccumulate a per capita country wealth
teu farm properties amounting to only
If322. It is about one-third of the aver-
ja^e lor the country-at-large.
I'A'idently our outgo is too near our in-
|«ome from year to year in our farm
l-regions. Our farm wealth is too little
j-'iad our yearly increases are too small.
11 his simple, sifTgle fact is a challenge to
jiihe iutelligence of all our people—farm
ers, bankers, and other business people,
land especially teachers and preachers
I'whose success depends largely upon the
r wealth and the *villingnes8 of the com-
f ®unities they serve.
It is a big problem. The North Caro-
liiina Club at the University has been pu/-
Tiding at it for two years, and the longer
I'&ey work at it the bigger it gets. But it
•‘is a fundamental problem and it calls iu-
T>sistently for solution if North Carolina is
I to move up among the foremost states in
I the Union.
THE BANKS ARE HELPING
The papers of late have noted the
general interest of the banks in better
agriculture and greater farm prosperity
in North Carolina.
In tiaston county the First National
Bank of Gastonia, The Bank of Belmont,
The Mount Holly Bank, and the First
National Bank of Cherryville are back
ing the Pig Clubs with pigs and prizes.
Both the banks of Warrenton in War
ren county are doing the same thing.
In Catawba county. The Hickory Bank
and Trust Company offers to start an
endless chain of pigs for any number of
club boys.
lu Guilford, The American Exchange
National Bank offers to finance 10 pig
club boys.
In Forsyth, The Wachovia Bank and
Trust Company offers prizes in an annual
state-wide hay growing contest.
In Lee, The Bank of Sanford has dis
tributed 100 gallons of highbred seed
corn.
Doubtless there are others. The Uni
versity News Letter will be glad to know
~what they are doing.
BETTER SUPPORT NEEDED
Dr. Archibald Johnson
Our country churches, as a rule, do
not feel the obligation to support their
pastors. They think the pastors ought
to support themselves, and accept
with thankful hearts the little the
churches dole out to them of their sur
plus pocket change. The churches
would resent this charge but it is true
nevertheless.
A hundred and fifty members, after
a mighty struggle raising one hundred
and fifty dollars for the preacher for a
year’s service, means exactly what I
have described. In their hearts they
think a pastor ought to find his own
living and preach once a month for
the dime they carry in their ve.st
pockets to church on Sunday morn
ing!
How to open the eyes of the people
in our country churches to the Scrip
ture truth that “They that preach the
gospel should live of the gospel” is the
fundamental and essential thing before
us; and until that is done we need
not expect any further development
among our country churches.
ten-dollar gold prize was awarded by the
State Health Board to the school that
had the largest number of its pupils
present on this occasion.
Hurrah for Bladen.
BABY BEEF CLUBS
We found in Mississippi the other day
that the banks of the state are quite gen
erally backing the Baby Beef Clubs.
For many reasons, Beef Clubs are more
important in the South than Fig Clubs.
For instance, lean meat—beef, mutton,
and poultry—needs to be a tremendously
increased item of common daily diet. In
55 country homes in Gaston county in
1913 the Federal Department of Agricul
ture found that the average annual con
sumption of meat per person was 122
pounds; which, by tlie way, is 34 pounds
below the average for the U nited .States.
But the significant thing was the fact
that this total consisted of 120 pounds of
pork and only 2 pounds of beef!
Pellagra threatens to he a devastating
scourge in our country regions. Last
year theie were 75,000 cases in the
United States ana 7,500 deatiis—mainly
in the.South; in North Carolina, 551
deaths.
This dread disease is sourced, says Dr.
Goldberger of the U. S. Public Health
Service, in an ill-balanced diet; too much;
corn bread, fat meat, molasses, and the j
like, and too little beef, mutton, [)oultry,
eggs, milk, pease, and beans. And the
cure lies in a well-balanced diet.
Domestic beef production needs to
stimulated in North Carolina as
Mississippi.
Why not Baby Beef Clubs as well
BUILT-TO-BURN
There are 250,000 school buildings of
one sort or another in the United States.
A fire occurs every day in some school.
Built-to-Burn ought to be written over
the doors of three-fourtlis of them. Two
colleges and twelve school houses are
burned in the United States every week
In North Carolina the average is 36
school buildings burned each year. So
said Mr. James R. Young, our State In
surance Commissioner, to the University
Summer School teachers the other day.
If the buildings that house our children
for five days of the week are fire-traps, it
is time for the school public to wake up
in North Carolina.
Mr. Young furnishes information about
safe school buildings and will arrange
with the State Department O'f Public In
struction to furnish plans for smaller
buildings free of cost.
be
in
Pig Clubs in North Carolina?
our banks take the lead?
Cannot
AN IMPORTANT NEW BOARD
I Land Loan Board created
I ^ ^’^*'^1 Credits Law consists of
I e Secretary of the Treasury ex-officio
and four members appointed by the
I t^resident,
I f ^o*^der a little why the Secretary
I griculture was not made an ex-officio *
1 Farm Land Banking
liii,3!his Land Ix)an Board ought to be
BLADEN’S HEALTH
COMMENCEMENT
There have been eighty-odd county
school commencements this year in North
Carolina.
But Bladen is perhaps the first county
in this or any other state to hold a Coun
ty Health Commencement.
It marked the close of a three-mont] :s
campaign against pellagra and other pr.-
ventable diseases, under the direction ci
Dr. T. M. Jordon.
The events were a picnic dinner, ad
dresses by prominent men, essays and
speeches by the young people, and the
award of prizes for the best essays on
public health.
These prizes amounted to eighty dol
lars in gold and were given by seventy
p«blic spirited people of the county. A
THE BROWN MOUSE
In these times of forty-day floods of
pen-poison, when, as Dr. Burroughs says,
the worst smellers are the best sellers, it
is refreshing to read The Brown Mouse,
by Herbert .Quick, Bobbs Merrill Co.,
Indianapolis.
A charming little love story is woven
into an account of a country school fitted
to country life by a home-bred country
lad. The story is of a sort with Gene
Stratton Porter’s Laddie, Freckles, and
the rest.
All these books ought to be in country
homes everywhere; particularly in the
homes of country school trustees and
county.school board members. There is, by
the way, a dearth of entertaining, inspir
ing books for the young people in our
country homes.
Mrs. Robert E. Ranson, the Carolina
genius who charms the University Sum
mer School with her twilight story-telling
hours, will short'y give us the story of
The Brown Mouse.
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
LETTER SERIES NO. 84
SUMMER WORK
It is rather a common delusion that
school work is neither possible nor neces
sary during the summer months. Some
how or other folks have come to think of
education as a very limited affair.
Nothing can be more untrue.
During the time when school is not in
session (and that ought not be over three
months every year at the most), there is
work to do for everyone connected with
our schools. Just think about it a
minute.
Mr. Committeeman
What can the members of the school
committees do? Well, is that school-
house out there in the woods locked and
are the windows properly protected
against the ravages of destructive va
grants? Do you know if the house needs
to be shingled or painted? Is the fiue
safe? Are there any little repairs need
ing to be made—a few panes of glass set,
a new hinge on one of the doors, a little
tinkering done to some of the desks.
Better still is the plau which was car
ried out at White Cross in Orange county
last week, where the schoolhouse and
grounds were put to use as a general
meeting place for the citizens in the sec
tion. Why cannot the people’s property
be used during the summer for general
community purposes? It is their proper
ty and they ought to get good use of it.
Incidentally, that will help to keep oflT
the ruthless destroyers of public property.
Others Are Working
The teachers are getting themselves
ready to do better work next year. The
superintendents are laying plans for next
year’s work and getting their forces lined
up. Why might not the trustees get on
their job now and prepare the buildings,
grounds and equipment, instead of wait
ing until after school opens and then in
terfere with the year’s work after it has
started, thus wasting more of the public
taxes for schools!
AVhy not plan right now to give the
folks 100 cents of value for every dollar
of their school tax!
YADKIN: ECONOMIC AND
i SOCIAL
Mr. Paul B. Eaton of Yadkin, a stu
dent at bhe University of North Carolina,
' has just finished a remarkable study of
I his home conaty.
^ Till- .iro that he has assembled
11.1 twenty tyi-ewritten ^-ages more of ac-
curate information uDout Yadkin county
than the oldest inhabitant ever dreamed ‘
'of. !
His chapters cover: 1. History, a brief
sketch; 2. Resources—timber, mineral, j
' and water-power; 3. Industries; 4. Facts ,
(1) About the Folks, (2) About Schools,
(3) About Wealth and Taxation, (4) ^
Farm (Conditions, (5) Farm Practices,
(6) Food and Feed Production, (7) The
I.ocal Market Problem,and 5. Where
Yadkin Leads, Where She Lags, and The
Way Out.
It ought to be put into print by the
county authorities and placed in every
home in the county. It would cost per
haps $50, l)ut five pages of advertising by
the merchants would cover this expense.
It ought to be read thoughtfully by the
ministers, the farmers, and the business
men of the county. It will appeal
especially to the instinct of leadership.
It ought to be a text-book in the high
school grades and the Teachers’ Institute.
It will stimulate county pride and pro
voke generous cooperative efforts for bet
ter things in Yadkin.
SECRETARY LANE TALKS
SENSE
Secretary Lane in his last annual re
port to President Wilson sounds a clarion
note for a nation-wiile campaign for bet
ter country schools, and he urges upon
Congress an appropriation of 11100,000 a
year for two or three years to be used in
arousing national interest in this most
important matter.
Why not take the 1250,000 a year that
has been wasted on free garden seed,
mailed out in picayune amoimts the
whole country over, and use this sum to
seed down the public mind with a proper
concern about country schools and the
preservation of country-life—the nation’s
largest asset?
This garden-seed waste of a quarter
million dollars of public money year by
year is a fat contract for the seed houses,
but it is also an affront to the intelligence
of the plain people of the country. It does
not lack much of being an insult to com
mon sense.
The Senate, by the w ay, has just had
the nerve to cut out the garden-seed ap
propriation. What will the House do
with it?
And will Congress have the intelligent
patriotism to put the money to the better
use suggested by Secretary Lane?
EXCLUSIVE CROP FARMING
MEANS:
1. Selling the farm by the wagon load.
2. Uncertain returns and, in the end,
crop failure.
3. More and more ditches and gullies.
4. Unsteady employment of men and
reduced labor efficiency.
5. Sale of unfinished products and
hence lower prices.
6. More tenant farmers.
7. More temporary agriculture (unless
the soil is artificially fertilized or green ma
nuring practiced.)
Profitable Meat Production
Means:'
1. Keeping on the farm much of the
fertility produced.
2. Crop insurance and increased re
turns.
3. Better use of untilled land.
4. Better help and better distribution
of labor.
5. Manufacture of crops into meat.
6. More farms operated by owners.
7. More permanent agriculture.
INTELLIGENT FORESTRY
An effective forestry system, (1) regu
lates the timber cut, (2) protects the un
dergrowth, (3) maintains a sufficient
forest fire patrol, and (4) systt^matically
reforests bare areas.
Korea is about twice the size of North
Carolina and has about four times the
population. Our Consul-General at Seoul
reported on June 21 that nearly 94 mil
lion young trees were reared in seeding
nurseries in that country in 1915.
Korea is busy two or three centuries
after wholesale devastatioH by floods; we
ought to have sense enough in North
Carolina to begin a century or so ahead
of time.
A DANGER SIGNAL FIVE
YEARS AGO
In a paper on the Hanging Valleys of
Alabama presented at the W'ashington
meeting of the Association of American
Geographers in December, 1911, and
widely quoted at the time. Prof. Colher
Cobb of the University of North Carolina
said:
“Statistics gathered by correspondence
with people scattered pretty well over
our southern states show that there is
hardly a community in which there has
not been for ten years past a steady
lowering of the ground-water as shown
in the shallowing of wells, necessitating
the deepening of the wells in every single
piedmont or mountain county of the en
tire south and in many of the sandhill
counties as well.
“This sinking of the ground-water is
closely correlated with bad forestry meth
ods followed by bad farming, permitting
an ever increasing amount of runoff,
while allowing less and less water to soak
into the ground. This lowering of the
water level is only one of many evils, for
the water that does not have a chance to
soak into the ground runs off over sur
face slopes, washing away the soil, cut
ting gullies in fields, and spreading silt,
sand and gravel over the meadows and
lowgrounds.
“The changes that have taken place
in the memory of the younger generation
will, if unchecked, lead to disastrous
floods, to be followed through the lapse
of years by an increasing arid climate,
until our fertile fields have become veri
table bad lands. Such has been the his
tory of a large part of Northern Africa,
once the granary of the Roman Empire.
“But much of this may be prevented
by keeping hilltops and steep slopes un
der forest cover, by decreasing forest fires
in the slashes, by changing surface
drainage in some fields to underground
drainage, checking the rush of water by
means of brush or stone dams, and
especially by renewing organic matter ia
the soil by cover crops, green manuring
mulching, and by thorough cultivation. ”
h'
;a w
>^1
1#
r* 4/..I
Profitable Dairying Means:
m
It
1. Enriching the soil.
2. A regular income and. a growing
bank account.
B • (r
3. Fewer gullies and ditches, and land
made more tillable.
'ifli
- 4. Steady employment of labor and
better men.
p J ^
-.V*”
5. Manufacture of high-priced finished
F ^ ((
products, better prices and higher re
B
turns.
6. Better, business methods and, in
E-^
the end, land ownership.
7. More permanent agriculture.—The
Banker-Farmer.