The news in this pubiica-
j tion is released for the press oa
(he date indicated below.
OF NORTH CAROLINA
news letter
Published weekly by the
University of North Carolina
for its Bureau of Extension.
SEPTEMBER 27, 1916
itori«l Board! B. C. Branson, J. 0. dsB. Hamilton. L. B. Wilson, L. A. Williams
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
Thornton, Cj-, jji. McKie. Entered as Sdcond.class matter
VOL. II, NO. 44
November U, 1914, at the«po3tofflce at Chapel Hill, N. 0.| ander the act of August 84,1918, ”
north CAROLINA CLUB STUDIES
north CAROLINA CLUB
STUDIES, 1916-17
ealth and Weal in North Car*
olina. Peabody Hall,
Room No. 8
i. Production of Primary
Wealth
1. By Agriculture.—Oct. 9.
2. By Manufacture.—Oct, 9.
3. By Forest and Wood Lots.—Oct. 23.
4. By Fisheries, Mines and Quarries.—
ct. 23.
II. Wealth Retention
5. Our Wealth, Total and Per Capita.
Nov. 6.
6. Factors in Accumulating Farm
ealth.—Nov. 20.
7. Our Manufacturing Capital.—Dec .4.
.8. Our Banking Capital.—Dec. 18.
Our Bank Savings.—Jan. 8.
II. Taxation and the Common
Weal
Our Taxable Wealth, Total and
er Capita.—Jan. 29.
11. Our State Revenue and the Per
apita Cost of Government.—Feb. 12,
12. State Department Earnings and
osts.—Feb. 26.
13. The General Property Tax Burden
11 North Carolina.—Mar. 12.
14. What the State Does with the Tax
ayer’s Dollar.—Mar. 12.
15. State Aid to Agriculture.—Mar. 26.
16. Our Investment in Public Scbool
roperty.—April 9.
17. Our Support of Public Education.
April 23. _
18. Public Health Work in North Car-
"lina.—May 7.
19. Charities and Corrections in North
arolina. —INIay 21.
LARGER THAN EVER
The students registered at the Uuiver-
ity of North Carolina the first week of
he new session numbered 1107.
The number upon even date last year
1041.
POOR MEAT ANIMALS
The food animals inspected for slaugh-
er in Wilmington in July numbered only
59. The rejected animals were more
han 5 per cent of the total.
This rate is more than three times the
er cent of rejections by the Federal In-
pec tors.
It means that the meat animals are
adly diseased and below grade, or that
he inspectors are unskilled.
It is worth looking into.
TOO BAD
The law in many states and cities con-
emns milk that is found to have more
than a liundred thousand bacteria per
cubic centimeter. More than half the
Wilmington dairies exceeded this count
a July. Three of them went beyond
lie million, and one of them reached
"three millions.
There is nothing more important than
this in Wilmington, the lives of babies
considered.
CAROLINA CLUB YEAR-BOOK
The investigations, reports, and dis-
■CQBBiona of the Club last year concerned
Iv’orth Carolina: (1) Resources, Advan-
itages, Opportunities, and Possibilities,
■and (2) Ways and Means of Advertising
■the State.
A compact report of the year’s studies
will floon be ready for the printers, and
will be issued as an Extension Bulletin if
there he any large demand for it. If you
Want it, drop us a post card at once.
COVERS A BIG FIELD
'Of real influence in North Carolina
communities and of wide significance in
progressive educational methods is the
■county club system at work in the Univer
sity of North Carolina. The students
ifroni each county in the ,University are
’Organized under expert direction in the
study of conditions, problems and pres-
facts of their particular town and
■County life, with the view of making the
®eeda of the county known not only to
the University but also to the folks at
home. The amount of home grown and
imported meat, the bane of the crop-Iien
the shortsightedness of the single crop’
the proportion of automobile and school
expenditures, rural recreation, farm-life
schools, moonlight schools, taxation,
good roads, child labor, and other vital
rural and municipal what-nots, are the
intelligent and crusading concern of
these atudy clubs.
Results Published in The News
Letter
The results of the intensive research
are published not only in the local news
papers, but also in The University News
Letter, w'hich is sent weekly to the public,
minded citizens of the state. This
News Letter is a little one-page sheet
distinct from the usual college publica
tions and is known on the work desk of
editors of New York dailies. Its squibs,
statistics, and Q'mments frequently break
mto the news and editoral matter of papers
in the East and West.
Covers Whole of State
The county club studies and The News
Letter are but incidental expressions of
the community spirit which is making
the State University, oldest in tradition
and years of service, alertly young and
fresh in its response to the needs of a
whole people. It is a dominant idea of
its youthfully forward-minded president
that the campus of the State University
should be ‘ ‘co-extensive with the bound
aries of the state.” Correspondence
courses; library books by mail; exten
sion lectures over the state; university
conferences.in matters of farms, roads,
schools, negro life, and the rest; annual
state wide high school debates, involving
over 1,500 debaters and an audience of
over 100,000 people, on such issues as
woman suffrage and national defense;
state-wide interscholastic athletic con
tests in football, baseball, basketball and
tennis; promotion of county surveys; co
operation w'ith state and county boards of
health—these are some of the channels of
commonwealth-being through which the
new University is helping to release the
abundant life of the people of a state.
Withal a place of hard work and ag
gressive tolerance, the University of North
Carolina with its w'holesome social-mind-
edness is making a quiet but distinct and
practical contribution to the state-univer-
sity idea in American public education.
—Columbia University Spectator, N. Y.
STAR DUST AND COMMON
CLAY
President E. K. Graham
There is in every college man some
thing of the Prodigal, of Esau, and of
Saul—of the man who sells out for the
price he can clutch—who swaps his
star dust for common clay; there is
something also of the Prodigal and Paul
of the man who claims his birth
right back, who comes to himself and
and comes back.
Every young man’s life is an un
precipitated solution of all biography;
of Nero, Benedict Arnold, and Jess
Willard; but no less of Socrates,
Shakespeare, Newton, Washington,
Lincoln, Lee, Pasteur. Every college
man recognizes these two clear calls
to him, and most men feel that in the
ordinary life of everday that there
is a sharp contradiction between them;
that there must be a surrender of one
of them, that college life at best must
be a compromise between his youth
and his maturity, what he is now and
what he wants to be fifteen years
from now—a truce between his hap
piness and his ambition.
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
LETTER SERIES NO. 92
SHORT: $99,000,000
The Columbia Record in a recent issue
gives the following details of a ninety-
nine million dollar bill for food and
feed, horses and mules imported into
South Carolina in 1915:
Canned goods $13,937,282, horses and
mules 111,350,000, flour $10,851,913, pork
$10,677,000, grits $10,160,692, beef
$9,021,000, lard$8,263,000, butter$6,400,-
000, corn $6,000,000, oats $3,000,000, hay
$2,351,789, cheese $2,000,000, milk
$1,000,000, eggs $600,000, cabbage $500,-
000, potatoes $450,000, turnips $300,000,
onions $240,000, milled feed stuffs $1,945,-
811; total $99,058,563.
A Pretty Kettle of Fish
If the figures were correctly printed in
the Record, they are a valid bill of in
dictment of the people of Soutli Carolina;
not the farmers alone, but also the bank
ers and supply-merchants who finance a
farm system of this sort. This shortage
could not exist without their support,
and they could change it as easily aa
Napoleon said that Pitt governed Europe
—by lifting or lowering their eyebrows.
They could, for instance, refuse to finance
the crop-lien system in vogue in the
state in spite of the law against it.
Think of a state’s sending out of its
borders year by year a King’s ransom of
this sort, for bread and meat snpphes
that could have been raised at home with
comparative advantage.
Gross advantage considered, the balance
lies in favor of cotton farming in South
Carolina; but net advantage considered,
the balance lies in favor of a live-at-home
farm system-at least so far aa the stan
dard, staple food crops are concerned.
A Bad Economic System
This bill for imported .supplies in 1915
was $2,700,000 larger than the value of
the cotton crop reported in the 1910 cen
sus. It is thirty-one million dollars big
ger than the value of the cotton crop last
year.
At this rate, how can the country
people of South Carolina accumulate any
great wealth in farm properties under a
system of this sort?
The answer is simple: They can’t and
don’t.
In the census year their per capita
country wealth in farm properties was
$337, against $994 in the country-at-
large. Only seven states were poorer.
The per capita wealth of the state, all
properties considered, in 1912 was only
$869; and only two states w^ere poorer.
Such are the figures of a 1915 Census
Bureau Bulletion.
But South Carolina is not a sinner be
yond all the sinners upon whom the
walls of Siloam fell. Oklahoma alone
excepted, all the cotton-belt states are in
the same sorry plight.
Twenty-Seven Million Gains
South Carolina did pretty well last
year. Reports from the Federal Agri
cultural Department show that the state
in 1915 gained $27,000,000 in farm ani
mals, food and feed crops over the figures
of the census year. If the farmers of
South Carohna will go on at this rate
during the next fifteen years, they will
sponge out their enormous foodj deficit;
and if they can hold their cotton and
tobacco money as a clear surplus for four
year handrunning, as the boys say, the
farm wealth of the state will be more
than doubled.
Giving the FolKs the Facts
But we are saying nothing new. Mr.
E. J. Watson, the capable and courageous
State Commissioner of Agriculture, has
long been rubbing public consciousness
raw with these and similar facts. He
has been utterly fearless. He -has never
been willing to cozen his country cousins.
And Mr. W. W. Long, State Farm
Demonstrator, is a good running mate
for the Commissioner of Agriculture.
Just now he is campaigning local pack
ing plants, with the hope of encouraging
livestock industries and diversified crop
ping. Orangeburg has already estab
lished a packing plant, and Greenville is
considering it.
BANKERS AID CATTLE
INDUSTRY
The part that banks can play in pro
moting the local cattle industry is- illus
trated by the action taken recently by a
group of southern bankers. A few far
mers in Gibson County, Tenn., started a
movement looking toward diversification
of crops by raising less cottjn and in
creasing the number and quality oi itat-
tle. The movement was encouraged by
the beef-cattle extension agents of the
State college and the United Statea De
partment of Agriculture. All the banks
in the county grew interested, and as
THE RURAL SCHOOL TERM
The deplorable conditions existing in
the rural schools of Arkansas on account
of the short term of school were pointed
out in our previous talk. Let us hope,
however, that a better day is dawning
for the rural schools in Arkansas. There
is a state-wide campaign now on in Ar
kansas to amend the Constitution so as
to make the maximum school tax 12
mills, instead of 7 mills as at present.
Dr. Charles H. Brough, the newly nomi
nated candidate of the Democratic party
for Governor, pledged himself before the
State Teachers’ Association at Little Rock
in April to tour the entire State in a cam
paign in favor of this amendment for a
higher school tax. There is now a well
organized campaign on in Arkansas
among educators, business and profes
sional men in favor of the amendment.
More Comparisons
As we have noted regarding the length
of the school term, there are rural school
districts in California with only a 50-day
term; in Colorado, with only a 55-day
school term; in Florida, with only a 30-
day school term; in Georgia, with only a
26-day school term; in Illinois, with only
a 44-day school term; in Iowa, with only
a 40-day school term; in North Dakota
with only a 20-day school term; in South
Dakota, with only a 50-day school term;
in Tennessee, with only a 55-day school
term; and in Texas, with only a 30-day
school term. And there are other States
in W'hich the campaign for a longer rural
school term should be waged in season
and out of season.
Does Not Mean More Money
As a rule, >vhen we speak of lengthen
ing the school term, it presupposes the
need of more money. -But we shall en
deavor to show how the school term may
be lengthened without voting another
mill of school tax. It is due the tax-pay-
er, as far as possible, that we increase the
school term without increasing his tax,
but where this is impossible, the tax-pay-
er must be patriotic enough to be willing
to pay the necessary increase of school tax.
If the patriotism of the tax-payer will
not prompt him to do this, he should do
it for the sake of enlightened selfishness
if for no higher purpose. He should
know, W'ith Edward Everett, that “Edu
cation is a better safeguard of liberty
than a standing army, ’ ’ with Benjamin
H. Hill that “No nation ever yet paid
too much for the education of its people,
and the more it pays for this purpose the
richer and the more powerful it will be
come.”—J. L. McBrien, School Exten
sion Agent, Federal Education Bureau.
soon as the group was ready to bring in
a car of purebred cattle the bankers
agreed to lend~up to |15,000 to defray
the cost.
Pure-Bred Sires
Sixty-five head, including bulls, bred
heifers, and cows with calves at foot,
were delivered in the county, all in good
condition, at an average cost of $150 per
head exclusive of calves. These were dis
tributed to individual farmers, not more
than three head going to any farm. The
owners then either paid for the cattle or
gave long-time notes at reduced interest
to the banks. One bank acted as agent
in the transaction for all the bants in the
county.
The bankers figured that by helping
the farmers to buy a large number of
pure-bred cattle they not only would get
interest on safe loans but would foster an
industry the benefits of which would be
accumulative and permanent in the lo
cality. This is borne out by frequent ex
periments which have established that ev
en a few good bulls introduced in a coun
ty soon have a marked influence on the
size and quality of local cattle.—Federal
News Letter.
at cost of production on the basis of Mr.
Ward’s figures, the farmer would have
returned to him every possible expendi
ture of money, pay for his labor, and 6
per cent interest on his investment and
his lands would be improved by the ma
nure obtained from his herd. ”
CHEAP BEEF IN THE SOUTH
The Federal Department of Agriculture
has been investigating the cost of beef
production in the Com-Belt states and in
the South. The final results are all in our
favor.
“The average cost per hundred pounds
of raising a calf to weaning time was
$9.10 in the corn belt and $7.22 in Penn
sylvania, as compared with$3.53 in North
Alabama and $3.57 in West Alabama.
“The average cost per hundred pounds
of raising a calf to 12 to 15 months old
was $11.79 in the corn belt and $7.24 in
Pennsylvania, as compared with $4.41 in
North Alabama and $4.69 in West Ala
bama. The figures for the com belt,
Pennsylvania and North Alabama are
based on raising a calf to the age of 12
months and those of West Alabama to
the age of 15 months.
Great Opportunities
“While the investigations of the depart
ment in the South were carried on in lo
calities in North Alabama and West Ala
bama, conditions in other parts of the
South, including the States of Mississippi,
the whole of Alabama, Georgia, North
ern Florida, South Carolina, and parts of
Tennessee and North Carolina are so sim
ilar that the results that were obtained
[ in the Alabama experiments are indica-
* tive of what may be done in the entire
territory and demonstrate the great ad
vantages of the South for the production
of beef cattle.
‘ ‘The figures compiled by Mr. Ward do
not cover profits, but it is obvious that
the profits are substantially larger in the
South. As pointed out by President Har
rison, even if the animals should be sold
CAROLINA CLUB STUDIES
The studies scheduled for the North
Carolina Club at the University this year
are concentrated upon (1) Wealth-Pro-
duction, (2) Wealth-Retention, (3) Taxa
tion and the Common Weal.
Nineteen research problems will be un
dertaken by the Club members and re
ports upon the same will be presented for
discussion upon fortnightly Monday even
ings during the club year, September 25-
May 21,
Many or most of these studies call for
sustained, prolonged investigation; hence
the schedule of subjects, dates and as
signments is marked up at thejbeginning
of the year so as to give the ^volunteer
members as much time as possible for
thorough work.
The club studies this year are a part^f
the Laboratory Course, No. 9-10 in Rural
Economics and Sociology, and work
that reaches the level of laboratory stan^.
dards w ill be credited accordingly.
CHRISTIAN MINISTRATION
Wilmington supports a School and
Infant Welfare Nurse; and a Babies’ Hos
pital, maintained by private subscrip
tions.
The Ministering Circle of the King’s
Daughters and the Associated Charities
also have a visiting nurse.
A lying-in and children’s ward is being
added to the Walker Memorial Hospital.
An out-door midwife service is also being
arranged for.
MUNICIPAL HOUSE-KEEPING
The social activities of Wilmington
women Illustrate the value of women in
civic life. There is a vast number of
things that need attention in every com
munity, that men by nature overlook and
neglect.
And they have been overlooked and
neglected for long centuries.
Men are not heartless and cruel; they
are just stupid. The world will never
have proper municipal housekeeping un
til the women get busy with it.
A LOVELY CHARITY
The Sorosis in Wilmington is support
ing an Infant Feeding Station, where the
babies of the poor can be properly fed
Twenty-four babies were cared for in
this way during July.
Here is Christian Charity of the loveliest
kind. This enterprise is of a sort with
the Crane Nursery of the Hull House
settlement in Chicago.