Tuesday, April 7, 1903.
THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER
STATE NEWS
FROM CURRITUCK TO CHEROKEE.
Items of Interest Gleaned From Our Cor
respondents and Exchanges.
Charlotte dispatch: Dr. John W.
Sta?ir, pastor of the Second Presby
terian Church, and one of the best
known divines in the South, has ac
cepted a call to First Church of Bir
mingham, Ala. He expects to leave
Charlotte the middle of April.
Davie Times: We learn that the
Commissioners of Yadkin County
will refuse to grant license for dis
tilleries at Shore and Williams. They
claim that these two places were in
corporated because the proprietors
were Democrats and the Commis
sioners, being Eepublicans, will take
this step.
Gastonia Gazette: Reader is there
among your acquaintances or any
where within your knowledge, a 16-vear-ohl
lov in Gaston County who
cannot read and write? If so, speak
an urgent word to him about seeking
an education. ITe will be 21 years
old in 1903 and cannot vote unless
he can read and write.
Lumberton dispatch: Druggists
in this town have been forbidden by
the town authorities to offer Peruna
for sale. This action has been
taken because of the testimony of
s.mo nartics who stated that they
had b'n n intoxicated by this medi
ieine. Every effort is being made to
uproot drunkenness here.
Landmark: The State law makes
it a misdemeanor to sell liquor to
minors and as barkeepers have no
way of telling the ages of their cus
tomers they have to take chances.
At the request of the bar men
Green-bnro aldermen have passed an
ordinance making it an offence for
any one under 21 to buy liquor in
Greensboro, and hereafter the minor
who buys liquor in that town will be
a guilty as the seller, and this is
right.
Col. Olds: State Chemist Kilgore
to-day had a letter from the chair
man of the Texas cotton boll weevil
committee saying that about 20 car
k'ads of North Carolina cotton seed,
all can fully selected, had been
Wght by Texas growers. Prof. Kil
Foro was the means of selling these
pcxl and said the sellers got 75 cents
a bnshol for them, instead of 30c.
fit will be remembered that Dr. Kil
Po published his letter about the
Sf' in Tho Progressive Farmer.
Cold Olds: Many inquiries are
naturally being made as to what
probably be the increase in the
lue of property in the State as
aM'M this year. Nobody knows,
ut official said to-day that it
iihtp woiua De an m-
S?noorfr $220,000 Teal 6Stat9
v Wifi, when the last assessment
a made rc
, ut course no one can
-ar( a puoss as to what will be the
m the value of railroad
'tally th
v etc., as for the first time
intangible value, that is
thp f -"-""ciiLut; vaiue, t
nchisc, will be assessed.
A Wilmington dispatch, 31st ult.,
says : "Dr. J. F. Harrell, one of the
oldest practicing physicians in this
section of the State, died suddenly
this afternoon at his home in White
ville. He was a native of Robeson
County, and was about seventy years
of age. He served during the Civil
War as surgeon of a North Carolina
regiment. He leaves a wife, one
daughter and a number of grand
children." The Progressive Farmer
regrets to hear of the de.ath of Dr.
Harrell. He was a good friend of
this paper and one of the best Al
liancemen in his county.
The statement has been recently
made that investigation discloses the
fact that 25 per cent of the food
stuffs offered on the markets in
North Carolina is adulterated. There
is no reason to doubt it. The adul
teration of this class of goods in the
United States is something fearful.
There is a large milling establish
ment in this State which has a con
tract to furnish corn cobs by the car
load to a concern which puts a food
stuff on the market. Ground corn
cobs will not hurt anybody, but many
of these adulterants are really hurt
ful, especially those that enter into
flour, and the corn cob story affords
some sort of indication of how far
this thing goes. Charlotte Observer.
News and Observer: In speaking
yesterday concerning the correspond
ence between Chairman McNeill, of
the Corporation Commission, and
Dr. Graham, of Charlotte, in regard
to the equalization of taxes, and the
distribution of pension money, State
Auditor Dixon said, speaking of the
work of the pension board: "We are
trying to correct the evil existing as
regards pensions by changing the
complexion of the County Pension
Boards. Heretofore these have been
composed of the sheriff, clerk of
court and Board of County Commis
sioners, but under the new law the
Board will be composed of three ex
Confederate soldiers, who can be re
lied upon to purge the roll in order
that where there are now persons on
these without cause the evil may be
corrected."
Charlotte Observer: There is much
interest in the causes of in
sanity. From the tabular statement
in the Morganton State Hospital re
port covering admissions for two
years ended November 30, 1902, it is
seen that the cause most frequently
assigned by the commitment papers
is ill health 33 cases; next in order,
religious excitement 17; then do
mestic affliction 12; domestic trou
ble and over-work 6 each ; intemper
ance and la grippe 5 each ; financial
troubles, hard study, heredity, jeal
ousy, trouble and typhoid fever 1
each; and on down. Of the occupa
tions of those admitted during the
two-year period it is learned that of
the total of 248, 58 were farmers, 40
farmers' wives, 16 farmers' daugh
ters and 6 farmers' sons.. (This ag
gregate, though nearly 50 per cent
of the total, is not a disproportion,
seeing that about 82 per cent of our
population is agricultural.) Eigh
teen were laborers, 16 had no occupa
tion, 12 were housekeepers, 8 were
carpenters and 8 factorv operatives,
6 merchants, 3 clerks, 3 doctors and
3 seamstresses, and so on down. One
hundred and twenty-five are mar
ried, 105 single and 18 widowed.
An Unusual March.
Unusual spells of weather are very
common, but as a matter of fact
there has been practically no March
weather as we know it in this climate
during this month of March. There
has so far been no March wind and
the weather was unusually warm.
Vegetation has advanced very rapid
ly and there has been so much rain
that a cold snap and people who
"borrow trouble" are anticipating
one might do considerable damage.
The past few days have been cooler
and there have been light frosts, but
not enough to do any damage.
Easter comes on the 12th of April
and until after that date a freeze
is not improbable. An old citizen of
Charlotte who has kept a weather
record for 39 years, tells the Observ
er there was but one year in all that
period that a cool spell and frost
did not come on or about the 25th
of March, and the record held good
this year.'
The wheat crop is unusually for
ward and wheat has begun to joint.
The prospect is good for a very fine
crop, but a freeze might do con
siderable damage. It is just as well,
however, to wait until the freeze
comes and then find how bad we are
hurt. A very disagreeable anticipa
tion is the prospect of a windy sum
mer. There is a theory that if there
is no wind in March the March winds
will blow in the months following,
and it doesn't make one feel good to
think of high winds and dust in May
and June. Statesville Landmark.
The Nash and Davidson Monuments.
The New York Sun congratulates
"the Hon. Joseph M. Morehead, of
Greensboro, N. C, president of the
Guilford Battle Ground Association,
and the people of the Old North
State generally on the recent selec
tion of Guilford Battle Ground as
the site of the monuments of the
Revolutionary Generals Nash and
Davidson, for each of which Con
gress last July voted an appropria
tion." People of several localities
urged their claims with vigor, says
the Sun, "but Guilford Battle
Ground was too obviously the appro
priate place." Regarding the loca
tion decided upon by the Governor,
the paper quoted continues:
"Guilford is the only battle-field of
the Revolution which is preserved in
its entirety as an historical docu
ment to be handed down to posterity.
It was purchased by private contri
butions of patriotic North Caroli
nians. The alignments of the Amer
can forces under General Greene and
of the British and German forces
under Lord Cornwallis at all stages
of the engagement are accurately
and permanently marked. There are
an excellent museum of Revolution
ary relics and a fine auditorium,
where Fourth of July celebrations
are held. Over the entire field there
are placed monuments in granite and
marble to those who died in this par
ticular engagement, as well as to
North Carolina patriots who, like
Nash and Davidson, gave their lives
on other fields in the cause of Amer
ican independence. Guilford Battle
Ground, as kept and marked by the
gentlemen of the association of
which Colonel Morehead is president,
is in itself the monument to North
Carolina in the Revolution a monu
ment such as no ether State in the
zone of that mighty struggle can
boast. -
"It is 126 years since the Conti
nental Congress voted, a monument
to General Nash for his bravery on
the battlefield of Germantown, where
he lost his life, and it is 122 years
since it voted that General Davidson
be similarly honored for gallantry at
Cowan's Ford, where he, too, was
killed. The Continental Congress
appropriated $500 for each of these
monuments. The Fifty-seventh Con
gress appropriated $5,000 for each
of them. But in 1777 and in 1781 the
United States was poorer by a few
dozen billions of dollars than it is
now. And as for the delay of a little
matter of a century and a quarter
or thereabouts, that should not be
charged up against the Republic as
ingratitude. Absence of headlong
impetuosity is the way to express it.
"But the monuments are a cer
tainty at last, and now let Colonel
Morehead at their unveiling get up
such a resonant, rousing, reverberat
ing Fourth of July celebration as
even Guilford Battle Ground long
noted for enthusiasm and oratory on
that glorious day never has seen
equaled."
The Importance of the Trucking
Industry.
Truck farming has become a very
important and profitable industry
in some sections of this State. The
cultivation of early vegetables and
fruits in many of our Eastern coun
ties has become an extensive, and at
some seasons, a very projitable busi
ness. For instance, the Fayetteville Ob
server stated last week that one hun
dred thousand dollars worth of let
tuce would be shipped from that
town within the next month. This
large amount of money will be real
ized from an entirely new industry,
which was not dreamed of a few years
ago. And it is paid for lettuce raised
raised in small patches in and around
Fayetteville, and is just that much
extra money made by the persons who
raise and ship this lettuce to the
Northern cities. ,
The cultivation and sale of straw
berries has grown to immense pro
portions, especially along the Atlan
tic CoastrLine from Goldsboro via
Wilmington to the South Carolina
line. During" the strawberry season
many long trains are -loaded with
strawberries every day in that sec
tion, and the fields aje teeming with
men, women and children all busily
picking strawberries. A good price
is paid for these pickers, some mak
ing as much as two dollars a day, and
everybody can find employment. The,
strawberry season will open this year
by the middle of April and continue
until the first of June. Chatham
Record.