The news in this publi
cation is released for the
press on receipt.
THE UNiVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS
Published Weekly by the
University of North Caro
lina for its University Ex
tension Division.
APKIL 26, 1922
CHAPEL HELL, N. C.
VOL. vm, NO. 23
EJUoriai Hoard t J3. 0. «ra:ison, 0. H. Hobba, Jr., L. Wiison, fi. W. KniKtiC, D. D. OavroU, J. B. Bniiltt, H. W. Odum. Bncered as aecond-olass matter November 14,1914, at the Postoflice at Chapel Hill, N, O., under the act of August 24, I91&.
THE NEW YEAR-BOOK
North Carolina; Industrial and Urban
is the title of the new Year-Book of
the North Carolina Club at the State
University. It is a bulletin of 185 pages
and nineteen chapters. It gives to the
reading public the 1920-21 studies of
urban-industrial development of the
home state.
• North Carolina is moving rapidly out
of a home-made, homespun civilization
into a machine-made city civilization.
As a rule a transition period is faintly
sensed and little considered at the time
by the people whose social structures
are undergoing radical changes. It has
always been so in every land and coun
try. The interpretation of a.renaissance
period follows along a century or two
later. Then college research students
dig it out of library dust heaps, subject
it to analyses, and win doctorate de
grees galore.
The North Carolina Club is diiferent.
It sets itself to studies of history-in-the-
making in the home state, in order to
be makers as well as students of his
tory. it cherishes the ideal of compe
tent acquaintance with life and liveli
hood in the world that lies just beyond j
campus walls. It believes that an acre |
in Tarheelia is worth a whole province j
in Utopia or a whole empire in Iran—
to paraphrase a picturesque sentence of
Macaulay's.
The titles of former year-books per-:
fectly indicate the ideals of the Club:
(1) The Resources, Advantages and Op-;
portunities of North Carolina—now out'
of print, (2) Wealth and Welfare in
North Carolina, (3) County Government ■
and County Affairs in North Carolina, !
(4) State Reconstruction Studies, (6);
Carolina Industrial and Urban, and (6);
Home and Farm Ownership in North '
Carolina—the studies that are being;
pursued during the present college
year.
These bulletins on present-day busi
ness, life, and government in North;
Carolina can be had by addressing the
Extension Division of the University,
Chapel Hill, N. C.
Social-Civic Problems
The nineteen chapters of the new
Year-Book are as follows:
1. The North Carolina Club, E. C.
Branson, University faculty.
2. Industrial Carolina in 1920, E. C.
Branson.
3. Wealth and Livelihood in Carolina,
E. C. Branson.
4. Urban Carolina in 1920, E. C.
Branson.
6. The Cityward Drift in Carolina,
C. J. Williams, Cabarrus county.
6. The Small Town in North Caro
lina, L. D. Martin, Virginia.
7. Small Town Development in North
Carolina, H. B. Cooper, Vance county.
8. The Developing Industries of North
Carolina, M. M. Jernigan, Sampson
county.
9. Social Effort in the Mill and Fac
tory Centers of Carolina, Bryan W.
Sipe, Gaston county.
10. Community Work in Gaston Coun
ty Mill Towns, Beulah Martin, Georgia.
11. Carolina Chambers of Commerce,
Roy M. Brown, Watauga county.
12. City Problems in North Carolina,
T. E. Buchanan, Virginia.
13. City Planning in North Carolina,
N. P. Hayes, Warren county.
14. Forms of City Government in
Carolina, P. A. Reavis, Jr., Franklin
county.
15. Municipal Finance and Financial
Methods in North Carolina, J. G. Gul-
lick, Gaston county.
16. Municipal Accounting in North
Carolina, Phillip Hettleman, Wayne
county.
17. Municipal Utilities and Franchise
Policies in North Carolina, W. E. Wolf,
Indiana.
18. Community Life and Organiza
tion in North Carolina, C. E. Cowan,
Bertie county.
19. Public Service in North Carolina,
Howard W. Odum, University faculty.
FARM-WORKER CROP VALUES
The crop values produced in North
Carolina in the census year averaged
$1,053 per farm worker, against $1,347
in the United States.
In Iowa and Nebraska the per-worker
crop average was more than $2,700; in
seven states it was more than twice the
average of North Carolina. All told it
was larger in thirty-one states. i
We are great in gross crop values. |
In this particular we are among the
first five states of the Union.
We are great in per-acre crop values.
In this particular we are among the
first ten states of the Union. |
But in the'per-worker production of,
crop values we drop toward the bottom !
of the column. Only sixteen states i
make a poorer showing. !
Kansas, Nebraska, and the Da- \
kotas produce around a fourth of
the per-acre values turned out in North .
Carolina, but they produce two and a
half times our per-worker crop values, i
They stand at the bottom of the per-!
acre column and at the top of the per-
worker column.
Ssnall-Scale Farming
The Middle West is a region of medi
um and large-scale farmers; in the cot-:
ton and-tobacco belt we are small-scale
farmers as a rule. We cultivate an
average of seventeen acres per farm-1
worker in North Carolina, while in Kan- i
sas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas they i
cultivate from 123 to 205 acres per.
farm-worker. ;
In Nebraska 127 thousand farm work-!
ers cultivate 23 million acres, while in
! North Carolina 478 thousand farm-
I workers cultivate only 8 million acres.
! Which means that in Nebraska about a
'third as many farm-workeis cultivate
■ nearly three times as much land as
in North Carolina. They produce
small values per acre, only $9.09 against
$38.82 in North Carolina; but they pro
duce large values per-worker, $2,778
against $1,053 in North Carolina.
They do it by the abundant use of
horse and machine power. They have
a chance to use labor-saving, profit-
producing machinery because the farms
are large enough to justify it, and also
because grain, hay, and forage farming
can be a matter of machine-farming
from plowing time to harvest season.
They widen the margin of profits by
reducing expensive human labor to a
minimum.
In the cotton and tobacco belt, the
market value of the crops is well-nigh
consumed by the human labor that pro
duces it, and consumed long before
these non-food crops reach the market.
Reducing labor cost is difficult (1) be
cause the average farm is only 30 culti
vated acres in North Carolina, (2) be
cause from two-fifths to nearly four-
fifths of jijur cotton and tobacco farm-1
ers, black and white, are tenants, and,
tenants as a rule cannot be trusted
with expensive labor-saving farm ma
chinery, and (3) because cotton and
tobacco are largely hand-made crops.
The cropping, cultivation, and harvest
ing cannot yet be profitably done with
machinery.
And so little by little we have drifted
into small-scale farming in the South
since the Civil War, largely because
labor is relatively abundant and cash
operating capital is meager.
A Hazardous Enterprise
Small-scale farming can be profitable
(1) if it is farming by farmers who own
the land they till, (2) if farm practices
are reinforced by agricultural science
and intelligent skill, (3) if farmers own
and use labor-saving machinery in com
mon, (4) if they buy farm supplies,
market farm products, and finance
farm activities cooperatively, and (6)
if farm products of every sort can be
readily marketed for cash in nearby
towns and cities.
Lacking any one of these conditions,
small-scale farming is a perilous way
of life.
The simple fact is we have too many
tenant farmers, too little respect for
scientific agriculture, too little appre
ciation of balanced farm systems, too
little livestock, too little skill in farm
practices, too little cooperative enter
prise, too few cities and cities too small
as yet to afford ready cash markets for
home-raised food and feed products.
And finally there i^ a general neglect
by our cities of local public market ar
rangements, conveniences, and facili
ties for handling any home-raised farm
products but cotton and tobacco.
Small-scale farming under these con
ditions produces (1) enormous bulk
totals of value, to the joy of^bankers,
transporters, and jobbers, and (2)
large per-acre values to the joy of land
lords who enjoy rent-revenues, but it is
(Released week beginning April 24)
KNOW NORTH CAROLINA
Beating the Boll Weevil
The cotton boll weevil has reached
our state and is each year advancing
northward in it. Our cotton grow
ers, if they are to continue in the
growth of cotton profitably, espe
cially in much of the Coastal Plain
section, must all soon adopt meth
ods that will effectively control or
reduce to the minimum the ravages
of this pest. The methods of the
past will have to give way to more
effective ones. The following are
some of the precautions and methods
which will have to be used in reduc
ing the severity of attack by this
pest and in making cotton growing
most productive and profitable under
boll weevil infestation:
1. Be calm, use generally good
farming methods. Meet his attack
with courage if you wish to win out.
2. Plant cotton only on uplands.
One will run a big risk to plant bot
tom lands or lands near wooded
areas, particularly so in extreme
eastern and southeastern parts of
the state.
3. Use at least 600 pounds of fer
tilizer to the acre, containing a larg
er proportion of phosphoric acid than
is ordinarily used, avoiding the use
of fertilizers too rich in nitrogen.
4. Break lands well for cotton
early in the fall or winter. Plant as
early in the spring as ground is warm.
Cultivate well and frequently to
keep plants growing vigorously from
start.
5. Plant smaller acreage and keep
fields free from rubbish, grass,
weeds, and bushes.
6. Pick up and destroy all first
squares that have been punctured.
In planting use a plenty of well ma
tured seed.
7. Secure and maintain a moder
ately thick stand, not exceeding 8 to
12 inches between hills. This will
cause the plants to make smaller
growth and to mature quicker. Have
rows about 4 feet apart.
8. Grow sufficient food and feed
crops to meet the needs of farm.
9. Avoid excessive rank growth
of cotton plants.
10. Field select seed, and use for
planting, early fruiting and early
opening varieties of cotton like Cleve
land Big Boll, Express, or Edge-
combe-Cook.
11. After gathering cotton, de
stroy cotton stalks, weeds, etc., by
plowing in five or six inches deep in
the fall before frost, ihen put the
land in suitable cover crops.
12. Establish a good crop rotation
in which suitable leguminous crops
with the main money crops are used.
—C. B. Williams, Dean of Agricul
ture, N. C. State College of Agricul
ture and Engineering.
small-scale farming. What we need
is more land better farmed by home
owning farmers, with more labor sav-
ing, profit-producing machinery; more
food and feed farming to support farm
families and farm animals; more cotton
and tobacco farming on a bread-and-
meat basis; more and larger cities with
better public marketing facilities, of
fering fair ready cash prices for sur
plus food and feed products.
Large gross crop values do not ne
cessarily mean large net profits to farm
ers.
Large per-acre yields do not neces
sarily mean large net profits to farm
ers. The doctrine of diminishing re
turns concerns net profits, not gross
crop totals and per-acre yields alone.
But large per-worker yields enormous
ly multiply the. farmer’s chance at net
profits.
It is childish to brag about crop to
tals and per-acre yields alone. "We ought
to get ready to brag about per-v/orker
yields, net profits, and accumulating
wealth in farm regions.
Per-worker crop yields by counties
will be published in an early issue of
the News Letter.
WALLACE’S TRUISMS
I advance some general statements,
says Secretary Wallace of the U. S.
Department of Agriculture, which I
think may be accepted as truisms. It
is to the general interest:
First; That the production of such
agricultural products as can be grown
successfully in this country should be
large enough, one year with another,
to meet home needs. la short, that
agriculturally the nation should be self-
sustaining.
Second; 'That so far as possible pro
duction should be by land owners or
those who are in the way of becoming
land owners, and that our system of
renting land should be such as to enable
, the tenants to practice diversification
; of crops and store and market surplus
grain and forage crops in the form of
livestock. Only when such conditions
• obtain can we expect that regard for
the maintenance of the fertility of the
soil which is our greatest national ma-
. terial asset, and upon which the contin-
i ued life of the nation depends,
j Third: That inasmuch as almost one-
half of all our people live on the land,
and the surplus population from the
i country goes to make up a very impor-
I tant part of our urban life, standards
of living on the farm should be main
tained and improved rather than low-
iered.
Fourth: That the farms should yield
a fair rate of return on the money in
vested in land and equipment, and a
wage to those who work them, which
, is fairly comparable, everything con-
! sidered, with the wage return in the
' cities and industrial centers. Other-
; wise there will be an increasing drift of
the better class of farmers to the cities,
and in the course of time the land will
be worked by people of the peasant
type.
Fifth: That inasmuch as profits from
the rapid advance in the value of land,
which heretofore have been very much
larger than the profits from yearly
farm operations, are fast disappearing,
conditions should be such that in the
future our farmers can reasonably count
on an adequate return from their farm
operations.
Sixth: That hazards, risks, and con
ditions over which the farmer has no
control, but which profoundly influence
his returns, one year with another—
such, for example, as changes in the
price level, which throw agricultural
prices out of their normal relationship
to otljer prices; weather conditions,
and insect pests, which greatly affect
crop yields—should, so far as possible,
be carried by the community at large
rather than by the individual farmer.
Seventh: That every proper means
should be used to establish agriculture
upon a basis which will.yielc^ adequate
returns for productive effort, rather
than put a premium on speculative en
terprise.
AT WASHINGTON AND LFE
A visitor can at any time count scores
of text books, scratch-pads, etc., piled
at the campus entrance, under the trees,
or on the doorsteps of the college build
ings, awaiting the return of their own
ers. Very few college doors on the
campus are ever locked. In Newcomb
Hall, swarming with students at all
times and open all night, are the ad
ministrative offices of the University.
The President’s and Dean’s offices and
the filing-room between them, with all
their valuable cases, private letters,
and irreplaceable records, the various
stenographers’ offices, and the mailing-
room of the Washington and Lee Bul
letin remain unlocked day and night the
whole year, even when their occupa.nts
are out of town, while the Registrar’s
office is only locked at rare intervals.
Yet nothing is ever disturbed in any
one of them.
The numerous departmental libraries
and reading-rooms are all examples of
the honor-system in daily routine oper-
•ation. The large and valuable law li
brary will be taken as an illustration of
them all. Tucker Hall, the law build
ing, is the home, club, and study-hall
of the large law-school, numbering or
dinarily over 150 men from every sec
tion of the country. It is open day and
night, lighted till midnighL and always
full of students. Its main library opens
on each side into a large study-hall,
and every student enters it at will,
takes out whatever books he may se
lect, carries them for study anywhere,
in the building, and uses them as long
as he wishes. This goes on day and
night the whole session, the only guard
ian of these thousands of costly volumes
being the atmosphere and habits of
the honor-system.
Only a few days ago a student was
requested to leave for “appropriating”
an article for which his fellow-student
had paid thirty-five cents.—President
Henry Louis Smith.
CROP VALUES PER FARM WORKER IN 1919
Based (1) on the gross value of all farm crops, and (2) on the number of
farmworkers (farm owners operating farms, tenants, and hired laborers), as
per the 1920 census.
North Carolina ranked 6th in total crop values in 1921, and in per-acre crop
values we ranked 9th. In per-worker crop values we occupied the 32nd place
in 1919.
Average per worker crop values for the United States in 1919, $1,347; in
North Carolina, $1,053; in Iowa, $2,722, and in Nebraska, $2,778.
Miss Henrietta R. Smedes
Department of Rural Social Economics, University of North Carolina
Rank
farming with a minimum of net profits
to the farmers who produce crop wealth
by the sweat of their own backs. So it
is even in prosperous years. In bad
crop seasons or bad market seasons,
there is widespread distress for farm
ers, merchants, and bankers alike.
Year in and out, small-scale crop farm
ing under southern conditions means a
steadily lowered standard of living on
the farms—just as certainly in the end
in the southern states of America as in j
Belgium, where under a tenant system
the largest per-acre crop yields in the
world are produced from year to year,
and where the condition of the farmer
is nearly the worst in Europe—or so it
was the year the World War began.
Childish ThinKing
Leas land better farmed is almost the
only economic doctrine we hear preached
in the South by the average man. But
alone it does not solve the problem of
State
Crop values per
Rank
State
Crop values per
worker 1919
worker 1919
Nebraska
$2,778
25
Delaware
1,303
Iowa
2,722
26
Maine
1,296
South Dakota .
2,652
27
Connecticut ....
1,180
Kansas
2,626
28
Arizona
1,174
North Dakota .
2,517
29
Wyoming
1,162
Illinois
2,279
30
Maryland
1,145
California
2,159
31
Vermont
1,084
Colorado
1,808
32
North Carolina..
1,053
Oklahoma
1,746
33
South Carolina .
1,039
Idaho
1,736
34
Virginia
971
Washington ...
1,728
36
Massachusetts..
930
Indiana
1,691
36
Kentucky
886
Ohio
1,683
37
Georgia
881
Minnesota.-....
1,646
38
Arkansas
836
Nevada
1,628
39
Montana
823
Wisconsin
1,446
40
Tennessee
795
Pennsylvania .
1,445
41
New Hampshire
773
Oregon
1,435
42
West Virginia..
769
New Jersey ...
1,430
43
New Mexico....
738
Missouri
1,469
44
Louisiana
709
Michigan
1,392
45
Mississippi
664
Texas
1,350
46
Florida
648
TTtaVi
1,342
47
Rhode Island..
639
New York
1,324
48
Alabama
603