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.
JUNE 16, 1915
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. I, NO. 30
Editorial Boards E. C. Branson, J. G. deR, Hamilton, L. R. Wilson, Z. V. Judd, B. R. Winters, L. A. Williams. Entered as second-class matter November 14, 1914, at the postoffice at Chapel Hill, N. 0-,
under the act of August 24,1912.
NORTH CAROLINA CLUB NOTES
TURNING WASTE INTO
WEALTH
Tlie Canning School at the Htatc Nor
mal School the first weelt in .Tuiie was an
•event (if large signiflcance.
Thy program covered the canning of
fruits and vegetables; preserving, jam
and jolly-making; garden sprays; eggs
and butter; market iiroblems, and home
convenieueies.
■]\larkets for surpluses at fair prices;
saving surpluses that have no profitable
markets at the time, and thereby pre
venting waste; a steady income for the
farm wives, and more home comforts,
conveniencies, and luxuries are all direct
ly related to rural progress and prosperi
ty-
When 400 car loads of strawberries rot
in eastern North Carolina for lacrk of
markets, and M'hen some four million
bushels of apples, or half of our last
year’s crop, sell for a song or go to w^aste
altogether, it is easy to see Mrs. McKim-
nion and her canning club girls are solv
ing a very real problem in very direct,
practical ways.
HELPING CONSUMERS AND
PRODUCERS
“Here is a letter that was sent out to
the people of Nashville by the postmas
ter,-” said Major ~W. A. Graham our
State Commissioner of Agriculture.
“Bi'.low you will find a list of producers
who have agreed to furnish butter, eggs,
■chickens, farm products and the like,'di-
rect to the consumer in this city. All of
those named below are close enough to
Nashville so that perishable goods can be
received from them with perfect safety.
In fact, none of them are beyond tlie
second zone. , .
This list of names has been prepared
with great care and at a cost of consider
able labor and time at the hands of the
postoffico department, and it is hoped
that the i>eople of Nashville will appreci
ate fully what it means to them.
it is believed that in the aggregate the
])arties named below can, and will, fur
nish enough butter, eggs, poultry, farm
products, and the like, to materially re
duce the, high cost of living, which is the
sole aim and purpose of the postofRe de-
]iartinent in pushing the project.
The Nashville postoffice is prepared to
render the best of service in the way of
delivery of perishable goods, and in ask
ing the co-operation of the public, I also
invite any complaints regarding the im
proper handling of parcel post matter.”—
News and Observer.
A NEW OUTLOOK FOR
TEACHERS
With just ten days for a conifortable,
long breath, the University Faculty, ora
large portion of it, starts to w'.ork again
in the summer school with the teachers
of North Carolina.
And they come H(jcking to Chapel Hill
in nuiltitudes from every nook and corner
rf the State.
The University New's Letter extends a
hearty greeting, and opens its columns to
them for brief items al)OUt their work
here for the folks at home.
The teachers are concerned about larg
er scholai'ship, and the w'ays, means and
methotls of teaching. The people back
in the home-coimties are concerned about
larger measures of wealth, and the ways,
means and methods of I'stablishing and
supporting better schools.
Leadership and Teachership
North Carolina has wrought miracles
■with meagre wealth hitherto. Her re
sources of soul have been wonderful. The
crucial need now' is for larger stores of ac-
cumulatc'd wealth in every county in the
State; for leaderehip as well as teacher
ship in every community; for intimate,
accurate knowledge of local conditions,
possibilities, and opportunities; for train
ing in life problems and business enter
prises along with methods of teaching and
managing schools.
- This year tlie university offers courses
in scholarsliip, and in the theory and
practices of teaching; but also also in
North Carolina economics and sociology,
in our own home problems of life and
business.
AMAZING FOOD DEFICITS
Mr. S. H. DeVault, student in the
University of North Carolhia, from
Washington county, Tennessee, has run
into surprises.
For instance, he tinds in the 1910 Cen
sus that the food and feed consumed by
man and beast in the big city counties of
Tennessee are far above the amounts pro
duced by tlie farmers of these counties.
The bill for importeil pantry supplies
and stock feed, for consumption by the
populations and domestic animals in
these counties, is as follows:
Washington, $1,132,000; Knox, $5,-
S86,000; Hamilton, J6,921,000; David
son, §9,960,000; and Shelby, 3il4,918,000.
The total shortage of home-raised food
and feed stuffs in these five comities is
$38,817,000. Here’s a king’s ransom;
and it goes out of these counties to enrich
tlie farmers of other states and sections
year by year.
An Immense Market Problem
If the thirty-eight million dollars sent
out of 'Washington, Knox, Hamilton,
Davidson, and Shelby counties, Ti'unes-
see, for imported food and feed stuffs
could be kept at home, the farm jwpu-
lation in these counties, in a very few
years, would bt^ worth as much as Illinois
or Iowa fanners;, that is to say, from
$2,600 to $3,600 apiece, counting men,
women, and children.
Here is a tremendous market clemand
for farm i>roducts. Consumers in .Tohn-
son City, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Nash
ville, and ]\Iemphis are bewildered liythe
increased cost of living.
Why do not farmers in the nearby
country regions supply the demand, and
get the benefit- of high prices for pantry
supplies and feed stuffs?
A Simple Solution
The answer is fairly simple. Producers
alone never settldl a market problem.
Nor consumers alone.
They must get together, and the busi
ness men of a growing city must bring
them together. It is the biggest problem
that any Board of Trade has to consider;
far trigger than any one or a dozen new
industrial enterprises.
The acid test of success is this: Are
the farmers getting more for their pro
ducts? And at the same time, are the
consumers getting more for their money?
If not, a city market or any market
plan or scheme is a ghastly joke ui^on the
city dwellers and the country dwellers
alike.
A GREAT TRUCKING AND LIVE
STOCK REGION
With a record of $31.12 per acre, Pam
lico outranked 95 counties of North Caro
lina in per-acre iTop producing power in
thd census year.
Jlore than that, in this particular it
outranked seven of the eight banner agri
cultural counties of the United States.
The per-acre yield of crop values in Pam
lico is more than twice that of the rich
prairie states of the Middle West.
The corn, cabbage, Irish and sweet
potatoes, peas, snap beans and other
crops are just now feast to the eye in
Pamlico.
A Very High RanK
Pamlico county outranked 91 counties
of the State in its,1910 Irish potato crop;
80 counties in its sweet potato crop; 91
counties in per capita corn production; 76
counties in the per capita j>roduction of
pork; 65 counties in pigs, per 1,000 acres;
and 94 counties in the increase of pigs
during the census period.
The daintiest sea foods are abundant
the whole year round. Th^climate is
ideal. Artesian water can be easily ob
tained everywhere. The soil is fertile
and living is unbelievably cheap; and yet
the per capita wealth of the people is only
$263!
AVith fewer natural advantages, the
farm people of Iowa are worth $3,600
apiece, or thirteen times as much, man
for man!
A Sparse Population
Pamlico, a little more than most coun
ties in the State, needs more people to
the square mile. There is in the county
abundant elbow'-room for 2,000 Middle
AGRICULTURE AND THE
UNIVERSITY
President E. K. Graham
One of the belated visions of South
ern business and educational states
manship is that we can have here no
full prosperity or civilization unless
agriculture is made truly productive.
Fn our individualistic, political, and
economic life we have flattered it, ig
nored it, or exploited it. We have
lately awakened to the fact that it is
an almost dead center at tlie heart of
Soutlu'rn progress, and we have had
tlie vision that it is our function to co-
o]wrate with it fully and wholly.
It is invitable that .society’s need will
make farming ellicient as a business.
In bringing this about one of two
proc('sses is pos.sible: that it be de
veloped as other great businesses are,
w ith routine skilled labor under c^ip-
tains of industry; or that it be made a
liberal human vocation, each farm
home the trnter of a whole and whole-,
some life, and jierfecting' the develop
ment of a definite civili/.ation.
Wlftit will make it realize its'higher
desthiy will not be a limited vie^v of
-it is a manual vocation. It is a manu
al \'ocation, .and as such should be
trained to the highest human efficiency
as a producer of wealth.
T!t must be mon.' deeply interpreted,
however, if it is to attract and hold
men of energy and initiative.
In its relation t i nature, to the ap
plied scJfences, agriculture has relations
that put it on the full current of the
forces that mak(> for human culture
through right relations to work, by
evoking not only prosperity from the
soil, but the higher faculties of the
man himself,—making of the cropper,
the farmer; and of the farmer, the
num-on-the-farm.
■Western farm families. They could be
settlerl on 75 acres ajtiece, and 50,000
acres- of the present wilderness would
still be left to its ancient solitude.
Brisk little shi])ping and trading cen
ters, more business, and a larger volume
of circulating cash are in order in Pam
lico. It needs what every county needs—
a capable leader with a big brain to spell
out the big problems of community life
and business. Community builders who
are genuinely and generously interested
in community wealth and welfare! Every
where there are politicians enougli and to
spare.
A Brave People
In spite of the ineagre per capita wealth
of Pamlico, the money spent upon public
eilncation amounts to $11.39 per thousand
dollars w'orth of propeity. Only ten
counties of the Statemake a better show
ing. It is 50 per cent more than Wake
and nearly 100 per cent more flian New
Hanover is spending for this purpose.
The new school building in Oriental, a
town of 650 people, is handsomer than
that of most towns three times its size.
The lumber business is dwindling; but
the fishing industry and agriculture offer
still'greater opportunities.
The business waj' out lies in a larger
population, in trucking, bet^f cattle, and
pork production.
OUR CROP YIELDING RECORD
In 1914 the average crop yield in North
Carolina, the 12 leading crops considered,
\\’as $20.18 per acre. The average for the
country-at-large was $16.34.
In this particular, North Carolina leads
the South, Kentucky alone excepted.
Not only this, - North Carolina’s aver
age per-acre crop producing power was
greater than that of Indiana, Illinois,
Iowa, ^lichigan, Vv’isconsin, or Mhine-
sota; nearly twice as great as that of
North or South Dakota.
And this leadership is no exceptional
thing. It has been held almost without
variation during the last five years.
And yet the per capita wealth of the
country people in these states ranges
from 5 to 10 times that of the country
people in North Carolina. $;->22 in North
Carolina against $3,386 in Iowa, say!
Acre for acre we jiroduce far greater crop
values year by year. We I'lroduce great
farm wealth; they retain it.
They are. well developed food-crop,
live-stock states—that’s why.
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
LETTER SERIES NO. 32
HOMES FOR THE RURAL
TEACHERS
A permanent home, jirovided by the
school community for rural school teach
ers, is giving great satisfaction where it
is in vogue, acc’ording to Hai'old W.
Foght in a bulletin just issued by“the U.
S. Bureau of Education.
Community Centers
AVhile out of 3,000 teachers replying to
Mr, Foght’s inquiries only 73 live in
homes provided by Ihe community, the
bulletin shows that teachers who have
such homes find it possible' to become
permanent community leaders.
In the few homes"T6porting iterma-
nent homes, declares the bulletin, the
teachers are usually able to jiroject the
scliool into the home and draw the home
close to the school. AA'luu-e teachers’ cot
tages are jiro^'ided, these, iiside from
making the teachers’ own lives more at
tractive, naturally become rallying cen
ters for all community activities.
Grasshopper Teachers
The ins’estigations of Mr. Fo,ght reveal
that in rural United States the average
time for each public-school teacher to
remain in any one school is less than two
.school years of 140 days each. This
average, says the liulletin, is very much
less for a majority of the teachers, the
few jiermanent, professional teachers
alone bringing it u]i close to the two-year
level.
Unprofessional Teaching
As the avei’age age when teaching is
begun is 19 years, and the average num
ber taught is only 6 1-2, the bulletin’s
statistics show that the rural public
schools of the country are taught largely
by young unmarried people who have no
idea of followin.sr teaching as a profession.
Conclusions
The conclusions of Mr, Foght are: So
long as teachers continue to be peripa
tetics, the best results in community
leadershiji can not be expected. A
ch;mge from amateur to professional
teaching in the rural schools would be
hastened by giving the teacher a salary
that would enable him to provide com
fortably for his family, and by compell
ing the community, through legal enact
ment to erect a teacher’s cottage in close
proximity to every school plant.—U. S.
Bureau of Education News Letter.
GREETINGS
To the teachers and school men now
entering the work of the summer School
after a year of nerve-racking and self-
sacriticing labor the University School
of Education extends a cordial welcome.
It shall be its purpose during the com
ing six weeks to place all its resources at
your service, to help in solving your par
ticular problems,, to point out for you
broader patlis of learning, to open for
you the door to a hirger vision oi the
teaching profession.
NORTH CAROLINA LEADS
AGAIN
Per-acre Production of the 12 principal
Crops, 1914.
North Carolina $20.18
Oregon 19.87
Ohio ^ 19.79
Colorado 18.97
Michigan 18.96
W.yoming 18.54
Wisconsin 18.53
California 18.40
'Montana. ,. 18.23
Virginia 18.12
Iowa •. 17.92
South Carolina 17.88
Florida 17.39
Indiana 17.27
Tennessee 16.75
Illinois 16.25
Kansas 15.66
Louisana 15.40
Georgia 14.69
Nebraska. 14.19
Alabama 14.16
Arkansas 14.01
^Missouri 13.96
Mississippi 13.68
Texas 13.48
IMinnesota 13.19
Oklahoma 12.21
North Dakota 11.10
South Dakota 10.79
Ke-arranged by the Carolina Club from
the Federal Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 665.
TOO LITTLE COUNTRYSIDE
WEALTH
In I860, real estate and personalty in
North Carolina appeared on our tax
books witira valuation of $125,155,000.
Our 331,000 slaves were valued at $92,-
000,000. Our white population number
ed 630,000 and their i>er capita wealth
was $344.
In 1914 on the basis ^f assessed proper-
■"ty values in North Carolina, the per capi
ta wealth of our white population was on
ly $313. On the same basis, the per
capita wealth of the people of Iowa last
year n as $l,77>i-. '
Census values are greater than tax
values; and on this basis the per capita
wealth of our white population in the
country regions in the census year was
only $395. Inllhnois it was $2,665, and
in Iowa it was $3,386.
The per capita taxable \vealth of the
whites in North Carolina is $31 less than
it was in 1860! It is less than a fifth of
the per capita taxable wealth of the Iowa
people.
The iit-r capita wealth of our white
country po[>ulation is less than one-ninth
that of the llUnois country people; and
less than—one-tenth that of the Iowa
country dwellers!
THE BOYS’ COHN CLUBS ^
From the report of Messrs. T. K
Browne and A. K. Kobertson, in charge
of the Boys’ Corn Club work in North
Carolina, the following interesting facts
are selected:
Total number enrolled 4,540
Total number reporting 966
Total number of bushels 56,221,2
Total cost for State $23,216.85
Total average yield for State 58.2 bn.
Total average cost for State 41.3 c bu.
Total profit for State $33,004.35
According to this report Wake county
led the State with an enrollment of 352
members. The enrollment for the entire
State was double that of the previous
year.
Valufe of the WorR
The Corn Club work has several great
values:
(1) ECONOMIC.
The boys of North Carolina are show
ing their fathers bow to farm. The clear
profit of $33,000 is a handsome sum for
the boys.
(2) SOCIAL.
The -boy m Iio enters the Corn Club
contest, carries on a correspondence with
the director of the work, competes with
the county boys for prizes, and goes up
to the county town for a great demon
stration by the Corn Clubs, will not in
his day be calk-d a hayseeder.
(3) EDUCATIONAL.
The Corn Club boys are reading bulle
tins and instructions and are applying
those instructions in their daily work.
This is indeed the way of education.
"The corn and canning clul) projects are
good illustrations of the vitalization of
the course of study.
A New Scholarship Plan
Honor graduates of accredited high
schools and academies in Vermont will be
awarded free scholarships at the Univer
sity of Vermont, according to a plan an
nounced by President Guy Potter Benton.
The scholarships, amounting to $100 each,
«ill be given to the high-rank boy and
girl in each school.
“It is hoped,” said President Benton,
“that this Step will ultimately lead to the
enactment of a law guaranteeing such
free scholarships to every worthy young
person in Vermont. The University
management belie\'es that every young
man and young woman ready for college
should be given free tuition iii the State
University.