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 for the University Ex
tension Division.
DECEMBER 23. 1925
CHAPEL HILL, N C.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. XU, NO. 8
Editorial Hoard: B. C. Branson,
S. H. Hobbs. Jr.. L. E. Wilson. E. W. Knight. D. D. Carroll. J. B. Bullitt. H. W. Odum.
Entered as second.class matter November M. 1911. at the Poatofflce at Chapel Hill. N. C.. under the aot of August 24. 1912
KNOW NORTH CAROLINA
THE NEW INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
[Note: This is the second installment
»f the story of North Carolina and the
New Industrial Revolution by C. R. Fay,
eminent British economist, which re
cently appeared in The Economic Journal
of The Royal Economic Society. The
grst installment appeared in last week’s
issue of this publication.]
3. Why is North Carolina becoming
an industrial state? Why within North
Carolina is the Piedmont an industrial
oentre so strong that it is not only
growing without pause, but drawing to
it, as by force majeure, some of the
textile trade of Massachusetts? North
Carolina possesses many favourable fac
tors which in combination exercise a
sumiilative force.
(1) The Piedmont, like the West Rid
ing of Yorkshire or the Valley of the
Clyde, has a soil which is less fertile
than that further east. It is one of the
paradoxes of economic growth that
regions of quick fertility, because they
»re easy and warm, carry less industry
than those which must be industrial if
they are to grow at ali. This is true as
between tropical and temperate zones,
»nd true within a given zone, as be
tween alluvial plains and roiling foot-
Wlls. North Carolina is the “Old North
State” and the Piedmont is the tem
perate zone of North Carolina.
The mean temperature of the Pied
mont is 69 degrees F., and the average
precipitation for the state is 60 inches.
The largest rainfalls occur in July and
August, when the cotton and tobacco
need moisture. In 1924, however, the
Qotton in some parts of North Carolina
was drowned out by excessive June
rains. The humidity of the outside
atmosphere in a cotton-spinning district
js no longer a critical consideration, as
the humidity inside the factory is con
trolled by a simple installation, the
humidifiers, which hang from the ceil
ing like electric arc lights. The lowness
»f the “counts”, by comparison with
those of New England or Lancashire, is
due to other things-namely, the youth
fulness of the industry in the South, the
standard nature of America's mass de
in North Carolina since 1918. One horse
power equals 746 watts, ore k.w. equals .
1,000 watts. North Carolina consumed
in 1920 a total of 732 million k.w. hours,
in 1923 a total oi 1,313 million k.w.
hours; but whereas in 1920 only 7 per
cent was generated from steam, in 1923
this percentage had risen to 17.9. How
ever, by interconnections one state can
draw on another. Thus in North Caro
lina there are two great power com
panies, the Southern Power Company,
and the North Carolina Power and Light
Company. 1921-1922 were years of!
drought in the North Carolina Power i
and Light Company’s territory; there- j
fore the steam plant of the U. S. A. |
Government at Sheffield, Alabama, was j
loaned to companies in the south-east; j
Alabama power being thus available for
its neighbo^ Georgia, Georgia was able
to supply the Southern Power Company, .
which in its turn released equivalent |
power sufficient to meet the deficiency j
of the North Carolina Power and Light
Company. Because of water-power de-.
velopment, increased efficiency of steam
plants and interconnection of stations,
the cost of electricity in the U. S. A.
was 6.1 percent less in 1923 than before
the war, notwithstanding the greatly
increased cost of labor, coal and other
materials. Where cheap power is, there
are the industries gathered together.
Raw Materials
(3) North Carolina has its raw ma
terials at its doors. It has at Mount
Airy, on the edge of the Blue Ridge Moun
tains—and once again the superlative
may be used-the largest granite quarry
in the U.S, A. It is still a leading state
in hard and soft woods. In the furni
ture industry, which uses the gum tree
very largely, more than one firm has
protected itself against timber shortage
for very many years ahead; for they
hold large tracts in the swamps of
South Carolina, where the risk of de
struction by fire is slight. Cotton and
tobacco, the two leading cash crops of
the state, are the raw materials of its
two most valuable industries. North
Carolina spins more than the one million
standard nature or America s mass us-, bales it grew in 1923. It turns into
mand, and the employment, as generally | stripped or finished tobacco, a tobacco
in the U. S. A., of the easier and cheaper ■ crop which for 1920-23 averaged over
ring spinning, which is the modern 30O million pounds, and in addition it
adaptation of the continuous roller spin- ■ -.u
ning done by Richard Arkwright on the
water frame. In 1923, out of 34 million
A HUMAN NATURE TEXT
The Bible is the best of all text
books ■ on human nature. William
Lyon Phelps is a Yale college pro
fessor as well as an interesting writer
and remarkable human being. When
he speaks of education it is fair to
assume that he knows what he is
talking about. He says; I thor
oughly believe in a university educa
tion for both men and women, but I
believe a knowledge of the Bible
without a college course is more
valuable than a college course with
out the Bible. For in the Bible we
have profound thought beautifully
expressed; we have the nature of
boys and girls, of men and,;women,
more accurately charted than in the
work of any modern novelist or play
wright. You can learn more about
human nature by reading the Bible
than by living in New York. —Bruce
Barton, in Colliers.
XVII. THE ISOLATED FARM PLANT
The problem of electrifying farms I feet it drops within the given distance,
, 1 1 V.A., Koesr. ofoLoH ho QTifRfiont: ff* cronf-rAfe t.hp reniiired
sources were found in the brine lakes
of the American West and t^e oil bor
ings of Texas. Their use is' a matter
of development and cost; and meanwhile
the “Big Six” have reached out to con
trol supplies in Chile, Germany, and
elsewhere. The relation between the
fertilizer company and the grower of
tobacco or cotton is a study in itself,
exhibiting a domination as far flung as
that of the agricultural implement com
panies over the western grain grower,
and much more oppressive.
Textile Machinery
land rural homes, as has been stated
before, splits into two separate prob
lems according to the distance of the
community in question from an existing
transmission line. If the place is within
reasonable distance of an existing public
utility system, probably the best hope
is an extension of service from that
system. The problem then becomes
one of finding enough uses for electricity
to pay for a long transmission line with
only a few customers per mile of line.
But if the place is far distant from any
public utility system, the only hope at
present is for the farmers to get
their own small systems, either indi
vidually or in cooperation.
Fuel Plants
The small systems may take the form
of either fuel or water power plants.
The fuel plant, consisting of a gasoline
or kerosene engine, driving a dynamo
and supplying current through a storage
battery, is in common use. It is well
adapted to lighting and household use.
be sufficient u* generate the required
horse-power. The difficulty in meeting
this requirement is illustrated by the
case of a certain rural resident in North
Carolina who desired to install a 10
horse-power plant on a stream located
a mile and a half from his house. The
stream flow was 226 gallons per minute
and the height of the fall was 13 feet.
To find the horse-power that can be
generated, the method of calculation is
to change gallons per minute to gallons
per second, multiply this figure by the
fall in feet, and divide by 82. (Divide
by 11 if flow is measured in cubic feet
per second.) In this case it was found
that instead of 10 horse'-power less than
one horse-power could be generated,
and much of this would be lost in trans
mitting the current a mile and a half to
the residence. However, in many cases
like this where the stream-flow is too
small, a dam may be used for the double
purpose of securing the fall of water
and providing a pond. A pond which
will store the flow of the stream for
spindles in active operation, the South
had 16 million, i.e., nearly 60 percent
{North Carolina 6K aod South Caro
lina 6); but spinning coarser yarns it
consumes over 60 percent of the cotton
grown and consumed in the U. S. A.
Cheap Power
(2) North Carolina has cheap power;
water power, steam (which means coal)
power, and oil power. North Carolina
Itself has no oil and very little coal, but
flanking it on the northwest are West
Virginia and Kentucky. These two
states in 1923 produced 141 million tons,
seven-ninths of the coal of the South
and two-sevenths of the coal of the
whole U. S. A. Flanking it on the
southwest at some distance ate Okla
homa and Texas, which in 1923 produced
nearly half the oil of the U. S. A. More
over, the one great oil field still to be
tapped, that on the Gulf Coast, is nearer
to North Carolina than to the industrial
North. But in addition the Piedmont
has at its doors the power of its moun
tain rivets. Electric power is gener
ated from water power and steam.
North Carolina has 560,000 developed
horse-power out of a possible maximum
of 2,000,000 under conditions of com
plete storage and flood control. 'The
power available 90 percent of the time
(“commercial power”) is put bv the
North Carolina Geological Survey at
678,000; that available 60 percent of the
time 876,000. This latter can be made
commercially usable if the several
sources are combined in a system (as
Bank resources are combined in a cen
tral reserve), if storage dams are built
and auxiliary steam plants are used to
supplement periodic deficiencies. By
comparison with the American West,
where great rivers are sometimes trickles
six months of the year, the stream flow
of the Western Appalachians is remark
ably uniform and easy to control. But
the industrial pace has been so quick
that fuel has gained relatively to water
imports other tobacco for blending.
Subsidiary Industry
(4) North Carolina has within its
boundaries or on jts flanks important
subsidiary industiies. When a country
grows and produces a leading raw ma
terial of industry, the types of sub
sidiary industry which tend to gather
around it are three in number,
(a) Chemical industries supplying the
ingredients of crop production.
(b) Mechanical industries supplying
the machinery of the manufacturing
processes.
(c) By-product industries utilizing the
by-products of the main product or
products.
In North Carolina these are repre
sented by the manufacture of;
(a) Commercial fertilizer.
(b) Textile machinery (in its infancy).
(c) Cotton-seed oil and cake.
The fertilizer industry in the South
had its inception in South Carolina more
than fifty years ago through the dis
covery of rock phosphate. Today two-
thirds of the capital invested in the
industry is in the South. In 1920 the
South produced 7.6 million tons of fer
tilizer and consumed five millions.
Georgia leads in production, North Caro
lina being fourth; but the Carolinas run
level as the leading consumers. Like
banking in Great Britain and Canada, j
the industry has evolved along the line \
of numerous local establishments under j
large-scale control, represented now by j
the “Big Six.” The product sold is the :
mixed fertilizer, combining the three ,
elements essential to plant growth-
phosphoric acid for fruiting and maturity,
nitrogen for vegetation and growth,
potash for vigor. Phosphoric acid, ;
which forms about two-thirds of the j
plant food in commercial fertilizer, is ’
yielded by the rock phosphates of the ,
South; nitrogen by imports from Chile,
and also as a by-product from coke ovens '
and packing plants. Down to the war
Germany held a monopoly of natural
potash, but during the war native
The great bulk of the textile machin
ery is made in the specialized machine-
making centres of New England—
Worcester, Hopedale, Ijowell, Paw
tucket (Rhode Island). Whitinsville (the
headquarters of the Whitin machine
works) and the like; one large firm,
Messrs. Howard & Builough, being
originally an English concern. In the
days when there were no railroads and
technical processes were secret—and it
was at such a time that the leading in*
dustries of Great Britain were localized
—physical distance between machine-
maker and machine-user was a grave
handicap to the latter. Today the
handicap amounts to little more than a
higher freight rate on machine parts.
The machine companies install the ma
chinery and some of them send service
men periodically to the mills. Their
experts can serve North Carolina as
thoroughly as New England;and indeed
must, for it is there that the greater
expansion is occuring. As late as 1919
the characteristic of the Southern tex
tile industry was the multiplicity of
small enterprises, and their numerical
increase was sufficient to keep the size
' of the textile establishments in the
U. S. A. constant for the period 19U9-
1919. But since 1919 tbere has been a
trend towards (a) the financial control
of many mills by a chain of interests;
(b) the grouping of all the stages of
manufacture, spinning, weaving,' and
finishing, in or around a parent estab-
lisdment of great size selling a stand
ard product with a trade name. It is
claimed that in 1924 $60 millions of New
England money found its way to South
ern mills for purchase or new building;
but the one billion of capital invested in
the textile industry of the South is
mainly in the ownership and control of
Southern men. There is, therefore, no
atmosphere of dependence on a distant
machine-producing centre. The South
makes many of its cotton gins, the key
machine of the first cotton process;
Charlotte, N. C., and other Southern
towns have plants engaged in making
cotton cards and a few machine parts.
In the denim mills of Messrs. Cone
(White Oak, Greensboro, N. C.), the
writer was shown a process of continu
ous warp dyeing invented by this con
cern. The machinery bad been put to
gether by the firm’s shop and the fittings
were rough; but with pioneer work
such as this proceeding in Southern
mills the machine-makers have as much
need of the South as the South of
them. Furthermore, North Carolina,
though itself not a producer of coal and
iron, is in the industrial atmosphere
which coal and iron generate. B'or it is
on the main lines of communication be
tween Fennsylvania and Birmingham;
adapted to iignimg ana aoutieiiuiu uac, store tne now oi me scream lor
but is not quite so suitable for larger twelve hours each day, permits the
farm operations which require greater to double the power output for the
power. "^This has been expressed by remaining twelve hours.
engineers as follows: “There is little
advantage in using a gasoline engine to Many Idle Streams
drive a generator which would in turn From these statements about the in-
operate the motor, when the engine adequacy of some streams for isolated
itself could be used to drive the machine, farm plants, it by no means follows
obtaining more power for the same ex- ^j^at there is no future for this kind of
penditure by eliminating losses in line farm power development. The Depart-
and motor.” Nevertheless the i ment of Agriculture estimates a large
vidual fuel plant will probably continue number of such streams now running
idle which could supply' between five
and ten horse-power daring all seasons
to give good service in many farm
homes for purposes of lighting, pump
ing, and small household appliances.
Water Power
The other type of isolated plant, that
of a small water-wheel and generator
located on a convenient stream, requires
access to a stream, of course. But it
requires more than that, and here is
where our hopes of harnessing the many
tiny streams in North Carolina to relieve
the drudgery of farm work and increase
production, are sometimes over-stated.
That requirement is that the quantity
of water flowing, and the number of
of the year.
Further information about power from
small streams may be obtained from
articles in the News Letter of July and
August, 1926 (Vol. XI, Nos. 36 to 69).
A simple method of measuring the flow
of water in a given stream is described
in Farmer’s Bulletin No. 1430 entitled
“Power for the Farm from Small
Streams,” which can be obtained free
by writing to U. S. Department of
Agriculture, Washington, D. C.—A. T.
Cutler.
Alabama, the great and growing iron
and steel centre of the Sooth.
Utilizing By-Products
In the third type of subsidiary indus
try, the utilization of by-products,
North Carolina has an assured position
because it is a great producer of cotton
as well as a great consumer of it. Since
these by-products per volume have a
lower value than the main product, it
is generally more economical to process
them near to the point at which they
emerge. On this fact rests the strength
of the cotton-seed oil and cake industry
of the South. The cotton seed crashed
in the South grew from a trifle in 1876
to nearly five million tons in 1914; dur
ing this period the value of cotton by
products and the method of securing
them were learned. From 1914 to 1923
the cotton crop declined from 16 to 10
million bales under ravages of the boll-
weevil; and the seed crushed declined
correspondingly to some three million
tons. Ginned cotton yields linter cotton
by a second ginning in the proportion
of 80 pounds of lint to one ton of seed.
The seed itself yields oil, meal and hulls.
The oil is used in the manufacture of
oleomargarine, soaps and perfumery.
The meal and hulls, separately or in
combination, ate used as cattle feed.
They might be used as a fertilizer on
near-by farms, but their recent price
has been too high to allow much to be
consumed in this way. Memphis, Ten
nessee, is the headquarters of the trade,
but the plants are widely distributed;
and there is no Hull or Marseilles in the
American .South. “The oil mill has
been taken to the cotton fields rather
than the seed to some oil producing
centre it has allowed the most
economical processes of assembling seed
o .... ^ /iioFriKnfincr IDianl
1924-26 the Elba mill, Charlotte, N. C.,
expected to run from October to April,
working continuously with two twelve-
hour shifts. When the plant shuts
down the workers, who are colored
people, will find summer employment,
as the tobacco stemmers do, in cotton
picking, road work, hotel service, etc.
—To be concluded next week.
from the farmers and distributing meal
and hulls to the farmers in turn. In
many places it is a custom for the
farmer to haul in his seed to the cotton
oil mill and take meal in exchange.”
(The South’s Development, p. 206.)
Under these conditions the manufacture
is seasonal. Thus in the winter of
FARM HOMES OF GRANVILLE
For years we have heard about the
drudgery and dreariness of domestic
life in the rural communities of the
county. For centuries the good house
wife was condemned to human slavery
in doing her part to make the old farm
earn a living. But today the burdens
of the women who live on them have
been lightened.
A partial survey shows that almost
every farm house boasts of a sewing
machine and oil stove. The auto was
outnumbered only by the sewing ma
chine. Out of a total of 100 homes can
vassed the following conveniences were
found: Automobiles 43; sewing ma
chines 62; oil stoves 30; washing ma
chines 38; piano' or organ 40; phono
graph 30; telephone 26; carpet sweeper
18; bath 12; fire less cooker 10.
Residents of Granville who study over
that list for a few minutes will see how
drudgery is disappearing from the farm
home and how labor saving devices and
modern conveniences are slowly but
surely coming to relieve the woman of
the rural district of back-breaking toil.
Farm lighting systems and power
from gasoline engines or dynamos are
to be found now in many places in
Granville county outside of the incor
porated towns. And these are the
things that are freeing the farm wife
from the slavery that has already ex
isted entirely too long.—Oxford Public
Ledger, Sept. 29, 1926.