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