Newspapers / The University of North … / Aug. 30, 1916, edition 1 / Page 1
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The aew8 m this publica tion is released for the press on ^ date indicated below. OF NORTH CAROLINA NEWS LETTER UGUST 30,1916 dltorial Board. B.C. Braaaon, .J. »i. deR. Hamilton, U R. Wilson, L,. A. Williams, B. H. CHAPEL HILL, N. C. Published weekV by the University of North Carolina (or its Bureau Extension. VOL. II, NO. 40 ornton, (j. ai. McKie. Entered as second-class matter November 14,1914, at thB,postofflce at Chapel Hill, N.O., under the act or August 24, NORTH CAROLINA CLUB STUDIES .COUNTRY CHILDREN MORE DEFECTIVE ©n account of its’liatural advantages have always considered the country g the best place to raise children, but trange rumors have reached us of late. Upon the request of the American Medi- -al Association, the National Educational sociation and other organizations of "ke standing, an inquiry into the health f country children was made aimultan- -usly in several distant states. The reports show that the rural child ■g from 5 per cent to 20 per cent more de fective than the city child; that he shows Qore of nutritional defects; more of -espiratory disturbances; more of mental nd nervous complications; a larger per- ntage of tuberculosis, especially of the he bones; and that his eyes, ears, nose, hroat and teeth are in grave need of at- entioii.—Dr. Frances Sage Bradley. PAUPERS IN NORTH CAROLINA The tax payers in North Carolina spent 19,000 upon 6,405 paupers in 1914. hese figures cover the paupers outside as ■ell as inside our county homes. This sum is big enough to call for ac- ■urate account ketping on part of our -Qunty commissioners; but not so it seems at least, in a score or more of counties. Don’t know, nobody know's, can’t tell, bout so and so, were the answers that •ame back to us about these details in irty odd counties last year. It sounds "ncredible, but so it is. Is it not time to establish (1) uniform •county account keeping, (2) standardized annual exhibits of county finances, (3) (•sfficieiit oversight of county accounts and 1(4) to require imder penalty of law the publication of county balance sheets, at «iie time and not piecemeal, within a vreasonable time after the close of the fis- k:al year? The tax payers know nothing about 'County finances in full in Alamance, 'Orange and Iredell. And there are other •counties equally in the dark. How long 'will intelligent citizens allow this sort of fthing to go on? THE COST OF LIVING The cost of living in a manufacturing «center fairly calls for a living wage. But the labor cost of production must be kept ilow enough to enable the manufacturers >to compete in prices with the big wide ■world; otherwise the mills and factories ■jniist go out of -busrdess. All industrial center is therefore self- ■defensively interested in solving the .problem of local markets for the food iproducts of the farmers in the surround ing trade territory. If consumers and ;iocal producers of food products can be ibrought together in direct dealings the advantage is mutual; the farmers get more for their products and the consum ers get more for their money. If the food supply of a factory center ijnust be hauled in over long distances, a :.8wanning multitude of middlemen must fee rewarded. The cost of food products fis tJierefore higher, and city consumers .■at last pay inflated bills for breadstufTs. The cost of long-distance marketing is -always greater than the cost of producing the food itself. The Labor Cost of Production A city that dreams of steady growth as '■manufacturing center must solve the laroblem of jMarkets for home-grown food ■ and feed aopplies, otherwise its wage scale unust be increased. If a city neglects the iProblem as Atlanta, for instance, labor ®unrest.. labor unions, and strikes are in- t95tiiable. The local market problem is a difficult problem, but it is a purblind policy that blinks it. Raleigh has a market house but not 4he market habit. The same thing is ^eof Greensboro. The habit is more important than the house. If Charlotte ■Cannot devel«p the the market habit as 'firand Rapids did, with free, open mar- spaces"and booths, the market house be a waste of public money, as in Durham, Raleigh, and Greensboro. A growing city must be the center of a *weU-developed food-producing region— -‘“id-morej it must reward the nearby farmejs^ with fair prices and profits. Which is to say, it must work everlast ingly at the local market problem. It is a fundamental problem, and the biggest business problem that a city or a city chamber of commerce faces. It is a job for business men of statesmen-like stature. SMALL ACREAGE PER FARMER In this issue we present anoth er table and study that concern our small per capita country wealth in farm prop erties in North Carolina. Our rank is high in the power to pro duce crop values per acre. The 1910 cen sus shows us ahead of 38 states in this particular. But our rank is low in the power to re tain and accumulate farm wealth per per son. In this important particular, 43 states stand ahead of us, and only Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama make a poorer showing. This radical deficiency in economic sys tem does not afiect the farmer alone. It affects every business and everybody in the state. This fact becomes clear when we examine the per capita wealth of the state, all properties whatsoever consider ed. A Federal Census Bulletin issued last year gives North Carolina, with 5*794, a place next to the last. Only Mississ ippi is poorer. Everybody’s Business This problem therefore concerns every business and everybody in the state; and most of all the bankers and other busi ness people whose fortunes rise or fall with the prosperity of the farm regions. It is significant to note that the richest state in the Union, in per capita wsalth, all property considered, is not New York nor Massachusetts nor Pennsylvania nor any other state in the great industrial area North and East. Iowa, a well de veloped farm state, does not stand at the head of the list, but she stands ahead of New York State by $913 per inhabitant, Pennsylvania by ®1,600, and Massachu setts by $1,734, The promotion of agricultural prosper ity is the broadest, sanest, safest policy for boards of trade, banks, and other businesses in our cities to build upon. Taking interest in the farmer is better in the long run than taking interest from the farmer. Averages the Country Over As noted in our study in the University News Letter of August 16, 1916, the av erage of acres cultivated per farm worker in the United States ranged from 11.9 in South Carolina to 156.2 in North Dakota. In North Carolina our average was only 14.5 acres and our rank 45th. Our per capita country wealth in farm prop erties was $322, and our rank in this par ticular was 45th. This coincidence looks causal. Our State Averages In North Carolina the average culti vated acres per farm worker in the cen sus year ranged from nine-tenths of an acre in Dare to 36.2 acres in Alleghany. Just as these two counties illustrate the the two extremes in acreage per farm worker, so they illustrate the two ex tremes of per capita country wealth in North Carolina, $47 and $560. Small acreage per farm worker, small totals produced per farm worker, and small per capita country wealth are cer tainly related. It seems clear that farm ers who produce crop values averaging only 1236 a year on 14.5 acres in North Carolina stand a small chance to accu mulate wealth when compared with Iowa farmers who average 83.2 acres per farm worker and produce crop values that average |884. When a year’s labor by a farmer yiei. s only $236 in crop returns, he has of course a smaller chance to accumulate wealth than the farmer whose year’s la bor yields him $884. And the difierei-ce is increased by'he fact that one farmer is working at a labor expense raising cotton or tobacco with simple hand tools mainly, while the other is raising crops that have a smaller ' ® per acre but a larger margin of profit be cause he is reinforcing human power with profit-producing horse and machine pow- the old north state Dr. Archibald Henderson In the hearts of all of us, I daresay, there is a deep, abiding affection and reverence for the virtues of a people who, throughout an historic past, have given to North Carolina the rich, mellow name of the Old North State. I sense those ancient virtues as a fra grant breath from some distant gar den of old-fashioned flowers—a full blooded parochialism redeemed by the abiding love of Christian faith, of fam ily, of fireside; an inflexible integrity which puts love of the truth and pas sion for the making of men above love of place and passion for the making of money; a rugged provincialism which had its roots firmly fixed in > love of naturalness and a scorn for all pretense; a granite conservatism which cherished tradition and ever looked with stern disfavor upon the new and the empiric. This is the Old North State—always fighting for her rights while neglecting her interests; generous, reckless, ro mantic, improvident, unpretentious, chivalrous, and brave. In our hearts is enshrined the figure of the most venerable, the most Amer ican of all the sisterhood of American commonwealths— the unpretentious, homespun, yet infinitely lovable Rip Van Winkle of the states. UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION LETTER SERIES NO. 88 THE RURAL SCHOOL TERM The first problem in the program of the Federal Education Bureau in its nation wide campaign for better rural schools is that of a longer school term. A school teem of not less than 160 days for each child is the minimum term, according to Commissioner Claxton, which all States with a shorter term should strive to reach. The latest data (1910) available con cerning the length of term for urban schools and for rural schools separately give the average number of days the school was in session daring the year for urban schools, 184 3, and for rural schools, 137.7. “For the United States as a whole the urban schools are in ses sion 46.6 days longer each year than the rural schools,” says A. C. Monahan, the Burea’s Specialist in Rural School Ad ministration. Comparisons In Rhode Island and Connecticut, the difference between the urban and rural school term is 3.8 days, while in South Carolina it is 88.5 days. The average number of days In the riyal school term in the several States ranges from 90 in New Mexico to 190 in Rhode Island. Four States—New Mexico, North and South Carolina Carolina, and Arkansas— each had in 1910 a rural school term of less than 100 days, while Florida had a rural term of exactly 100.1 days. “But,” declares Mr. Monahan, “these averages do not tell the whole story. There is much variation above and below the average, there are many school districts, and even many counties, where the term for the past year was not over 60 days. ” In ArKansas From the reports for the school year June 30, 1915, there were 15 rural school districts in Arkansas that held no school that year; 8 school districts in that State with only one month of school; 60 school districts with only two months of school; and 577 school districts with only three months of school. And yet a great majority of the town and city schools in Arkansas have a school term of eight or nine months. That there are equally deplor able conditions in the rural schools of other States will be shown in the next talk. This discrimination against the farm boy and the farm girl in free school privileges is not just or wise.—J. L. Mc- Brien, School Extension Agent, Federal Education Bureau. Why Our Small Acreage In general the small average acreages per farm worker in the South are due (1) to the lack of cash operating capital in our farm regions, (2) the prevalent loose business contract between moneyless landlords and landless farm labor, (3) the abundant farming by proxy with farm tenants, croppers mainly, (4) the finan cing of farmers in our 800 cotton and to bacco counties by supply-merchants who take great risks, demand large interest and long profits, protect their investment by crop -liens on cotton and tobacco acre ages, and thereby force farmers to culti vate small farms with little chance to use labor-saving machinery with advantage. In a word, our farm tenancy system ex plains our small average acreage per farm worker, our large per acre crop values in the cotton and tobacco counties, and our small per capita country wealth in farm properties. The system began in neces sity in the days of poverty just after the war; and now it produces and perpetu ates poverty. It is a vicious circle. We produce great farm wealth under this system; but we retain little of it. The money that sticks is the money that counts. And tobacco- or cotton-made money will not stick to the palms that sweat it out. Or not so at least whenever the cotton and tobacco farmers neglect to raise food and feed supplies abundantly. A Region of Extremes East of the Falls line is a great cotton and tobacco growing area. Eighteen coun ties in this region are above the state av erage of 14.5 acres per farm worker, the leading counties being Edgecombe, Cam den, Jones, and Lenoir. But 25 counties in the Coastal Plain are belowthe state average—16 of them far below I In this same region only 13 counties are above the state average of per capita rural wealth in farm properties, $322; thirty counties are below this average, ranging from $47 in Dare to $313 in Cum berland. Middle and Western Carolina West of the Falls line are 57 counties. They are a region of diversified farming devoted to grain crops, tobacco, hay and forage, and livestock. Thirty-eight are above the state average of cultivated acres per farm worker; 12 are above the state average of per capita rural wealth in amounts ranging from $333 in Forsyth to $560 in Alleghany. Only 18 counties in this region fall be low the state averge of acres per farm worker, and all but two, Henderson and Forsyth, are below the line in per capita country wealth. Worth Thinking About 1. The chances to accumulate farm wealth in North Carolina lie (1) in me dium farms ranging from 100 to 150 acres in size, (2) in sufficient livestock and profit-protlucing machinery, (3) in a lar ger average of cultivated acres per work er, (4) in cotton and tobacco, if the farm also feeds the farmer, the farmer’s family and the farm animals—at least in the standard, staple bread and meat prod ucts, and (5) in farms cultivated by own ers who have sufficient cash operating capital or sufficient collateral to command the necessary cash at reasonable interest rates. 2. In a county where the prevalent farm system calls for maximum crops of cotton or tobacco and a minimum a- mount of bread and meat products, the power to retain and accumulate farm wealth is small—no matter how large the cash crops are or how high the market prices. And this is especially true in the counties that are afflicted by excessi\e farm tenancy. 3. As a rule, the farmers in the grain, hay and forage, and livestock region of middle and western Carolina produce smaller crop values per acre; but they cultivate larger acreages per worker and produce greater per capita farm wealth. They handle less money year in and out, but they accumulate greater per capita wealth in farm properties. AVERAGE CULTIVATED ACRES PER FARM WORKER IN NORTH CAROLINA Based on 1910 Census of Agriculture and Occupations J. H. LASSITER, Northampton County University Summer School, 1916 •Average for the State 14.5 Acres Rank County Acres Rank County Acres 1 Alleghany 36.2 49 Hertford 15. 2 Watauga 23.5 49 Onslow 15. 3 Caswell 20.8 52 Vance 14.5 4 Ashe 20.7 53 Scotland 14 4 5 Lenoir 20.6 53 Johnston 14.4 6 Catawba 20.1 53 Gates 14.4 7 Davidson 20. 53 Bertie 14.4 8 Camden 19.6 53 Robeson 14.4 8 Jones 19.6 58 Surry 14,3 10 Granville 19.1 58 Wake 14.3 11 Yadkin 18.9 60 Currituck 14 2 11 Edgecombe 18.9 61 Jackson 14.1 13 Person 18.8 61 Warren 14.1 14 Cabarrus 18.6 63 Wilson 13.9 14 Davie 18.6 64 Polk 13.8 16 Clay 17.9 64 Nash 13.8 17 Halifax 17.8 64 Graham 13.8 17 Northampton 17.8 67 Caldwell 13.6 19 Randolph 17.7 67 Transylvania 13.6 19 Montgomery 17.7 69 Tyrrell 13..4 21 Madison 17.6 69 Henderson 13.4 22 Rowan 17.4 71 Guilford 13.3 22 Mecklenburg 17.4 71 Mitchell 13.3 22 Iredell 17.4 73 Craven 13.2 22 Greene 17.4 74 Rockingham 12.7 22 Alexander 17.4 75 Lee 12.4 27 Pasquotank 17.2 75 Forsyth 12.4 28 Lincoln 17.1 77 Gaston 12.3 29 Perquimans 17. 78 Cherokee 12.2 30 Orange 16.9 79 Hyde 11.9 31 Chatham 16.8 79 McDowell 11.9 32 Anson 16.4 81 Rutherford 11.6 32 Wayne 16.4 81 Richmond 11.6 32 Washington 16.4 83 Chowan 11.4 35 Haywood 16.2 83 Cumberland 11.4 3.5 Martin 16 2 85 Birke U.3 37 Franklin 16.1 85 Harnett 11.3 37 Yancey 16.1 87 Bladen 11,2 37 Macon 16.1 88 Moore 10.8 40 Union , 16. 89 Pender 10.4 41 Cleveland 15.9 90 Beaufort 10.>1 42 Stokes 15.8 91 Swain 10. 43 Pitt 15.5 92 Pamlico 9.4 44 Stanly 15.4 92 Columbus 9.4 44 Wilkes 15.4 94 Durham ^.2 46 Sampson J 15.3 95 Brunswick 7.4 47 Buncombe 15.1 96 Carteret (.9 47 Duplin ■r .15.1 97 New Hanover 4.4 49 Alamance 15. 98 Dare .9
The University of North Carolina News Letter (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Aug. 30, 1916, edition 1
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