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.
NOVEMBER 14,1923
CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
VOL. X, NO. 2
Adiiorial 3.>
B. G. Braason. 3. H. Hobba. Jr.. U R. Wilaon, B. W. Knight, D. D. Carroil, J. B. Bullitt. H. W. 0-Iu.ti.
Entered as aecoad-clasB matter November 14, 1914, at the Postofficeat Chapel BUII, N. C.. under the act of August 24, Ifill
OUR URBAN RENTERS
XVIU—THE DANISH FARMERS
“Do the farmers of Denmark ever
work any? If they do I have not been
able to catch them at it. In a single
afternoon, in a single landscape any
where in central and south Germany
you can see more people at work in the
fields than I have seen in the fields of
Denmark in six weeks of travel from
one end of the state to the other.
What’s the answer?”
I fired this question the other day at
an English-speaking Dane, a university
man, the son of a farmer who is a
seasoned member of the Danish parlia
ment.
“My answer would be,” said he,
“that the Dane is lazy by nature. He
never sweats his back if he can get
there by sweating his brain. He never
does anything himself that he can get
a farm animal or a labor-saving ma
chine or a cooperative society to do for
him. And then, three-fourths of his
acreage is in grain, hay and forage
crops. These crops are all pitched with
seeding machines and cut with reapers
and mowers. He pickets his farm ani
mals in the fields and they harvest his
forage crops for him during seven or
eight montfcs of the year. His grain
crops are threshed out by his own or
the community-owned threshing ma
chine. He is a livestock farmer on a
machine basis, which means minimum
workers and minimum hours in the
fields. As for marketing his products
and getting the money into his pocket,
he hardly bothers with it at all; the
cooperative societies attend to that.
He works, the whole family works, in
and around the buildings of the farm
square, but you do not see them from a
car window. Mainly it is work with
the farm animals that in a very inti
mate way are members of the family
circle. You'll see more farm workers
in the fields during the grain harvest,
especially during the season for getting
the sugar-beets housed. Except among
the little landers, you will rarely ever
see a girl or a woman doing field-work in
Denmark and most of these you’ll see
during the season of root-crop harvest
ing.”
Organized Agriculture
The Danish farmers, in a word,
have organized their agriculture as
thoroughly as capitalists have any
where organized manufacture; far
more thoroughly in fact, for they not
only produce their own raw materials,
but in their cooperative plants they
put these into finished forms for final
consumption, market them through
their own sales agencies, and base
their distribution business on their own
credit institutions. Not perfectly in
this last detail of farm business, but a
cooperative farm bank whose capital
increases from three hundred thousand
to three million dollars in eight years
and whose business in loans and dis
counts amounts to thirty million dol
lars a year is fagt moving into ade
quate proportions. The cooperating
farmers of Denmark have better boxed
the compass of business relationships ica.
than any manufacturing corporation I
know anything about unless it be the
Standard Oil Company or the United
States Steel Corporation.
Farm Classification
Who are these Danish farmers?
have already had a word to say about
their origin and rise out of poverty into
wealth and influence in one hundred
and thirty-five years. Todpy I am
writing sketchily about the economic-
social farm classes. Aside from the
twelve hundred thousand townspeople
who are tied-in with the cooperative
farm organizations in manufacture and
sale of farm products, the dirt farmers
and their families number one million
two hundred thousand souls. They
fall into five fairly distinct classes: first
the Big Estate owners, second the Pro
prietors, third the Gaardmaend or mid
dle-class farmers, fourth the Husmaend
or little landers, and fifth the Tenants
and Leaseholders.
446,000 acres. They cannot be left out
of account in any proper study of this
little country of small-soale farmers.
Most of them are counts and barons,
the remains of an eighteenth century
aristocracy. The total disappearance
of large estates is near at hand in Den
mark, for the laws of 1919 tax all land
not on the basis of its producing power
but upon the basis of its market value.
Such is the last verdict of Danish de
mocracy on the taxation of land values,
and it is safe to say the verdict will
stand. It is not now easy for any man
to own and operate a farm of more
than 260 acres in Denmark, and it is
absolutely impossible for the idle rich
who farm by proxy and live on rents.
The nobles as a rule have lived in the
country and they have nearly always
been interested in agriculture, but they
have rarely ever been farmers. That
is to say, their estates are laid out in
farm units operated by farm foremen
or by lessees, or so with few excep
tions. Their influence in state affairs
was of weight and consequence until
they were shorn of power in 1916 and
reduced to helplessness by the legisla
tion of 1919. Nevertheless they must
be fairly credited with three distinct
contributions to Danish agriculture,
first in planting and preserving forest
areas, second in promoting the develop
ment of high-bred stock, mainly horses
and dairy cattle, and third in demon
strating that dairying and pork pro
duction were ways out of the farm-
bankruptcy of the eighteen eighties.
The large estates are scattered all over
Denmark. They have long over-shad
owed but they have never over-awed
the freehold peasant farmers, and no
man jack of all the peasants has missed
any lesson the big estates have had
to teach.
The last week-end I was a guest on
two of the seven farms of an 18,000-
acre estate in west Zeeland. Aunso-
gaard is a farm of 900 acres, and Lerch-
enborg, the castle farm, contains 2,600
acres. They are operated under leases
by a father and son, the one said
to have the ripest university culture
and the other the best business brain
among the farmers of Denmark. The
life in these two farm homes is on a
level with the loveliest life to be found
in homes of any sort anywhere. I wish
I had the space to tell at length of the
rare old furniture and furnishings, the
music, the art, the library shelves, and
the hospitality of these Danish farm
homes. Aunsogaard and Lerchenborg
represent the farming of the big es
tates in Denmark at their best. Both
of them are given to grain, hay and
forage for milk and meat production,
with beef cattle, horses and sugar
beets as side lines, in varying ratios as
market prices rise or fall from year to
year. As a last word, I may say that
the castle at Lerchenborg is now de
serted. The count has been forced to
flee by the new tax laws, and his sons
are working for a living, two of them
in Copenhagen and the third in Amer-
KNOW NORTH CAROLINA
Going only by what these two
eyes have seen, I proclaim these
things, namely: that North Carolina
today is the foremost state of the
south in material progress, in pub
lic spirit, in educational expansion
and in optimism of outlook. Indeed,
I doubt whether among all these
United States there is a single one,
of anywhere like population, area and
per capita wealth, which in this last
decade has put up more school-hous
es, laid more miles of paved road,
and by city, county and state, has
voted more bond-issues for sanitary
sewage systems, municipal water
works and power plants than North
Carolina.—Irvin S. Cobb in Hearst’s
International for November.
The Proprietors
The Big Estates
1. The four hundred and nineteen
Big Estate owners hold properties of
six hundred acres or more each. The
average is 1,088 acres and the total
2. The Proprietors stand next to the
Big Estate owners in the possession of
farm properties and they enjoy the
social distinction that invariably at
taches to the ownership of broad acres.
They are a fringe of the old-time land
ed aristocracy of Denmark. They are
a conglomerate of widely different so
cial elements—gifted middle-class farm
ers who have fought their way up into
larger properties, decayed aristocrats
who own such properties by inheritance,
gift or marriage, rich tradespeople,
bankers and factory owners who want
coun try estates for one reason or another,
perhaps because they fancy country life
in the summer season, oftener perhaps
because they fancy the nobles as neigh
bors under whose eyes they can parade
their riches after the fashion of the
social climbers in America. And so on
and on. The proprietors number 4,966,
the average size of their holdings is
289 acres, and the total is 1,431,000
acres. Which is more land than 109,-
000 husmaend or little landers own all
put together—more by nearly seventy-
two thousand acres. Because they are
not a homogeneous group the proprie
tors lack solidarity, which explains
their lack of influence in state affairs.
And their farming on the whole is held
to be distinctly below the high stand
ards of Denmark.
Denmark’s Backbone
3. The Gaardmaend, or middle-class
farmers, are the backbone of Denmark,
not of agriculture alone but of business
in general. I am quoting the chief of
the English department of the largest
bank in Copenhagen. They are forty-
five percent of all the farmers and they
own nearly exactly two-thirds of all the
land. They are 91,110 in number and
their holdings total 6,320,000 acres.
Their farms average sixty-nine acres.
Practically every one of them is a self-
made farmer or the son or grandson of
such a farmer. They are passionately
bent on improving their farm proper
ties, beautifying their own surround
ings, increasing and improving their
livestock, adding to their farm machin
ery, and filling their homes with com
forts, conveniences, and luxuries. So
much for the pride of ownership and
the miracle it works. They have a
home-interest not a speculative-inter
est in their possessions. They have no
wish to sell out at any price whatso
ever. And as for moving to Copenha
gen-well, they think Copenhagen is
either Sodom or Gomorrah, they do not
know which, a place to visit once in &
while, but no place for farm folk to
live in. ‘ ‘This farm has been in my
family for five generations,” said the
gaardmand who entertained me so
handsomely in North Jutland, “and I
count on its being in my family for
ever. ” These middle-class farmers are
conservatives in state politics. With
the proprietors and big estate owners
they offer a solid front against the
single-tax proposals of the husmaend
and the laberites in parliament, but
they joined these radical democrats in
breaking the law of entail and in for
cing the big estate owners to sell out
right to the life-leaseholders on their
properties the land that these retainers
and their forefathers have been culti
vating for six hundred years or more.
The Little Landers
The Husmaend or little farmers
at the bottom of the economic scale are
more than half of all the Danish farm
ers but they own less than fifteen per
cent of all the land. Their holdings
range from one to twenty-five acres,
the average size of their farms is twelve
and one-half acres, and the total
1,360,000 acres in round numbers. They
would have a dog’s chance on little
farms of this size if it were not for the
magic of pigs and poultry, dairy cows
and cooperation—these four, and the
greatest of these is cooperation. It is
a system of small-scale farming that
puts the little landers on an equal foot
ing with the big estate ow;ners. Like
the invention of gunpowder it suddenly
made the peasants on foot as tall as the
knights on horseback. Through their
cooperative organizations they can
market six eggs a day as easily and ad
vantageously as the large farmers can
market sixty or six hundred. And what
is more, the livestock on these little
pocket-handkerchief farms can receive
a kind of personal attention that is
nearly impossible in big-scale farming.
As a result, the little farmers lose rel
atively fewer animals from disease,
exposure, and neglect on the one hand,
while on the other they greatly increase
the quantity of their livestock prod
ucts. As for quality, the bacon and
butter of the cooperative factories of
Denmark have won practically all the
medals of the national and internation
al expositions for twenty years or
more.
What They Make of Their Lot
The husmaend’s iot is a hard lot but
they work at it grimly, hopefully, hap
pily, and as a rule successfully. The
failures are few, almost too few to
count even under the hard conditions
of the last two years in Denmark.
They are not of course equally endowed
with industry, thrift and sagacity, but
what the best of them have accomplish
ed in a few years of ownership is al
most unbelievable. For instance, here
is a little twenty-acre farmer who. in
five years has three buildings in his
farm square, two plump horses, a good
farm wagon, a market wagon, a dog
cart in good condition, and a brand new
buggy of the substantial Danish type,
ten sows and a modern piggery, six
dairy cows better housed than some of
the folks I know in America, poultry
and pigeons all over the place, planters,
mowers, rakes and reapers, barns and
dwelling lighted by electricity, barn-
machinery run by electric motors, a
garden crowded with vegetables, fruits,
and flowers, a bower in one corner of
it with chairs and a table for summer
evening meals, a fern and flower-cov
ered mound in another corner for a
staff flying the Danebrog, the beloved
national flag. His dwelling is brick
covered with terra cotta tiles and it is
a better dwelling than I can afford to
own in Chapel Hill. His office and study
is not quite but almost as cozy as Bob
Connor’s. His living and dining room
is furnished in excellent taste. His
drawingroom—that’s the proper word
among the Danish peasants for a par
lor—is manifestly his particular pride.
As usual it is rarely ever used by the
family except on funeral occasions. It
is reserved for visiting neighbors and
distinguished company from a distance.
We could not get away from him with
out being seated around his table and
served with smorrebrod, cigars and oel.
Oel, by the way, is a Danish word, and
for its meaning the reader is referred
to a Volstead dictionary.
The husmaend look prosperous all
over Denmark, and they are prosperous.
Their prosperity is far beyond anything
the small-crop-farmers of the South
have ever enjoyed or are ever likely
to enjoy until their cotton and tobacco
are produced by ownership farming on
a home-raised bread-and-meat basis.
And not even then unless country com
munity life and collective farm effort
can become foundational in our agri
culture.
A Handful of Tenants
6. The Tenants and Leaseholders of
Denmark deserve more space than I
am able to give them in closing this
over-long letter. They are very few
in number—only 10,768 against 117,000
in North Carolina. They are less than
five percent of all the farmers, against
our forty-five percent. The farm ten
ants in the American sense of the term,
the one-year tenants subject to change
at the will of the landlord, are only 4,-
646 in all Denmark. The holders of
life-leases are 2,207. They were 8,404
sal intelligence, and cooperative farm
enterprise. Self-help cooperation,
mind you, for the Danes do not want
state-aid or state interference in their
business enterprises.—E. C. Branson,
Kalunborg, Denmark, August 26, 1923.
URBAN RENTERS
Farm tenancy-has recieved a great
deal of attention during the last few
years, while very little has been said
about the urban renter. Tenancy on
the farm is a far different thing from
renting in town. Farm tenancy
a far more serious economic and
social problem than urban tenancy.
But even suburban tenancy is a serious
problem. The ratio of urban renters
far outnumbers the rural renters, near
ly two to one in this state.
In the fourteen cities of North Carolina
with more than 10,000 inhabitants each
64.2 percent of the homes are occupied
by renters. In other words just about
one-third of the urban families own
the homes they live in.
Of the cities with more than 10,000
inhabitants in 1920 High Point led in
the percent of families who owned the
homes they occupied, and Greensboro
came next. In High Hoint the rented
homes represented 66 percent of all
homes and in Greensboro 66.6 percent.
Gastonia ranked last'with 73 percent of
all her homes occupied by renters.
Durham, Raleigh, and Winston-Salem
are also cities with large renting ratios.
The following table gives the fourteen
cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants
each in 1920, and the percent of homes
occupied by renters for each city.
Cities Percent of
homes rented
High Point 66.0
Greensboro 66.6
Salisbury 57.0
Asheville 68.4
Wilmington 61.8
Rocky Mount 62.4
New Bern 64.0
Goldsboro 64.2
Wilson 65.3
Charlotte 66.8
Winston-Salem 67.9
Raleigh.. 68.6
Durham 71.0
Gastonia 73.0
Ownership Gains
It is comforting to note that the ratio
of homes owned by the occupants is in
creasing in all of the larger cities of the
state. The general rule is that the
larger a city becomes, the larger is its
ratio of renters. This is not the case
in North Carolina. For instance in
1910 sixty-two percent of the homes in
Greensboro were occupied by renters,
against only 66.6 percent in 1920. In
Asheville the homes occupied by renters
have decreased from 66 percent in 1910
to 68.4 percent in 1920. In Wilmington
the homes occupied by renters have de
creased from 66 percent to 61.8 percent.
And so for the other cities.
This is very significant, and especial
ly so in view of the fact that the cities
of the state are experiencing such
rapid growth. For instance Winston-
Salem increased 113.6 percent in popu
lation during the census period, yet her
ratio of home renters decreased from 72
to 67.9 percent. Farm tenancy is on the
increase in North Carolina, while city
tenancy is on the decrease. This,
again, is very significant because
in 1901. Which means that in eighteen I growing very rapidly
years 6,197 life-leaseholders bought i while the farm population is remam-
the farms that they and their ancestors | ™g pracUcally ^statac. Logically the
held under perpetual lease, the owners
being forced to sell under recent laws
of parliament. The long-term lease
holders are 4,006, their leases running
as a rule six, seven, or eight years ac-
situation would be the reverse.
The Answer
The answer lies in Building and Loan
Associations. Building and Loan asso
ciations are growing at a rapid pace in
cording to the rotation system they state. We are one of the leading
practice. Mainly they are operating |
the large farm units of the proprietors j^g^j during the last ten years. During
and big estate owners, and their num- j years the assets have more
ber varies very little from year to year. | doubled, and now amount to more
Leaseholders and tenants will exist as ■ 4Q million dollars. During 1922
long as large estates exist in Denmark, ' j^^j-g 5,000 new homes were erect-
that is to say for only a few more : North Carolina towns through the
years, for the fixed policy of the state ^jQjiding and loan plan. It is an Ameri-
is small farms cultivated by owners. plan and the greatest scheme ever
Under recent laws idle landlords living I ^jgyigg^ ^o promote home ownership,
in luxury on rents will pass into history j cause of the increase in the
in a hurry. j j^tio of home owners in the rapidly
i growing cities of North Carolina. From
j a purely investment point of view
Germany’s lesson for us is owner- building and loan stock is hard to beat,
ship farming and compact country com-' We have a state law allowing farmers
munity life. Denmark’s lesson for all to use the same scheme. It will work
the world is small-scale, livestock for farmers just as well as it works for
farming on an ownership basis, univer- city people.-—S. H. H., Jr.
Worth While Lessons