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.
JANUARY 20. 1926
CHAPEL HILL, N C.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. XII, NO. 10
Editorial Uoardt E. C. Branson, S. H. Hobbs, Jr., L. R. Wilson, E. W. Knight, D. D. Carroll, J. B. Bullitt, H. W. Odum.
Entered as second-class matter November 14. 1914. at the Postoffice at Chapel Hill, N. C., under the act ef August 24. 1912
FARM INCREASES AND DECREASES
HEALTHY FARM INCREASES
The table which appears elsewhere
ranks the counties of North Carolina
according to gains and losses i^number
of farms during the five-year period from
January 1920 to January 1926. The
parallel column shows the number of
farms in each county in 1925.
Hoke with an increase of 43.5 per
cent in the number of farms ranks first
in the state, while Craven with a loss of
18.1 percent comes last.
Johnston county with 7,616 farms
ranks first in number, while Dare with
only 79 farms has fewer than any other
county in the state.
Seventy-eight counties had more farms
in 1926 than they had in 1920, which is
an excellent showing in view of the
fact that the United States suffered a
net loss of farms during this same
period. Only 22 counties in North Caro
lina show decreases in farms, in none of
which was the loss a very large one.
MaKes Splendid Showing
Volume XII, number 2, of the News
Letter carried a study on farm gains
and losses by states, 1920-26, in which
it was shown that North Carolina was
surpassed by only two states in the
number of new farms brought under
cultivation during this period, and that
in 1925 only one state in the Union,
Texas, had more farms under cultiva
tion. North Carolina’s total was 233,-
495, which is 23,000 more farms than
our nearest rival possesses, aside from
Texas.
if growth in number of farms is any
indication, the agricultural situation in
North Carolina is far better than in any
of our neighboring states. The increase
in farms in Virginia was only about half
the increase in North Carolina. The
other states bordering on North Caro
lina suffered losses in farms. In South
Carolina all the counties except five
have fewer farms than they had in 1920,
the net decreases for the state being
19,927. Georgia suffered the heaviest
loss of any state, with 60 thousand
fewer farms in 1926 than in 1920. Ten
nessee also suffered a slight decrease in
farms. In percent of counties showing
increases in farms North Carolina ranks
near the top among the states of the
Union, which means that the entire
state is sharing whatever prosperity
exists on the farms of the state.
Interesting Changes
The study brings out some rather
interesting facts with regard to changed
conditions that have taken place since
1920. During the decade from 1910 to
1920 the counties showing the largest
increases in the number of farms were
the twenty or so combination cotton
and tobacco counties centering around
Wilson, Wayne, and Johnston, resulttog
from high prices for cotton and tobacco
during the War period. During the
last five years this same group of coun
ties made the poorest showing in farm
increases of any large area in the state.
The western half of the state, whose
counties with few exceptioi\s lost
farms between 1910 and 1920, shows up
slightly better than the eastern half in
farm increases for the period since 1920.
Mountain Counties
Perhaps the most outstanding fact is
the change for the better in the moun
tain counties. From 1910 to 1920 all of
the mountain counties except three lost
farms. During the last five years all
of the mountain counties except three
have increased their- farms, many of
them ranking well up in the percent in
crease column.
During the decade preceding 1920
there were 38 counties in the state los
ing farms, against only 22 counties los
ing during the last five years. Of the 38
counties which lost farms during the
census decade, only six continued to de
crease following 1920. Sixteen counties
which increased during the census de
cade show losses during the last five
years. For the most part these are
counties in which cotton or tobacco or
both are important crops.
The Boll Weevil Counties
It is rather interesting to note that
the counties which' have suffered most
from boll weevil ravages—Columbus,
Bladen,' Robeson, Scotland, Richmond,
and Hoke—make the best showing in
farm increases of any solid group of
counties in the state. Trucking and
diversified farming haVe made much
headway in this area.
Aside from this group, the north
eastern Tidewater region, the west cen
tral Piedmont counties, and the moun
tain region in general lead in new farms
during the last five years. None of
these groups ranked high in farm in
creases during the decade preceding
1920,
A Main Explanation
The nation over, the .farm population
is static or decreasing. The wholesome
increase in farms in North Carolina
since 1920, a period during which agri
culture has not been very profitable, is
to be attributed, we believe, more to
the state-wide system of public high
ways and improved county roads than
to any other factor. This is especially
true in the remote regions of the state
—the Tidewater counties and the moun
tain country. Improved roads and the
motor car have done wonders in reduc
ing the loneliness and monotony of
country life, in enabling the farmer to
get his produce to market, in short
ening distances, in making possible the
improvement of rural schools through
consolidation, and in many other ways.
The country regions of North Carolina,
with our splendid highways and easy
communication, are far more attractive
residence and business areas than they
were before the day of highways. The
fact that every section of the state
shows growth in farms is Recounted for
largely because every county in the state
is sharing in the highway construction
program.
To quote briefly from the Manufac
turers Record, “Wherever good high
ways are constructed, prosperity and
progress follow as surely as day follows
night. Wherever intolerably bad roads
exist, whether consisting of bottomless
mud holes or equally bottomless sand
piles, there stagnation takes place, along
with gradual deterioration of the moral
and educational condition of the people,
and there poverty exists in direct con
trast with the prosperity to be found
where modern highways are built.’’—
S. H. H., Jr.
COOPERATION
The most distinct and significant
movement in American agriculture
in this decade is the almost universal
trend toward cooperation in the mar
keting and distribution of farm prod
ucts. It is in no sense a regional or
sectional movement, for it exists in
all sections and is participated in to
some extent by producers of practi
cally all kinds of farm products.
Tliere has been some cooperation
by farmers in the United States for
many years, but within the last two
decades, and particularly during the
last decade, the movement has as
sumed proportions which indicate that
it is a response to a fundamental and
universal need of present-day Ameri
can agriculture. It is highly signifi
cant from all points of view that the
best minds in agriculture, without
regard to region or commodity, are
unanimous in the opinion that group
action in marketing must be added to
individual efficiency in production if
the high standards of American farm
life are to De preserved and agricul
ture is to maintain its proper place
in our national life.—W. M. Jardine,
Secretary of Agriculture.
TOWN-COUNTY GOVERNMENT
At a recent meeting of the North
Carolina Club Mr. J. J. Rhyne, a grad
uate student and member of the Insti
tute for Research in Social Science,
presented a paper on Town and Country
side under One Local Government. The
following is a brief of Mr. Rhyne’s
paper:
Owing to the increased number of con
tacts made possible by improved high
ways, the automobile, consolidation of
schools in rural areas and the inclusion
of rural areas in city school districts as
well as a number of minor factors, town
and country people are being brought to
a position where each better under
stands the other. On the other hand,
trade relations are and have been a;
main factor in creating mutual distrust j
on part of both town and country popu-1
lations and a refusal to cooperate. |
The farmer is awakening to a need of j
civic improvement and is setting about [
to find a remedy. As a consequence
interest in the incorporation of rural
areas has grown apace and a number of
states or sections of different states
have passed laws enkljling rural areas
to incorporate. North Carolina and
Wisconsin are examples of states mak
ing such provisions. North Carolina in
1917 passed a rural municipal incorpora
tion law, while Wisconsin has made pro
vision whereby farmers may tax them
selves for the construction of com
munity houses. Sections of New Jersey
and California have also taken the lead
in the new movement.
Due to better relations developing
between town and country areas, inter
est in the incorporation of rural areas
by towns is now being carefully con
sidered. This interest is tending to
center in a plan whereby town and
countryside may be incorporated under
one local government, each being pro
vided with the facilities appropriate to
its needs. Something of the form of
the proposed plan may be had from the
New England Town which actually in
cludes the country areas as well. The
state of Utah also has a system of
government for town and country some
what similar to the plan proposed, but
aside from these two instances the plan
is a novel one and would differ in some
of its essential features from either of
the two mentioned instances.
By the proposed arrangement the
area to be incorporated would be divided
into three zones. Zone No. 1 would
comprise the bulk of the original town
or city. Zone No. 2 would roughly cor
respond to the suburban area, while
zone No. 3 would be the area from the
bounds of zone No. 2 out to the final
incorporate limits and would include the
country area generally.
As indicated already each zone would
be provided with facilities appropriate
for its needs and taxed accordingly. In
general the municipal government would
be extended to cover the entire area,
thus affording police protection for rural
districts. The school district should also
be extended to include the entire area.
A unified system of highways could be
instituted while water, lights, and fire
protection would in general tend to co
incide with the built-up portion of the
town. Each of these facilities in turn
would be extended as desired and the
costs involved for their installation
could be met without undue financial
burden on the families involved.
It is believed that the plan suggested
would produce the desired results wher
ever there is manifested the proper in
terest. Only the bare outline of the
plan has been given but it should be
understood at the start that no one plan
could be made to fit all localities, but
would have to be fashioned to suit the
needs and peculiarities of each territory.
Still the essential features of the plan
need not be changed in any area.
Finally, due to the increasing com
plexity of modern life and inter-depen
dency of town and country the time has
arrived when our municipal areas should
be extended so as to include the rural
areas and thus forge another link in
the chain of progress toward making
the country a more desirable place in
which to live.
Students interested in the practical
details of town and country consolida
tion might study town and country
government in Denver county, Colorado,
and the plans submitted to the voters
in Alameda county, California, Balti
more county, Maryland, and Butte and
Silver Bow county, Montana.
The plan applies in North Carolina to
Durham city and county, Wilmington
and New Hanover, and perhaps to one
or two other counties where town and
country interests are nearly identical.
Pamphlets on all th'ese plans are in
the files of the Department of Rural
Social-Economics at the University of
North Carolina, and may be had for use
in brief-time loans.
SCHOOLS FOR ADULTS
Adult education is a term which has
taken on a peculiar meaning in Den
mark, a meaning which is without exact
parallel elsewhere. . . . The “adult”
in Denmark, as the word is used in edu
cational matters, is the young person
between the ages of 18 and 26; and,
therefore, “adult education” is an edu
cation specially organized to effect cer
tain ends in the lives of these young
people.
The most thorough development of
this Danish “adult education” has taken
place in the country districts, all over
the kingdom. It is centered in certain
distinctive schools, which have a peculiar
character—the so-called “high schools. ”
These schools, about 60 in number, are
to be found in the rural regions. They
have had a history of nearly a century,
now, though most of them have been
founded since 1864; and they have won
a secure place in the Danish rural
civilization.
According to some writers, they have
been responsible for the distinctive
forms which Danish rural life has de
veloped: its cooperative economic or
ganizations, its communal social life
and all the other specific functions that
have made Danish rural life the admira
tion of all observers. According to
other writers, they have been merely
one of the effects of this distinctive
Danish civilization. But questions of
the priority of cause and effect are
likely to become academic. The most
intelligent Danes believe that these
schools are both cause and result.
In the troubled times of the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth cen
turies the Danes felt all the evils that
can come to a small nation not able to
defend itself. And it is certain that in
the first half of the nineteenth century
Danish life, especially Danish rural life,
had sunk to a rather low level—a sort
of sordid pessimism.
From 1866 on, these high schools were
opened over the whole land. In most
cases, each school was the expression
of an outstanding leader in the com
munity. Each school, therefore, had,
and has, its, own distinctive qualities,
though all stand together for the main
tenance of a genuine spiritual life in
Denmark’s rural and village areas.
Small and Homelihe
These schools are all small and home
like in their organization and conduct.
They take no more than 150 students at
any one time. They have no more than
three or four teachers. They use few
books in classrooms, though there are
many books in their libraries. The
students come from all parts of Den
mark. They stay no more than five
months. In that time, they come into
contact with a number of real men and
women; they attend lectures three or
four times a day; they take part in
endless discussions among themselves
and with their teachers; they live to
gether, eat together, sing together,
and study civilization, Danish and world
wide civilization, together; and at the
end of the term they go home—without
an examination but with a new inner
life, with a new sense of the signifi
cance of life, with an interest in the
world’s problems and with some great
leading ideas, by means of which they
hope to be able to find their ways
through the crowded corridors of the
w^rld. They take some books home
with them—some real books. They ex
pect to spend their lives intelligently.
They will take part in cooperative or
ganizations of their communities; they
will help to defend their rural civiliza
tion against the disintegrating factors
of the world in cities and of competitive
ambitions.
Something has happened in Denmark
that has not happened elsewhere in the
world—except, mayhap, in another land
still less well known, namely, Finland.
It is not true that Denmark has no
problems. It is not true that Denmark
is an idealistic world of the latest '
political follies. It is true that the
rural civilization of Denmark is one of
the moat prosperous rural civilizations
in the world, today. And, in so far as
that is true, the result can be, at least
in great part, credited to the work of
these “adult schools” which take young
people in their most hopeful years, help
them to see the world’s life and the life
of Denmark in large perspective, and so
enable them to choose, wisely and well,
their place in the life and work of their
own nation and of the world. That
seems to be a pretty good sort of an
“adult education.’’—Christian Science
Monitor.
PERCENT INCREASES AND DECREASES IN FARMS
In North Carolina by Counties, 1920-1925
The following table, based on the U. S. Census of Agriculture, ranks the
counties of the state according to percent increases and decreases in the number
of farms from 1920 to 1926. The accompanying column shows the number of
farms in each county in 1926.
Hoke county ranks first with a gain in number of farms of 43,6 percent over
the year 1920. Craven county ranks last with 18.1 percent fewer farms than
she had five years ago.
During the five-year period 78 counties increased in the number of farms,
while 22 counties suffered losses.
The state increase in number of farms was 13,729, or 6.1 percent, and only
two states showed a larger numerical gain. With 283,496 farms North Carolina
now ranks next to Texas in total number.
S, H. Hobbs, Jr.
Department of Rural Social-Economics University of North Carolina
No. Farms
Rank Counties 1926
Hoke 2,127....
Nash 6,007....
Richmond....2,384....
Transylvania 1,023....
Scotland ... .2,210....
Chowan 1,261....
Cherokee .. 2,227.-...
Alamance .... 3,161....
Jackson 2,162....
Cleveland.... 4,670
Granville .. 4,066....
Beaufort . 3,711....
Washington..1,273....
New Hanover 368....
Forsyth .... 3,239 ...
Burke 2,474....
Pasquotank.. 1,630....
Bladen .. . 2,749....
Surry 4,663....
Avery 1,472....
Vance. 2,263....
Cabarrus... 2,672....
Caldwell 2,170....
Yadkin 2,910....
Martin 2,763...
Montgomery 1,817....
Columbus ....3,924....
Randolph.... 4,241....
Carteret..... 934...
Hyde 1,248...
Lee 1,693 ...
Lincoln..... 2,343 ...
Northampton 3,793....
Swain 1,370.,..
Robeson 7,048....
Camden 938,...
Pender .... 2,020....
Johnston ... 7,515....
Davidson... 4,022....
Gaston 2,493....
Yancey 2,367....
Clay 859 ...
McDowell ...1,626 ...
Hertford 2,213....
Lenoir 3,353....
Catawba ... 3,086....
Davie 1,869.,..
Watauga... £, 133....
Mitchell 1,622....
Ashe 3,576....
Percent
Increase
1920-26
...43.5
...37.0
...32.6
...28.0
.. 20.8
...18.1
...17.1
...16.8
...16.7
...16.3 *
...16.0
...14.9
...14.7
...13.9
...13.7
...12.8
...12.6
.. 12.3
...12.2
...11.9
...11.1
.. 10.1
...10.0
.. 10.0
... 9.9
... 9.7
... 9.6
... 9.6
... 8.9
... 8.7
... 8.7
... 8.7
... 8,4
... 8.4
... 7.4
... 7.2
... 7.1
... 7.0
... 6.7
... 6.6
... 6.6
... 6.3
...6.3
... 6.2
... 6.0
... 6.8
... 6.7
6.6
... 6.1
... 5.0
Rank
50
62
62
62
66
66 •
67
57
69
60
60 ■
62
63
63
66
65
67
68
69 ,
69
71
72
73
74
75
76
76
78
79
80
81
82.
83 -
84
86
85
87
89
91
92
93
94
96
96
97
98
99
100
No. Farms Percent
Counties 1925 Increase
1920-26
Tyrrell 676 6.0
Haywood 2,176 4.9
Pitt 6.228 4.9
Rockingham 3,846 4.9
Wilkes 6,208 4.8
Madison... .3,072 4.7
Halifax 4,868 4.0
Wilson 4,616 4.0
Union 4,991 3.5
Bertie 3,444 3.1
Greene 2,825 3.1
Stokes 3,473 3.0
Edgecombe..3,963 2.9
Wake . . ..6,604 2.9
Buncombe.. .3,798 2.6
Dare ... 79 2.6
Alleghany. ..1,438 2.5
Rowan 3,567 2.4
Perquimans..1,496 2.3
Sampson... 5,906 2.3
Polk 1,225 2.1
Cumberland..3,161 1.6
Franklin ...4,290 1.5
Guilford.... 4,021 l.l
Person 2,804 0.6
Iredell 4,135 0.6
Warren 3,180 0.5
Gates 1,584 0.0
Decreases
Onslow 2,165 0.6
Wayne 4,996 0.7
Henderson...1,967 0.8
Stanly ... . 2,485 1.3
Moore 2,135 1.9
Macon 1,865 3.1
Alexander ...1,860 3.2
Rutherford ..3,510 3.2
Anson 3,567 3.7
Durham. ...1,700 3.9
Brunswick ...1,368 4.1
Duplin .... 4,495 4.1
Orange 2,082 4.6
Harnett 3,219 4.7.
Chatham ... .3.639 5.4
Mecklenburg 4,013 7.6
Jones 1,408. ........ 8.6
Pamlico.... 1,191 9.5
Caswell 2,274 H.l
Currituck ..,. 873 11.4
Graham 642 13.9
Craven 2,124 18.1