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.
SEPTEMBER 26,1923
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. DC, NO. 45
Editorial EL C. Branson, S. H. Hobbs. Jr., L. R. Wilson, E. W. Knight, D. D. Carroll, J. B. Bullitt, H. W. Odum.
Entered aa second-class matter November 14,1914, at the Postoffice at Chapel Hill, N. C., under the act of August 24, 191i
XIl—A LAND OF LITTLE COUNTRY FACTORIES
While exploring the country-end of
things in Germany during the last three
months, it has been impossible not to
see the industries operating under coun
try conditions, their amazing number
and variety, their manifest prosperity,
and their marvelous expansion in very
recent years. My letters have con
tained frequent fragmentary referen
ces to the country factory life I see on
every hand and I am now devoting a
special letter to the farm village indus
tries and the larger factory plants lo
cated in country regions quite aside
and apart from the great cities and in
dustrial areas of North Germany and
the Rhineland.
I know, to be sure, of the huge fac
tory plants and syndicates, everybody
knows of these, but what most people
of other lands know little about is the
fact that Germany turns out cheaply
produced high-grade specialties, novel
ties and notions in endless variety and
vast volume, and that the cheap pro
duction of such goods is made possible
by the village life of German farmers.
The country village is a fixed fact of
the German social order, and it is a
fundamental fact that the farmers and
business people of every nation may
well consider. The village life of
home-owning farmers is of course re
lated to a prosperous and enduring
country civilization, but it is no less
certainly related to manufacture, trade,
and banking. Germany, distracted as
she is, is aware of this fact today bet
ter than ever before in her history,
and she also knows that her power to
compete with the gross production of
big-scale industries in other countries
today and in future years is largely
based on this distinctive feature of her
country civilization.
The country industries of Germany
fall into three classes: (1) domestic in
dustries, (2) small factories organized
on a semi-domestic basis, and (3) full-
fledged factory plants located in coun
try regions or operating under country
conditions in city suburbs.
Domestic Industries
1. I speak first of the domestic in
dustries, based on the family as the
producing unit, with a hired assistant
or two, working in a space behind the
shop or in a second-story room along
side the living quarters of the family.
They are manufactories in the original
meaning of the word, that is they turn
out hand-made goods with a minimum
of labor-saving devices. They are sur
vivals of a primitive industrial order.
Little trace of them is left in western
civilization, but in Germany they still
exist in the farm villages and are like
ly to be a detail of her country-town
life as long as Germany endures.
Hand-Made Waterproof Shoes
To illustrate. The other day I found
my shoes in need of resoling. I was
directed into what looked like a shoe
store. It was a shoe store, but also it
was to my great surprise a shoe fac
tory, filled with hand-made shoes fash
ioned on the spot by the family and a
half-dozen assistants, with almost no
shoe machinery. And very attractive
shoes they were, not quite up to the
mark of American foot wear, but what
they lack in style and finish they make
up in lasting qualities and comfort. The
proprietor is a shoe-mender, a shoe-mak
er, a shoe-seller, and what is more
seller of cheap shoes that defy wear
and weather. If it were not so, he
would be forced out of business alto
gether, for rubber overshoes are al
most unknown in Germany. I could
not find a single pair in any store in
all Augsburg on a soggy day last week,
And really no native needed such shoes,
for the hand-made shoes are practically
water-proof. There are shoe factories
everywhere and their number increases
daily, but most German shoes are hand
made in little shops like this, and are
likely to be so made for long years to
come. The shoe-maker in his little
shop disappeared in America many
years ago. He is now merely a shoe-
mender, who mends shoes with electric
al machinery which he does not own
and for the use of which he must pay
to a great organization a royalty that
consumes a very large part of his
profits.
Country Butchery Artistic
And what I have said of shoe makers
and shoes is true of butchers and meat
products. Every German village has
its butcher and he is apt to be a skilled
artisan who not only slaughters all the
farm animals, but trims, cures, and
packages all the meat products of his
little territory—the hams, shoulders
and sides, the head cheese and souse,
and the sausages that appear in be
wildering variety on the farm tables
and in the city shop windows. In Amer
ica this business has been taken over
by the big packers who supply a good
deal more than half of all the meat prod
ucts we consume. The metzger in
Germany is still an artist not merely a
butcher, and his grip on his business is
so firm that huge packing plants are
never likely to drive him to cover.
Packing plants exist and they steadily
increase in number, but they are rela
tively small, and almost invariably
they are located in country towns not
in the great cities.
Home-Made Confections
The other day in Snaith, a little farm
village a mile or so off the railroad, I
was hunting up the birthplace of Sil-
cher, the great writer of German folk
songs, when I chanced upon another
commercialized product domestically
produced—a pastry confection that
looks like Spanish peanuts and melts in
the mouth like cream chocolates. It is
as dainty as any product of the Ameri
can Biscuit Company, and just as at
tractively packaged, but it is a family
product that goes out to the trade from
the back rooms of a country-village
dwelling. The famous Christmas cakes
of Nuremberg had a similar origin and
they are largely produced in domestic
kitchens for general distribution till
this good day. The same thing is true
of bake-shop products of every sort.
Great cake and candy concerns opera
ting on a factory basis would not have
a ghost of a chance in Germany.
Home Industries Galore
Another illustration. My battered
hand-bags were mended the other day
in a little country factory-town shop in
which most of the leather goods of
fered for sale are made behind the store
by the jiroprietor, his family, and an
additional leather worker or two-
trunks, suit cases, document cases,
hand bags, traveling kits, pocket books,
toilet articles and the like. The dis
play of wares was most attractive.
Just around the corner was the barber
shop for men and women, and as usual
it was something more than a shaving,
hair-cutting, shampooing establish
ment: it was a place where braids,
wigs, and such like articles are made
by the wife and children. There is
literally no end to the little family in
dustries of farm village life in Ger
many.
Semi-Domestic Industry
2. I Speak next of the semi-domes
tic small factory of the country villages
and village suburbs—the factory with a
dozen or a score of workmen housed in a
special building, with the owner and
his family living in the factory yard or
next to it or nearby, and preserving in
some degree the intimate contacts and
fellowships of a family circle. Facto
ries of this type are too numerous to
mention in detail. They have passed
out of existence in the United States
in general, and are fast disappearing in
North Carolina. The Holts and Can
nons began cotton milling in this fash
ion, but it is a vanishing fashion.
Two or three factories close at hand
illustrate what I mean. One is a fac
tory in which eighteen workmen are
turning out gold, silver, and German
silver thimbles that go into every coun
try of the world. I passed it many
times before I found out that it was a
factory and not a farm dwelling. An
other is a factory about as large
as my home in Chapel Hill, but it hous
es twenty skilled artists and artisans
busy designing and making gold and
silver plate, jewelry, and toilet arti
cles. The owner’s dwelling is connect
ed with the factory by a corridor. In
COOPERATION
Today business organization is
moving strongly toward co-opera
tion. There are in the co-operative
great hopes that we can even gain
in individuality, equality of oppor
tunity, and an enlarged field for in
itiative, and at the same time re
duce many of the great wastes of
over-reckless competition in produc
tion and distribution. Those who
fear that co-operation is an advance
toward socialism need neither re
joice nor worry. Co-operation in its
current economic sense represents
the initiative of self-interest blended
with a sense of service, for nobody
belongs to a co-operative who is not
striving to sell his products or ser
vices for more or striving to buy
from others for less, or striving to
make his income more secure. Their
members are furnishing the capital
for extens'ion of their activities just
as effectively as if they did it in cor
porate form and they are simply
transferring the profit principle from
joint return to individual return.
Their only success lies where they
eliminate waste either in production
or distribution—and they can do
neither if they destroy individual in
itiative. Indeed this phase of devel
opment of our individualism prom
ises to become the dominant note of
its twentieth century expansion.
But it will thrive only in so far as
it can construct leadership and a
sense of service, and so long as it
preserves the initiative and safe
guards the individuality of its mem
bers.—Herbert Hoover.
were home owners settled in compact
farm communities as they are in the
main in Germany, I should be less dis
turbed than I am at present about the
future of both our farm and our fac
tory civilizations. I do not believe any
civilization, in town or country, can be
safely based on the landless estate of
men. And just as strongly I do believe
in cooperative community life and en
terprise. - Modern life in big cities
everywhere looks to me very like a lot
of crabs in the bottom of a bucket,
every crab crawling over every other
crab trying to get on top. It is a sorry
spectacle, and it is pagan to the core,
no matter how we label it, whether
Christian or not.—E. C. Branson, Ber
lin,. July 3, 1923.
ACTIVE SPINDLES
The textile mills of North Carolina
are about the most active in the United
States. That our mills are in healthy
condition is shown by the July report
of the Department of Commerce. Al
though Massachusetts has more than
twice as many cotton spindles as we,
the active spindle hours in this state
in July were 89 percent of the total
active spindle hours of Massachusetts.
The average spindle in our state ran 267
hours, while in the leading textile state,
at present, the average spindle ran
only 138 hours. The average in South
Carolina was 268 hours.
Almost the same conditions exist
when the South and North are com
pared. The average southern spindle
ran 254 hours during July, while the
average for the North was 141 hours.
The South is the natural home of the
textile industry, and North Carolina
possesses more and better advantages
than any other southern state. It is
the confession of northern mill men
themselves.
ing to the use to which they are to be
put.
A Developing Industry
The most important product is wood
turpentine, of which about fifteen gal
lons are obtained from each cord of
wood. Besides the turpentine a cord
of wood will yield about six gallons of
oil, the same amount of a substance
called pyroligneous acid, rosin, and
charcoal. The oil yields products which
can be used for flotation in mining op
erations, as a solvent in wood and met
al paints, for wood preservation, in the
manufacture of reclaimed rubber prod
ucts, for insecticides and as a drug.
Oil of Pine Tar. The pyroligneous acid
or liquid smoke, the least valuable of
the products, is useful as liquid smoke,
in dyeing and in the manufacture of
synthetic vinegar and various other
chemicals. The industry is still in its
i infancy. Each year the chemists are
finding many new uses for the products
and the chemical engineers are perfect
ing new and better methods of produc
tion. With the large lumber industry
in the state there is an enormous a-
mount of waste- wood, to say nothing
of the stumps lost, which should be
utilized by the wood distiller. One au
thority has recently stated that if Ger
many had the pine stumps of the South
she could ' distill them into products
whose value would pay the war debt
imp{*sed upon her by the Allies. The
pine stumps of North Carolina have
untold wealth in them.—Division of
Industrial Chemistry, Department of
Chemistry, University of North Caro
lina.
another factory which adjoins its own
er’s dwelling the thirty-odd workmen
are making the mechanism that rotates
the disk in gramophones. All these
little farm village factories have made
their proprietors rich within the last
five years, and now they are all fever
ishly at work enlarging their plants or
building brand new factories. So far
their riches are mostly in paper marks,
but they are turning these marks into
substantial properties just as fast as
ever they can. Which is what the lit
tle factory owners are doing every
where, and it largely explains the
building activities I see on every hand.
Larger-Scale Production
3. A more spectacular phase of
country manufacture is the full-fledged
factory plant in the farm villages or on
the outskirts or out in the open country
on railway lines that tap the abundant
farm labor supply. The Neckar valley
from the Swabian Alps to the Rhine is
an unbroken string of industrial centers
and plants operated by the farm labor
of contiguous areas. The same thing
is true of the upper reaches of the
Danube from the Black Forest east
ward, also of the Main, the Saal, and
every other stream that flows out of
the Hartz mountains and the Thurin-;
gian hills in Central and Eastern Ger
many. Nevertheless these areas re
main dominantly rural and agricultural.
They are made and kept so by the
well-nigh universal ownership of homes
and farms by the factory workers. The
old men, the women, and the children
keep the farms perfectly cultivated,
aided by the husbands aud the older
boys and girls before and after factory
hours. These regions look to me to be
just as perfectly cultivated and just as
beautiful today as they did fifteen
years ago. It is a situation that puts
the social incendiary at a clear disad
vantage. His nose is out of joint in these
areas. The industrial activity, pros
perity, and expansion of the last few
years are clearly manifest, and entirely
beyond doubt or debate.
How It Differs in N. C.
Manufacture under country condi
tions is nothing new in Germany. Sid
ney Whitman called attention to it
twenty-five years ago. It is a distinc
tive feature of industrial Germany as it
is of North Carolina.
If only our farm and factory workers
OUR CHEMICAL INDUSTRY
Pine Products Industry
Everyone familiar with the Old North
State knows the part the long-leaf pine
has played in its literature and tradi
tions. Yet few realize that it also
furnished the resources for two of the
state’s many industries, namely, the
lumber and pine products industries.
Long-leaf pine and oak lumber from
this state are daily being shipped to
the North. In addition to the pine
lumber industry, we have an important
naval stores industry in turpentine and
rosin production. Besides going to all
parts of the United States, shipments
of rosin and turpentine are being maie
to many foreign countries, including
India and Australia.
In this state there are eight small
firms engaged in some phase of the
pipe by-products business. They rep
resent an invested capital of but $38,-
650 and an annual output of $107,170.
Most of the plants are located in the
southeastern part of the state, Bruns
wick and New Hanover counties being
the center of the industry. The indus
try is concerned primarily with the pro
duction of turpentine and rosin, but
some of the companies are now pro
ducing many other products. Only 62
men were employed in this industry in
1920.
Old Methods and New
.The old method for collecting the raw
material for turpentine production con
sisted in boxing or wounding the tree
in such a way that it gave off a gum
which was collected and distilled. This
was a very wasteful process, for it not
only sapped the vitality of the tree but
also destroyed its usefulness for mill
ing purposes, sometimes killing^ the
trees. This method has given way
somewhat to the more economical and
productive process of destructive diS'
tillation of the pine wood wastes. In
this method the wood distiller uses the
stumps, knots and other refuse from
t^e lumber mills, the greatest cost be
ing for labor necessary for harvesting
the wood and hauling it to the stills.
The process consists of the destructive
distillation of the wood in the absence
of air. The heating is carried on in
large steel retorts set in masonry over
a' fire-box. After being filled with
wood the retorts are sealed, the fires
started, and in a few hours the distil
lation begins. The vapors passing off
are condensed, and the distillate is re
distilled into various products acebrd-
ASSEMBLING RECORDS
The University Library is interested in
completing back files of North Carolina
periodicals, documents, reports, pro
ceedings ofsocieties, etc., for the North
Carolina Collection. Some of the peri
odicals to be completed are listed be
low. The Librarian will be glad to
hear of available issues of the follow
ing periodicals.
Periodicals
Academy and Alumnae Record of
Salem College. Any issue.
Arator. Issues of 1866-1857.
At Home and Abroad.
Biblical Recorder.
Blum’s Farmer’s and Planter’s Al
manac.
Branson’s North Carolina Business
Directory.
Carolina Cultivator.
Carolina Farmer.
Charlotte Medical Journal. t
Everywoman’s Magazine.
Farmer’s Advocate.
Key-Stone.
Literary World.
Lyceum.
N. C. Agricultural Almanac.
N, C. College for Women Alumnae
Nfews.
N. C. Common School Journal.
N. C.,Educational Journal.
N. C. .lournal of Education. Issues
of 1862, 1863, 1864.
N. C. Law Journal. Vol. 2, No. 12,
April 1902.
N. C. Medical Journal. Issues of 1858,
1869, 1908.
N. C. Planter.
N. C. Telegraph.
N. C. White Ribbon.
Orphan’s Friend and Masonic Jour
nal.
Progressive Farmer.
-Racket.
Reconstructed Farmer.
Solicitor.
South-Atlantic. Published in Wil
mington. Issues of 1877-8, 1879, 1880,
1881.
Southern Educator.
Southern Furniture Journal.
Southern Good Roads. Issues since
1917;
Southern Pictures and Pencillings.
Southern Public Utilities Magazine,
Southern Review.
Southern Textile Bulletin.
Southern Tobacco Journal.
Stedman’s Magazine.
Tarheel Banker.
Turner's N. C. Almanac. Issues for
1868.
Yackety-Yack. Issue for 1918.