Newspapers / The University of North … / April 14, 1920, edition 1 / Page 1
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.••I •'^rv'O'- « news in this publica tion is reieast.J (or the press on receipt. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA NEWS LETTER Published weekly by the University of North Carolina for its Bureau of Extension. PRIL 14,1920 CHAPEL HILL, N. C. VOL VI, NO. 21 IKorial Board i B. C. Branson, L, B. Wilson, E. W. Knight, D D. Carroll, J. B. Bullitt. Entered as second-class matter November 14, 1914. at the Poatofflee at Chapel Hill, N. O , under the act of August 24 1912 LOOKING BACK SEVENTY YEARS RECONSTRUCTION STUDIES The Bureau of University Extension is 3W mailing out a new bulletin of 57 iges—The State Eeconstruction Studies the North Carolina Club at the Uni- irsity. It gives to the public the organization the State Eeconstruction Commission, e layout of commission work, the ^ate construction studies of the North Caro- la Club, and 40 odd pages of reading ferences on public health, public edu- tion, transporta cion and conimunica- m, home and farm ownership, race lations, public welfare, organized busi es and life — corporate, cooperative, cial and civic problems, state and local. The edition is small, but until it is ex- .usted, the bulletin will be mailed out !e of charge to anybody in North Caro- la who wants it and writes for it in ae; and for 50 cents postpaid to any- dy outside the state. D8. HOWARD W. ODUM [n announcing tentative plans for a lool of public welfare to be added to 1 University of North Carolina, Presi- Dt Chase announced the appointment Dr. Howard W. Odum, dean of the lege of liberal arts and chairman of i council of deans at Emory Univer- y, Atlanta, as Kenan professor of aology arid director of the new school public welfare. Dr. Odum will move to Chapel Hill ■ly in the summer when he will assume irge of the public welfare school and the foundation of the first collegiate lOol of this type in the south. Pre- linary outlines as announced by Presi- it Chase show that the new school will concerned with problems of instruc- n and education in citizenship, in voca- nal and professional training for social 1 public welfare work, in social engi- sring, and in University and social re- rch. )r. Odum has had extensive and defi- e training and experience in work lilar to that of his new position. He a southern man, native of Walton inty, Ga., and graduate of Emory Col- e. Later he had graduate work at •rk University and Columbia Univer- r, where he received his Ph. D. degree sociology, and the Gran Squires re- rd for the best sociological study pub- led in the United Slates in a period of 3 years. for the next three years Dr. Odum was earch expert for the Bureau of Munici- i research of Philadelphia, where he 1 invaluable work in municipal wel- e organization. From 1913 to 1918 was professor of educational sociology the University of Georgia, at the same le serving as a member of the Atlanta ird of education. In 1918 he was di- tor of the bureau of home service for nps and camp cities in the southern dsion, and in the spring of 1919 he was led to Emory University to assume the ties of dean of the college. Imong works of merit he has written j recounted “Social and Mental Traits the Negro’’, “Folk Songs and Poetry”, d articles in national sociological jour- Is.—Lenoir Chambers. for public welfare which will be held then. Tliese institutes are to be conduct ed in conjunction with the Southern Di vision of the Eed Cross, and are planned for the instruction of county superinten dents of public welfare, or prospective superintendents, for Eed Cross secreta ries, and for all other welfare workers who need professional training for their tasks. The courses offered include such subjects as “Eural Social Problems”, “Play and Eecreation”, “Dietetics and Home Economics in the South”, “Com munity Music”, and “Physical Educa tion.” By undertaking to conduct these institutes the University is taking a sig nificant and important step forward in social work, and one which must show far reaching results wherever welfare workers in the State put the training thus received into effect. — News and Observer. PROGRESSIVE GREENVILLE The town of Greenville, this state, has recently taken a -step that some other towns in North Carolina should take. It has provided, by tlie purchase of a large and handsome residence, a home for its city school teachers. A recent issue of The Greenville Daily Reflector carrie.s an attractive cut of the building, underneath which appears the following: “This handsome structure was opened up to the teachers of this city last Monday with the re-opening of schools, being purchased independently recently by the school trustees looking to the in terest of everything connected with educa tional development throughout the city. All teachers will board and room in this building at reasonable prices and will not be troubled by shortage of boarding houses as experienced in the past. The movement is considered one of the most progressive in the state, and it is expect ed many other localities will follow in the pathway blazed in the interest of greater education.” For several years past the manage ment of Gastonia’s city schools has, each fall, been up against an almost unsolva- ble problem in securing places for the teachers. There has been talk for a long time of doing just what Greenville has done but so far it has all been talk. Why not follow Greenville’s example and act? —Gastonia Gazette. BROADENING ACTIVITIES More and more the University is mani- iting j«cognition of the fact that its ties extend not merely to the cultural ucation of its students, but to the social ucation of all the people of North Caro- la as well. It is giving fine evidence a broader conception of what the func- ms of a state university should be, and Its responsibility in promoting the gen- al public welfare of the State. The niversity is one of the most helpful :encies in keeping the life of North Caro- la abreast of ihe times, because it is ireast of the timc-s_iiself. Its Extension ireau with its excellent publication, le News Letter, devoted to community rvice, shows that, as do the North irolina Club and its studies iu state re- msta-uction, and the newly established niversity News Bureau, the object of hich is to keep the people of the State formed as to what the University is >ing. These activities are only a few uications of the new spirit of public rvice which has pervaded the Univer- cy. shows this spirit more a«y than the special feature of the ap- PB^hingsummer school, the institutes NO country home c6'mF0RTS and.CONVENIENCE^'^'''' LOOKING BACK 70 YEARS The seventy years between 1850 and 1920 were marked by significant changes in North Carolina agriculture. A brief table of contrasted details appears else where in this issue. During this period our population grew from 869 thousand to two and a half mil lion. Against this increase of 188 per cent in population must be reckoned all changes in our agriculture, or we shall miss their significance. The increase in cultivated acres during these seventy years was only 46 percent. Our crop area last year was a little less than eight million acres and our farm workers numbered 825 thousand. With farm laborers more than quadru pled in number, our farms diminished in average size—from 96 to 29 acres; and the average acres per farm worker dwindl ed from 32 to 10. These figures indi cate a drift out of medium and large scale farming into small scale farming—into intensive cotton and tobacco farming based on a farm-tenancy, supply-mer chant, crop-lien, time-credit system. The conditions that forced this vicious system on North Carolina and the South were deficient cash operating capital, and abundant cheap labor. The consequent economic ills afflicting our agriculture during this period were (1) decreasing attention to food and feed crops, (2) ne glect of meat aud milk animals, and (3) excessive bills for imported bread and meat supplies. The accompanying social consequences in our country regions were even worse, but we do not stop here to detail them. The War of 1860-65 forced this farm system on us. We adopted it as a crutch, but in the end we bore it as a cross. The move out of this type of farming was not pronounced until six-cent cotton in 1914 brought our farmers, merchants, and bankers face to face with bankrupt cy, and forced them into a common real ization of the necessity for diversified ag riculture based on more and better farm animals of all sorts. It was a hard lesson half learned be cause the Great War quickly sent cotton and tobacco prices skyward, and w'c again went up in the air in the c >ttou and tobacco belt. The chances are that only the devastations of the boll weevil will bring us down to earth once more. Gains in Cash Crops During these seventy years the gains that really ran ahead of our population increase of 188 percent were (1) cotton, which moved up from 41 thousahd to 875 thousand bales, an increase of 2064 per cent, (2) tobacco, which moved up from 12 million to 320 million pounds, an in crease of 2567 percent, (3) mules which moved up from 25 thousand to 236 thou sand, an increase of 844 percent, and (4) wheat which moved up from 2 million to 7 and a quarter million bushels, an in crease of 239 percent. These increases mean that under the pressure of sheer necessity we were con centrating upon ready-money crops under a farm tenancy system. In an area de ficient in cash operating capital it was our only chance to keep alive and move ahead slowly toward economic freedom in the cotton and tobacco belt. The Great W'ar moved the prices of all farm products into high levels where they are likely to remain for six or eight years to come; in short, it established econom ic freedom for the South as a section in farming, manufacture, trade, and banking. It has taken us a full half-cen tury to recover from a war that impover ished the South as no ally in Europe nor Germany herself was impoverished by the last great war. But at last it becomes clear that we are safely on our feet once more. The South is at last free of econom ic serfdom. Less Home-Raised Food On the other hand our gains in quan tity totals and gross values will not de ceive thoughtful students. For instance, our tvork animals have increased 140 percent in number since 1850 but the number per farm has fallen from three to one and a half—and the half is frequently in evidence. Which means that our farm values are produced in the main by expensive human labor with primitive hand tools and a minimum of horse and machine power. It is bound to be so in small-scale farming, 10 acres per worker, as in North Oarolina; and so far it seems unavoidable in the pro duction of cotton and tobacco which are hand-made crops. A successful cotton picking machine would be hardly less revolutionary iu its effects upon southern agriculture than Whitney’s cotton gin was during the last century. We nearly doubled our corn crop total during these seventy years and more than doubled the per acre yield but in production per inhabitant we fell from 32 to 22 bushels. In 1850 we had corn enough for home consumption and a mil lion bushels or so to sell abroad. In 1920 we shall have some 15 million bushels to buy from the West as food and feed for min and beast. In wheat production the state was twm- thirds self-feeding n 1850 and so again in 1919. The increase in population con sidered we have been marking time in wheat farming. Ae for milk cows we had an average of more than one for every household in the state in 1850; in 1920 we averaged only one for every two families. The relative decrease is around 50 percent Our milk animals are greatly improved in quality but- their number is greatly decreased when compared with the number of peo ple to be fed. It is startling to run into the fact that we had fewer cattle other than milk cows in 1920 than we had seventy years ago, fewer by 78,000; and fewer swine, fewer by 221,000; and fewer sheep, fewer by 451,000. When compared with the pop ulation to be fed in North Carolina in 1920, these decren.'^es are as follows; milk cows, 50 percent decrease; other cattle, 70 percent decrease; swine, 69 percent decrease; and sheep, 92 joercent decrease. Our meat animals are greatly improved in quality but they are greatly decreased in number compared with our population in 1920. The scarcity of labor in our farm re gions, the approaching calamity of the boll weevil, and the apparently perma nent high price levels of farm products are the economic causes that will revolu tionize oar agriculture during the next quarter-century. It is immensely well wwth the wdiile of our merchants aud bankers to help the farmer think out this situation sanely, to adjust themselves all together to ap proaching necessities, to capitalize and cash in the largest possibilities of the new era, and to do it in generous thoughtful ness of one another, iu terms of mmnal advantage. The way out lies in collusion, not in collision—in cooperation not in class struggle. Bread and Meat Farming We are not j’et producing cotton and tobacco on a breail-and-meat basis, hut the wisdom of it is fairly clear to most of our farmers. Their minds have become accustomed to the thought—thanks to the activities of the Federal Farm Extension Service, the State College of Agriculture and Engineering, the State Department of Agriculture, The Progressive Farmer, the Carolina Landowners’ Association, and a small number of public-spirited bankers and merchants here and there. Our fifty-two cheese factories, our thirty- one cooperative credit unions, our lead ership in soy beau culture, the increase of velvet beans in our corn fields, the in creasing acreage in winter cover crops, the improvement iu breeds of dairy herds, swine and poultry, and the gains in truck farmiirg and orcharding are directly due to these invaluable agencies. But we are yet a long way from being a self-feeding farm civilization. We have yet to learn that the first business of a farm is to feed the farmer, the farmer’s family and the farm animals; that in or der to be truly self-directing it is neces sary for farmers to be self-financing, and that in order for farmers to be self-finan cing they must be self-feeding. Cotton and tobacco produced on a bread-and meat basis would make North Oarolina rich beyond the wildest dreams of avarice; and would do it in a single decade. But we are not likely to learn this lesson with cotton averaging aromrd forty cents and tobacco fifty-two plus. CAROLINA AGRICULTURE: 1850-1920 Based on the 1850 Census and the 1920 Reports of the Federal Bureau of Crop Estimates DEPARTMENT OF EUEAL SOCIAL SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA Population in 1850 was 869,000. In 1919 it was 2,500,000. Increase, 188 Crops Prodixced i85o 1019 Cotton, bales 40,436 875,000 Tobacco, pounds 12,005,000 320,000,000 Corn, bushels 28,000.000 55,100,000 Wlieat, bushels 2,130,000 7,225,000 Oats, bushels 4,052,000 3,767,000 Potatoes, both kinds 5,716,000 14,800,000 Farm Animals Horses 149,000 183,000 Mules 25,000 236,000 Milk cows 222,000 328,000 Other cattle 472,000 394,000 Swine 1,813,000 1,592.000 Sheep 595,000 144,000 Land and Labor Improved acres 5,454,000 8,000,000 Number of farms 57,000 275,000 Improved acres per farm 95 29 Improved acres per farm worker .. 32 10 per cent. Percent Inc. 2064 2567 97 239 -7 159- 23 844 48 -17 -12 -76 46 382 -70 - 70 I. 'i i 1 ui
The University of North Carolina News Letter (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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April 14, 1920, edition 1
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