The news in this publi cation is released for the press on receipt. THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA NEWS LETTER Published Weekly by the University of North Caro lina Press for the Univer sity Extension Division. MAY 30, 1923 CHAPEL HILL, N. C. VOL. IX, NO. 28 Editorial Boardi E. C. Branson, S. H. Hobbs, Jr., L. R. Wilson, E. W. Knight, D. D.jCarroll, J. B. Bnllitt, H. W. Odnm. Entered as second-class matter November 14.1914, atthePostofilceat Chapel Hill, N. C., undertthe act of August 24, 1912 WHITE FARM OWNERSHIP HOME AND FARM OWNERSHIP The North Carolina Club Year Book for 1921-22 entitled Home and Farm Ownership in North Carolina has just been issued by the Extension Division under the editorial supervision of Pro fessor E. C. Branson. It is an octavo volume of 207 pages in eight point type, contains 11 illustrative plates and num erous statistical tables, and represents the careful study of seventeen students of the University in addition to studies by Professors Branson and Hobbs of the department of Rural Social Eco nomics and Mr. J. W. Bailey, of Raleigh. The Review makes mention of the publication here for three reasons. It wants the alumni to know that by writing the Extension Division they can secure a copy of this study of one of North Carolina's most serious eco nomic and social problems. In the second place, it wants to emphasize the nature of the studies which treat of the civilization of North Carolina of today. And finally it wishes to make the ob servation that investigations of this sort will enable the men who have been engaged in making them to diagnose the economic and social ills of the coming generation and to apply remedies for their alleviation and cure. The results may not, and probably will not, be im mediate. But in sending men and women out into the state who have the background which the investigations have supplied, the University is con tributing distinctly to the state’s eco nomic and social advance.—Alumni Re- BUILDING PROGRAM i One hundred thousand dollars for woman's building—that is the decision of the executive committee of the uni versity trustees upon the question that caused so much argument at Chapel Hill recently. This amount does not provide for as elaborate a structure as was once proposed. The decision to remodel the old build ings, making them serviceable for dormitories and for other purposes at a cost of $126,000 was one of the most important acts of the executive com mittee. It also voted $400,000 for i chemistry building. The rest of the expansion schedule is as follows: Men’s dormitories, $376,000; perma nent water supply, $120,000; roads and grading, $50,000; permanent depart ment equipment, $76,000; sewers, heat ing, lighting extensions, $115,000; ex ercise and recreation grounds, $60,000; furniture and fixtures, $45,000; storage and repair shops, $10,000; infirmary ad dition, $20,000: library addition, $26,- 000; physical training building, $40,- 000; gymnasium repairs, $3,000; biology basement floor, $12,000; extra finish, law building, $7,700; railway and equip ment, $66,000-total $1,637,700. W. N. Everett presided in place of Governor Morrison at the joint meet ing of the executive and building com mittees. Felix Harvey was elected a member of the building committee to succeed the late J. Bryan Grimes. Leslie Weil was elected to the finance committee to fill a vacancy. NEGROES MOVING NORTH A general movement of southern negro farmers to northern industrial centers is indicated in a special survey of southern farming districts made by the United States Department of Agri culture. The survey throws additional light on farm population figures recent ly issued by the department showing a net movement from farms to towns and cities of 324,000 persons, including men, women, and children in the South Atlantic States in 1922. High industrial wages is given as the chief reason for the reported migra tion. Boll-weevil conditions last year, which made cotton growing unprofit able for a number of negro farmers, unrest among returning negro troops, who experienced more attractive living conditions away from farms during and after the war, and breakdown of the contract labor system are given as con tributory causes. Approximately 13 percent, or 32,000 persons of the total number of negro farm hands or laborers in Georgia, have moyed North during the past 12 months, the report shows. The movement goes on although crops for the present sea son are already started. A large a- bandonment of acreage is reported, and the labor shortage is expected to be a major factor in limiting acreage this season. The situation in Georgia is much worse than is generally realized, the report says. The movement from South Carolina since September 16, 1922, is placed at about 22,760 negro farmers, or about percent of the total negro farmer pop ulation. The movement from Florida is estimated at about 2 percent of ne groes living in or near farming com munities. From Alabama comes the report that approximately three and one half per cent of the whole body of negro farm workers have moved North since the last crop season. Arkansas shows movement of about 16,000 negro farm ers, or about three and one half per cent of the negro population. Move ment from Kentucky has been very small; and from Missouri, North Caro lina, and Oklahoma no movement is re ported. Louisiana reports an exodus of about 1 percent of the total number of farm hands; Tennessee a movement of about 4,600 negro farmers since April 7, 1922. The farm labor situation in Texas apparently is not as serious as in the Eastern cotton states.—U. S. De partment of Agriculture, Weather, Crops, and Markets, April 28, 1923. HALF MILLION INCREASE Automobile fee collection in North Carolina for the fiscal year ending De cember 1, showed an increase of $625, 709.18 over the same period of 1921, as reported by clerk Joe Sawyer, of the State Automobile Department. The total fees collected to December 1 of this year amounted to $2,703,516.- 34 as compared with collections to De cember 1, 1921, of $2,300,366.08. The registration of motor vehicles reached 182,660 for the year 1922, and this represented 163,600 passenger cars and 18,960 trucks. The motorcycle registration totaled 1,190. No regis tration of tractors of chauffeurs and operators is required. One of the most active phases of the automobile department since August has been the work of inspectors round ing up delinquents and automobile own ers who have tried to evade the regis tration law. Collections among these delinquents have been made on more than 200 motor vehicles.—Raleigh Times. HIGHWAY ADVERTISING After a careful examination of the various advertising mediums through out the state it becomes apparent that many merchants and other advertisers are squandering money needlessly; yes, throwing it away. Anyone can pick up newspaper, chosen at random, and find several examples where it would be safe to assume that the advertiser is deriving practically no benefit from the money which should be netting him a valuable return. In the outdoor branch of advertising alone, one nota ble example of this economic loss is the sign board on the Durham-Chapel Hill road. This board isjlocated in such a position that it is practically impossible for a motorist traveling at ten miles per hour to read any individual adver tisement, because of the fact that there are thirty-two different advertisements on the one board, which gives it the appearance of a jumbled mass of infor mation with no one advertisement standing out any more prominently than another. How many of these ad vertisements could be read by the motor ist going at the average rate of speed? A great number of people who pass this board daily have been asked how many of the advertisements they have seen and remembered and a great ma jority have replied none, several, one, and still fewer, two. One jitney driver who passes this sign ten times a day remembered one sign! Here then is money being spent which might just as KNOW NORTH CAROLINA Tell the World California, with a good climate and pretty scenery, has attracted the attention of the whole world to her good points. California has no more in scenic beauty, richness and diversity of soil, or climatic advantages, than has Carolina to brag of, and yet California has had a thousand times the amount of advertising that Ca rolina’s natural resources have ever received. Carolina mountain scenery is even more beautiful than the flowering hills of California. Carolina raises many more farm products and fruits than does California, and in the great field of manufacture Califor nia is but an infant as compared with the giant. And yet California has built many miles of fine roadways, many ele gant resort hotels, and there are few of the hundred million people in America today that have not heard all about California’s sunshine and flowers. The difference is a matter of ad vertising. Florida has made her self known throughout the world by advertising. California has done the same. Carolina is building the roads, just as California has done and on a big ger scale than Florida has built, but even yet we have been slow to tell the world. Few people in other parts of the country know that parts of Western Carolina will far surpass, in elegance and charm of scenery, the famed mountains of Switzerland, which draw tourists for thousands of miles each year. Few people know that one may take a bath in the Atlantic Ocean of a morning, in warmer water in May than one finds in Atlantic City in July, and on a better beach, and spend the afternoon at Blowing Rock or some other-mountain resort 6,000 feet above sea level. Few people know that on this trip one would find a greater variety of fruits and vegetables and farm crops than any state in the Union can boast of. Few know that this road would lead through vast strawberry fields, spreading acres of beans and lettuce and early garden truck, through further miles of melons and through the famed peach orchards which produce thousands of carloads each year; that mingled with these many crops would be fields of to bacco, or cotton, of corn, wheat, rye, oats, barley, of meadow lands, rich with alfalfa and other grasses, through dairying land and through regions that produce four crops per year; through fields of celery, dew berries, raspberries, and other fruits, on up into the mountains where buckwheat and barley flour ish and the mountain sides are flam ing with rhododendron and azalia. Few know that Carolina is richer in manufactured products than any other three states of the South, that her taxes on manufactured products are larger than those of five South ern States combined; that many of the world's biggest mills and facto ries are located in her bounds, while her water power development has no equal in kind on the continent. The world would know all of these things if we told the world about them. People are reading the papers today as never before. The oppor tunity was never greater to syste matically tell the world about Caro lina towns and sections and com munities. The paper each week is endeavor ing to give its readers the high spots about various towns and sections that are establishing new develop ment records. We are persuaded that this is the kind of work which has made California famous and which will make North Carolina sought after by tourists, and the fu ture home of the investor if carried on in a bigger way. The state should help the counties and the counties and cities should strive as never be, fore to bring their advantages to the attention of the outside world, for never before in history has Carolina been so much in the limelight as she is today. Lets seize the opportunity and tell the whole world about Carolina roads, about Carolina schools and churches, about Carolina soil, about Carolina mountains and lowlands, a- boutCarolina's wondrous scenic beau ties and about her limitless natural resources. Let’s tell the world about all that Carolina has today; for no state on the American continent has more to boast of and few states have done so little boasting.—J. C. Patton in Charlotte Observer. profitably have been invested with Ponzi. The return would have been the same. Judicious Advertising Advertising is a powerful agent when utilized judiciously. The time, how ever, has long since passed when the progressive merchant scribbles his copy on a piece of brown paper and sends it to the publisher the day preceding its appearanc^, leaving it to the printer to decide upon layout, balance, type, and coherence. The old slogan, “It pays to advertise, ’ ’ is without a doubt a true one, but certain qualifications are ne cessary with any axiom. Advertising should be given as much thought as any other routine duties of the merchant. Careful investigations are necessary in all branches of busi ness before really successful advertising j can be accomplished. The adver tising agencies have long since ac knowledged this necessity and from one- tenth to one-third of the advertis ing budget of a company is spent on these investigations. Information such as the analysis of the market, of the product, and of the company itself is always necessary, because the adver tiser must know who are the users of his product, whether or not his product is best adapted to their needs and de sires, where they are located, and how best they can be reached. I do not be lieve that I would be over-stating the situation by saying that there are hun dreds of merchants in the state who are not using the best methods of reaching the classes of people they desire to reach with their advertising. Some at least are using bill board advertising when the service or product they offer for sale is not adapted to this kind of me dium, namely, “reminder type’’of adver tising. I know of no other way in which a merchant can waste money any quick er nor any way in which a merchant can make money any quicker than through advertising. Good advertising pays handsomely, but poor advertising loses money just as handsomely. r Some Remedies A remedy for the present situation can be found in several possible alter natives. 1. Each store have a man assigned this advertising duty who can put con siderable time, thought, and study into his particular problem. 2. Better advertising departments in the newspaper offices. 3. Closer cooperation between the newspaper and the advertiser. 4. ' The establishment of an adver tising bureau to handle all the adver tising placed by the merchants of one community. It could be conducted as a part of the Merchants Association for the development of better returns for member stores. If conducted properly it should be able to increase each mem ber store’s revenue considerably.— C. H. Fernald. WHITE FARM OWNERSHIP In North Carolina in 1920 Baaed on the 1920 Census of Agriculture, showing the percent of all white farmers in each county who own the farms they operate. State average, 66.7 percent of all white farmers and 29.2 percent of all negro farmers own their farms. The white tenants number 63,487, and the negro tenants 63.917. Total farm tenant population 687,000. White ownership ratios are highest in the mountain, tidewater and central hill counties, where farm population is sparse, land is relatively cheap, and di versified agriculture is the rule. White tenancy prevails in the densely popu lated coastal plains area, and the northern and southern hill counties, where land is relatively high and cash crops rule supreme. G. M. Hill, Rutherford County Department of Rural Social Economics, University of North Carolina Rank County Percent Rank County Percent Owners Owners 1 Dare . 96.0 61 Hyde 66.2 2 Avery . 89.4 52 Onslow 66.1 3 Alleghany .. 87.2 53 Cumberland 66.7 3 Mitchell 87.2 63 Harnett 66.7 6 Brunswick . 86.6 66 Polk 66.6' 5 Watauga . 86.6 66 Bertie 65.2 7 Ashe . 86.9 67 Clay 66.1 8 Randolph . 84.1 67 Haywood 66.1 9 Henderson . 83.7 69 Craven 64.8 10 New Hanover .. 83.3 69 Iredell 64.8 11 Columbus .. 82.6 61 Chowan 64.7 12 AlovnnHpT . 82.4 61 Graham fi4 7 13 Alamance .. 82.3 63 Davie 64.1 14 Wilkes . 81.5 64 Northampton 62.8 16 Jackson .. 81.3 66 Martin 62.1 16 Davidson . 81.1 66 Duplin 61.8 17 Carteret . 81.0 67 Rutherford 69.3 18 Yadkin . 80.9 68 Person i... 69.2 19 Transylvania . 80.7 69 Hoke 69.1 20 ■ Pender . 80.2 70 Union 68.6 21 Bladen . 79.9 71 Warren 68.0 22 Caldwell . 78.7 72 Caswell 67.9 23 Cherokee . 78.6 73 Perquimans 67.8 24 Catawba .. 77.4 73 Robeson 57.8 26 Guilford . 77.2 76 Vance 57.7 26 Macon . 76.7 76 Cabarrus 67.5 Tyrrell . 76.0 77 Clfivpland . ... fi7 S 28 . 76.2 78 Stokes .. . 671 29 Buncombe . 76.0 79 Pasquotank 56.8 30 Forsyth . 74.5 80 Granville 65.6 31 , Beaufort . 74.3 81 Mecklenburg 56.4 32 Orange . 74.1 82 Richmond 56.2 33 Chatham . 74.0 83 Halifax.. 56.1 34 Currituck . 73.6 84 Wake 64.9 34 Gates . 73.6 86 Hertford 54.6 36 Swain . 73.4 86 Johnston 64.6 37 Yancey . 73.0 87 Nash • 64.4 38 Burke . 72.8 88 Durham 63.3 39 Pamlico . 72.6 89 Anson 62.1 40 Surry . 71.4 90 Camden 61.8 41 Lee .. 70.9 91 Rockingham 49.3 42 McDowell . 70.0 92 Jones 47.6 42 Rowan . 70.0 93 Pitt 46.6 44 Gaston .. 69.2 94 Franklin 48.9 44 Lincoln . 69.2 96 Wayne 46.3 44 Stanly . 69.2 96 Lenoir 46.2 47 Sampson . 69.1 97 Edgecombe 39.4 48 Montgomery . 68.3 98 Wilson 36.0 49 Washington . 68.2 99 Greene 33.6 50 Madison . 67.8 100 Scotland 30.1