The news in this publica
tion is released for the press on
receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
SWS LETTER
Published weekly by the
University of North Carolina
for its Bureau of Extension.
—3 ■ ■ '" ——
lAY 12,1920
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL VI, NO. 25
dllorial Board i K. C. Branson, L. B. 'WUson, E. W. Knight, D D. Carroll, J. B. Bullitt.
r
fea=:.: —■ . =
Entered as second-class matter November 14, 1914, at the
Postofflee at Chapel Hill, N, C , under the act of August 24, 1912
1 — — [
AMAZING CROP VALUES PER ACRE
no matter how
owns. In a co
of men is what
it is the major-
One capitalizes
COOPERATIVE BUSINESS
Cooperation as a form of business or-
anization sanctioned l>y law is young as
me goes. It is less than three-quarters
f a century old in any land, less than
lirty years in many lands, less than half
dozen in North Carolina, Yet in every
Hiutry where cooperative business has
intelligently and faithfully tried out
has flourished like a green bay tree.
A co-operation is legally distinguished
om a corporation by two features: (1)
y the one-man-one vote principle of or-
inization and control, and (2) by pat-
mage dividends as well as dividends
ited on stock. Every cooperator has
ae and only one vote
lany shares of stock he
peration the majority
Dunts; in a corporation
;y of stock that counts,
len, the other capitalizes money. In
he second place, the profits of coopera-
ive business go to tliose who create them,
1) in ratio to the capital stock they own,
nd (2) in ratio to the use they make of
he business as patrons. Thus in a co-
iperative credit union the dividends are
listributed to members accjrding to the
jmount of money they borrow from it as
well as the amount of capital they invest
in it; in a corporation the direct profits
JO to the shareholders alone. Corpora-
;ion directors who declared patronage
lividends would he violators of the law;
lut cooperation directors would be crind-
lals if they did not declare patronage;
ividends, if any such dividends were in I
heir treasury.
Opposed to Socialism
Another thing: a cooperation is non-
olitical, and wise cooperators never niix
olitics and business. Cooperation is also
social enterprise but cooperators are
irely ever socialists. Intelligent self-
iterest molds their actions and deter-
inee their policies. They are usually
Dme-owning, home loving people, and
ey cling tenaciously to the rights of
•ivate property ownership. You
iver bewitch a true cooperator with the
ost alluring t)ictures of nationalized
jalth. Violent social or political up-
ttings are no part of his program.
The simple fact is that cooperation is
le opposite of both socialism and bol-
levism, just as Mr. John Sprunt Hill
,ys. It is not only au opposite but an
itidote. This is why we hold to the
ilief that Russia’s 65 thousand coopera-
ves and 75 million cooperators are the
It that wdll at last salt down her civili-
ition into salvation. In the end they
ill overthrow both socialism and bolshe-
sin; which by the way is not socialism
at individualism gone mad.
tfooperators learn slowly and cautious-
, but in foreign countries at least they
arn thoroughly. Their yearly trans
Jions cover every commodity under the
in, and their operatio's run into bil-
ms. They were seven billions in coop-
•ative credit alone in central Europe the
3ar before the Great War broke out.
In our own country the cooperator
:arns still more slowly. Cooperative
asiness enterprise in many parts of the
mntry is wholly unknown, or known
y hearsay only, or known not as busi-
ess but as an empty sentiment. Amer-
la has hardly begun as yet to learn co-
peration upon the upper levels of apiril-
al enterprise.
Carolina Credit Unions
However, Cooperative Credit Unions
re making notable lieadway in North
larolina. The first one was organized at
jowe’s Grove, Durham county, Dec. 10,
915, with twelve members. On the
velfth day of tlu- following January this
redit union had 26 members, bad re-
eived }!255 paid in on shares, and had
otal resources of ®1,602.
In his statement of Feb. 29, 1920, the
uperintendent of cooperative enterprise
hows that there are now 31 credit unions
1 North Carolina, with 1198 members,
hey have paid in $16,728 on shares, and
leir total resources are $87,179. All this
t four years. What will the totals be in
te next forty years?
Feedstuff's, fertilizers, and seed are
ought ^cooperatively by these credit
nion cooperatives. The farmers’ money
' loaned among theni.selves for farm im-
rovements and equipments. The total
iterest [rate charged is 6 percent and in-
trest at 4 percent is paid to depositors
T thefise of their money.
^"hese farmer-cooperators do more than
lere borrowing and lending. Tliey learn
to trust one another and to deal saga
ciously with one another and with outsid
ers according to approved methods of
business. These credit unions are mak
ing business men out of our farmers.
They learn how to save and to as.semble
re.sources, how to organize a credit ma
chinery, and how to market credit among
tliemselves. They learn the value of ac
counting, of keeping track of what they
earn and what they spend. The whole
fan.ily gets into habits of industry and
thrift. The whole neighborhood develops
social virtues and habits. Group life
grows and flowers graciously in coopera
tive credit communities. If you doubt it
move about a little in the Lowe’s Grove
or theValde.se communities —E. N.
BOOKS FOR BUSINESS MEN
Daily reports from the Secretary of
State show that North Carolina is form
ing more business corporations than at
any time in tier history. In order that these
biisine."s and industrial ventures may be
eonduefed along the best lines, it is im
portant that those who direct their affairs
should have the best information avail
able. In many intances a good book
written by a skilled businessman furnishes
■the information and experience which
leads to business success. In order to be
of service to the busine.ss men of the state
A MATTER OF RELIGION
An organized community can be
what it wills to be. An unorganized
community is in a state of decadence.
—Bulletin, Illinois Agricultural Col-
lege.
Organized eff'ort is one of the great
est factors in modern civilization;
whether we have in mind educational,
social, religions, political, or indus
trial acTivities.—John Lee Coulter.
Membership in one body is a funda
mental doctrine of religion. It is no
leas a fundamental doctrine of eco
nomics and sociology—and the church
must lead men into it. Getting to
gether and pulling together on earth
is a preparation for dwelling together
in Heaven.—E. 0. Branson.
COUNTRY HOME CONVENIENCES
LETTER SERIES No. 9
HORSE POWER VS ELECTRIC POWER
ble to overlook the importance of the
countryjiewspaper as an organ of educa
tion.
The country editor lives in his com
munity and is visible to his readers. They
are his neighbors and friends. He cannot
write for his paper sentiments, that his
community repudiates, and cover his
traces with the impersonal and unde
cipherable smokescreen of the unsigned
contribution. In the conduct of his paper
the School of Commerce at the University ! he has the same restraints and stimulants '
of North Carolina has prepared the fol-1 that other men have in their private and
lowing list of books and suggests that; pnblhr lelations with their felloiv citizens,
those interested place their order with Hejwie it is to the interest of the conn
the local book store in their community i try editor to keep his paper up to the
or order direct froui some such gen-ra 1 ' standard of the community’s moral life,
jobber in New' York City as G. P. I’m-1 Ai.d as a matier of fact, every Srate in
mini’s Sons, 2 \V. 45th Street, nr Baker | the Union has a number of paoers edited
and Taylor, 354 Fourth Ave. The prices
indicated are as of August 1919 and in
^ some instances there may have been an
advance since that date.
Boobs On Business
1. Business Organization and .Manage
ment. Robinson—Organizing a Busiue.-!s,
La Salle Extension Univ., $2; Knoeppel
could* ' ■~I''®talling Efficiency Methods, Indus
trial Management Library, $3; Jones—
The Administration of Industrial Enter
prises, Longmans, $2; Gowin —Develop
ing Executive Ability, Ronald Press, $3.
2 Marketing and Salesmanship. Ivey
—Elements ol Retail Salesmanship, IMac
inillan, $2.25 \ Fisk—Retail Selling, Har
pers, $1 50; Nystrnm—The Economics of
Retailing, Ronald Press, $3.
3. Foreign Trade and Exchange.
Hough—Practical Exporting, American
Exporter, $4; Escher—Foreign Exchange
Explained, Macmillan, $1.50.
4. Business Finance. Lough—Business
Finance, Ronald Press, $4; Ettinger and
Golieh—Credits and Collections, Prentice
Hall, $2.
5. Business Law. Spencer—Manual of
Commercial Law, Bobbs Merrill, $3.
6. Accounting. Baton and Stevenson—
Principles of Accounting, Macmillan,
$3-25 ; Church—Manufacturing Costs and
Accounts, McGraw Hill, $5.
7. Adv'ertising. Hess—Productive Ad
vertising, Lippincott, $2.50; Adams—
Advertising and Its Mental Laws, Mac
millan, $1.50.
8. Business Stati.-^tics. Copeland—Busi
ness Statistics, Harvard University Press,
$3.75; Babson — Business Barometers,
Babson Institute, $2.
9. Labor and Employment Problems.
Ijcitch—Man to Man, Forbes, $2; Marot
—The Creative Impulse, Dutton, $1.50;
Link — Employment Psychology, Mac
millan, $1.50.
10. Office Administration and Practice.
Schulze—Office Administration, McGraw-
Hill, $3; Cahill and Rugger!—Office Prac
tice, Macmillan, $1.
11. Business English. Gardner — Ef
fective Business Letters, Ronald, $2;
Lytle—Letters that Land Orders, Ronald
(out of print).
12. Business Morals. Page — Trade
Morals, Yale University Press, $1.50;
Tarbell—New Ideals in Business, Mac^
millan, $1.75.
13. General Economies. Clay— Eco
nomics for the General Reader, Macmil
lan (out of print); Ely—Outlines of Eco
nomics, Macmillan, $2.25.
14. Business Magazines. System, A.
W. Shaw’and Co., $3; Factory, A. W.
Shaw and Co., $5; Industrial Manage
ment, Engineering Magazine Co., $3.
THE COUNTRY EDITOR
by men wlu'Se thnughtful expressions
really carry weight and hel|> to mold
opinion m wide areas of population. The
nation needs many mon-.
Every editor should qualify himself for
his work by careful coiisideratimi of so
cial and economic truths. Onr higher
schools and our colleges'shonlil never for
get, in their direction of students to their
work in the world, that the profession of
the country eilicor opens signal opportu
nities to the laudable anihiiion of men
and women writers.—The Public.
Last week we showed how man-power
costs from sixteen to twenty times as
much as electric power. That is, when
the North Carolina farmer hires a man
to do a job that can be done by electric
power he pays from sixteen to twenty
times as much to get the job done as he
would if he hired the universal servant-
electricity. But there are a great many
jobs that require more horse power than
a man is capable of exerting, jobs that
require a good strong horse or a mule.
Let us see, therefore, how horse power
compares with electric power.
When an engineer has to make a com
parison between two kinds of power
there are three things that he must con
sider, namely, first cost, depreciation, and
cost, of operation. Suppose we apply
these to the case of horse vs electricity.
Now the average North Carolina farm
horse can work at the rate of only about
two-thirds of a mechanical horsepower,
perhaps a little less, certainly not much
more. Such a horse would cost today
about $300; whereas a three-quarter
horsepower electric motor would cost
only about $50.
A fair estimate of the life of an electric
motor would be twenty years, requiring
an annual charge to cover depreciation
of say five per cent of the first cost. Like
wise a fair estimate of the useful life of a
horse would probably be about twelve
years necessitating an annual charge of
say eight per cent for depreciation. It
will cost the farmer, therefore, for in
terest and depreciation alone fourteen
)’Cr cent on $300 or $42 per year just for
the privilege of owning a two-thirds horse
power horse. It will cost him eleven per
cent on $50 or $5.50 per year for the sim
ilar privilege of owning a three-quarter
horsepower electric motor.
Xow when it comes to the cost of opera
tion we immediately run across one strik
ing, fundamental difference Horse fuel
must be fed to a horse just the same
whether he works or not, while the elec
trie motor consumes electric fuel only
when it is actually doing work. Taking
it by and large, a reasonable estimate of
the actual working time of a farm horse
would be not far from one hundred hours
per month, or around two-fifths of the
time of the work year. Assuming that
the horse works these one hundred hours
at full capacity, the farmer would then
get in one year 800 horsepower hours or
about 600 kilowatt hours of work out of
his two-thirds horsepower horse. During
this time it would cost him, at present
farm prices of feed stuff in North Caro
lina $168 a year for the fuel consumption
of the horse. This same 600 kilowatt
hours of work could be done by an elec
tric motor, with electricity costing ten
cents per kilowatt hour, for about $80'"
allowing for the efficiency of the motor.
The case of horse vs electricity there
fore stands as follows:
Horse
Interest and
Depreciation $42.00
Fuel Consump
tion ... $168.00
Total cost
per year.. $210.00
The lesson to be drawn from this com
parison is this: wherever electric pow
er can be applied to do the jobs for which
horses have always been nsed, the wnrk
can be done for le.ss than half of the cost
if electricity can be obtained for ten cents
per kilowatt hour. We don’t for a mo
ment want to imply that electric power
can completely replace horse power oh
the farm; we don’t for a moment want
to imply that the electric motor will'do to
fhe horse on the farm what the ant 'mo
bile has done for him on the city streets.
Blit when native American genius really
gets to work on some of tfie industrial
problems of the farm as it has on tlie in-
lustrial problems of the city, who can
really say where the line will finally be
drawn between horse power and electric
po«P'?—P. H D.
Electric Motor
$5.50
$80.00
$85.50
While we are waking up to the signifi
cance of the country school, not only as
a means of making good scholars and citi
zens out of boys and girls, but as a factor
in forming the new civilization that is
overspreading rural life, we are still lia-
AMAZING VALUED PER ACRE
The value of crops produced in North
(^arolina in 1919 averaged $86 60 per acre.
On this basis of comparison, only five
states stood ahead of us—New Jersey,
Rhode Island, Arizona, Massachusetts,
and Connecticut, in the order named.
See the table in another column.
Arizona excepted, these are states in the
great industrial area of the Northeast.
Crop farming is a small detail in the oc
cupational life of these states. Their per
acre crop values are high because they
are produced in the main by farm
specialties—truck crops, fruits and the
like. Arizona is an area of irrigated
farms with less land in cultivation than
in Johnston, Wayne, and
counties alone. Its high rank is due for
the most part to alfalfa and long staple
cotton, which averages a dollar or more a
pound. There are nearly twice as many
acres under cultivation in North Carolina
as in all these five states combined.
The Leading Crop State
With these details in mind, we arejust-
ified in saying that North Carolina leads
the farm states of the Union in the per
acre value of farm crops.
We outrank South Carolina our near
est competitor in the South by $12.00 per
acre, Virginia and Kentucky by $17.00
per acre, Georgia by $37.00 per acre, and
Texas by $45.00 per acre.
As for the grain, hay and forage states
of the Middle West, the best showing is
made by Ohio with $48.39 per acre and
the poorest by North Dakota with $15.35
pei acre.
However, it is well to keep in mind the
fact that this is an area of livestock farm
ing mainly, and that crop values are there
produced with machine pow'er at a rela
tively low cost per acre. Which means
low per acre values, but high per worker
values, larger net profits, and greater ac
cumulated farm wealth.
Why Carolina Leads
Our high average of per acre crop
values is due to the fact that two-thirds
of our total crop wealth in 1919 was pro
duced by cotton and tobacco alone—cot
ton averaging $70.87 an acre and tobacco
$285.37 an acre. We produce more cot
ton per acre than any. other cotton state
in the South, while we rank next to
Kentucky in tobacco with 320 million
pounds on our score card in 1919. Be
sides, our peanuts averaged $91.00 an
acre, our sweet potatoes $134.00, and our
cane-syrup crops $203.00 an acre. The
Middle West has no standard farm crop
that will begin to compare with these in
gross yields per acre.
We have indeed such an advantage over
the middle western farmers in our soils
aiid seasons, in the high per acre value
of our standard farm crops, and in onr
livestock possibilities, that if ever we
balance up our farm systems sanely, we
shall be the richest agricultural area on
the globe.
Twenty Year Gains
Our gross crop values in 1919 were 683
million dollars or $86.60 per acre average.
Twenty years ago our gross crop total
was only 69 millions and the per acre av
erage was only $8.24. Here ia a ten fold
gain in twenty, years! Which means that
North Carolina is striding forward in the
seven league boots of the fabled giant.
It means better seeds, fewer acres per
Wake worker, and immensely improved
tillage, along with the price levels pro
duced by the war.
Inflated prices for farm products are
likely to last for many years to come, in
our opinion. But meanwhile the decrease
in farm labor calls for larger farms, mor«
improved farm machinery, more W'lrk-
srock per farm, more acres not fewer'per
farmer, more and better meat and milk
animals, and a better balance bi-tween
crop farming and livestock farming.
Otherwise we are not likely to cash in
our largest agricultural possibilities, and
to hedge safely against the boll weevil
and the falling prices that are inevita'Dle
in the days ahead.
Prudent farmers in North Carolina will
foresee approaching evils and find a way
of escape; foolish farmers will be as heed
less as usual and will pass on into punish
ment. Foresight is rare, hind-sight is
the rule. Opportunity must be seized
by the forelock, not the fetlock, on the
farm as everywhere else.
This study concludes for the present
the wealth studies of North Carolina that
have been running in the University
News Letter during the last six weeks or ■
so. They will be resumed just as soon as
we can get advance sheets of the Indus-
trial Census of 1919.
GROSS CROP VALUES PER ACRE IN 1919
Based on Reports of the United States Department of Agriculture
Miss Henrietta R. Smedes
Department of Rural Social Science
University of North Carolina
Per acre average for the United States
, $42.82. For North Carolina,
$86.60
Rank State
1 Connecticut
Rank State
25 Delaware ...
2
Massachusetts
123.69
26
Cregon ....
3
Arizona /
27
Ohio. .
4
Rhode Island
28
Nevada
5
New Jersey
29
Louisiana
6
North Carolina
30
Utah
7
California
31
Wisconsin
8
South Carolina
74.48
32
Michigan ,
9
New Hampshire
33
Texas
10
Virginia
34
Colorado ....
11
Kentucky
35
Indiana
12
Maine
36
Towfl, .. .
13
West Virginia
37
Alabama
14
Florida
38
15
Mississippi
39
Cklahoma
16
New York
40
Mi!=i9onri
17
Maryland
41
Wyominer
18
Pennsylvania
42
NewJMexico
19
Arkansas
43
Minnesota
20
Vermont
44
21
Idaho
45
Kansas
22
Washington
46
South Dakota
23
Tennessee
47
Montana
24
Georgia
48
North Dakota..
\h
I
A .£
1
. I
.4 1