VOLUME
THE
PILOT
NUMBER
17
Is a Paper Deyoted to the Upbuilding of the Sandhill Territory of North Carolina
Address all communications to
xhk pilot printing company. VASS, N. C.
FRIDAY, MARCH 14,1924
SUBSCRIPTION $2.00
nmBORO NAKES
CAITLE AND HOGS
Bir Orchard Develops Side Line
That is as Profitable as
Peaches
When the big Marlboro orchard was
established a mile or so below Aber
deen the management planned to
make the model orchard of North
Carolina. Three hundred acres of
peaches were set to which later more
have been added and the orchard has
been oarried along in such excellent
manner that doubtless it Is the finest
single block of fruit trees in the
State. It is not likely the trees will
be allowed to bear this year but all
signs point to a crop on forty thou
sand trees next year, a record with
out a parallel in North Carolina. The
excellent condition of the farm when
the trees were planted and the cul
tivation given them since they were
set has brought them along to the
highest stage of perfection.
But while Marlboro has been figur
ing on making a model orchard it has
accidentally developed into considera
ble producer of live stock. On the
farm is a big barn, two silos and large
feeding sheds. Two years ago cow
peas were sowed between the rows of
young peach trees to be plowed down
for fertilizer. The ground was so fer
tile that the peas made a growth too
large to plow under and a crop of hay
had to be cut to get the vines off the
ground. An aftermath of vines came
up and that was plowed under. The
result was the company had over a
hundred tons of hay all stacked up
and no where to go. About sixty
acres of cotton had been planted
among the trees and that gave a lot of
seed and it was decided to feed the
hay and cotton seed products to some
cattle. Nelson Courtway, the super
intendent of the orchard went up into
the mountains where they raise good
cattle a year ago last fall and bought
two car loads of feeders and put them
in the feed lot at Marlboro and then
the hay and cotton seed products had
somewhere to go. The cattle were
sold in the spring at a profit. A vast
amount of manure was returned to
the orchards and last summer another
crop of cowpea hay was made and
another sixty acres of cotton. The
grow'ing fertility of the farm made
another big crop of hay and feed stuff
and then the manager decided to buy
two or three car loads of the finest
young beef steers to be found any
where in the United States. After in
vestigation they made a contract with
a firm of breeders in western Texas to
supply a hundred head of pure bred
Herefords. It is doubtful if the equal
of that shipment has ever come to
North Carolina. The cattle have win
tered in fine shape on the abundance
of feed at their disposal, and Harry
Lewis has been supplying Southern
P’-nes and Pinehurst with a grade of
beef that takes off its hat to nothing.
The orchard company is realizing a
creditable profit on its venture an
enormous pile of manure for its
spring fertilizer and along with that
bas learned the virtue of cattle feed
ing in connection with a big orchard.
But it has gone still another step
forward. When the first experiment
for feeding cattle was started, know
ing that a lot of feed shattered off in
the feed lots, a number of hogs were
turned in with the cattle and the de
velopment of the hogs was equal to
that of the cattle. When the Texas
Herefords were brought up another
bunch of hogs was turned in with
them. And this winter the Pinehurst
sausage factory has been putting up
such a call for good hogs that the
Marlboro Orchard Company hbs de
cided to carry about sixteen or twen
ty sows and make a business on a side
line of raising a large bunch of hogs
for the Pinehurst market. Both the
hog and the cattle feeding have prov
en profitable and given to the orchards
an amazing fertility that is crowding
the growth of trees and will show its
influence in the crop when the trees
begin to bear. It seems that Marl
boro is not only a model orchard,but
a highly successful one even before
it has a peach on the tree.
RACING NEWS OF PINEMURST
PROGRAM
For the week of the
CAROLINA THEATRES,
inehurst and Southern Pines
tcebound” — Pineht#st, Friday,
March 14th. Matinee Saturday,
3 p. m.
So. Pines, Saturday, March 15.
' Fighting Coward”—Pine-
jjui*st, Monday, March 17th.
Matinee Tuesday, 3 p. m.
( Pines, Tuesday, March
loth.
Marriage Circle”—Pinehurst,
Wednesday, March 19th. Mati-
nee Thursday.
K-outhern Pines March 20th.
Last week two Season Records were
lowered. Uncle Sand just clipped a
fifth of a second off the Seven Furlong
record and negotiated the distance in
1.30 4-5. Roundsman was second and
Frank Boyd, holder of the previous
record, third. J. T. Pendergrass won
the half-mile race and lowered the sea
son record half a second.
The Harness Races were well filled
and every race was a contest right up
to the finish line. Lady Glover mark
ed up the best time of the day, 2.14^.
The Specialties were spirited and
resulted in as much amusement to the
riders as the audience.
Jesse James may have been all they
claim he was, but we never heard of
him charging $17 for a ton of coal.
EDGENOORE NAKES
IMPORTANT SALES
Blue Farm Sold in Small Tracts
to Several Buyers for Home
Sitei^
Last week Frank Buchan made
another important bunch of sales in
the Edgemoore property east of
Southern Pines. This was on the
tract belonging to Walter and Carey
Blue and contained forty acres. The
piece was cut into four lots of ten
acres each. These were bought by
George Van Camp, H. E. Thrower,
Mrs. Lillian J. Halliwell and Mrs.
Elida Goddorn, of New York. It is
believed that this division of the prop
erty and its purchase in small pieces
will result in two or three buildings
before very long. The total amount
realized from the sales was about
six thousand dollars.
The Halliwell family has been buy
ing considerable land in that neigh
borhood and regarded another ten
acres as attractive enough to add to
their holdings. Mr. Thrower, the
Southern Pines druggist, said that he
went out to the sale as a matter of
curiosity but when he saw the char
acter of the ground, its location and
convenience to the village he conclud
ed that he couldn’t lose anything by
putting a little money in one of the
ten acre lots. He has not made posi
tive plans as to what he will do but
looks favorable on building there ul
timately and particularly if others
should build.
Cutting this tract into lots changes
it from farm land to suberban home
sites, and means that farm holdings
have been moved much farther out of
the village. Owners of other proper
ty in the vicinity regard this as plac
ing their investments on a positive
footing for it confirms values and
goes far to remove any uncertainty
as to the basis on which prices out
that way should be figured.
James Swett has also sold on the
highway between Southern Pines and
Manley a number of his well located
lots, disposing of about six thousand
dollars’ worth.
The real estate men say that the
season is showing a fairly active de
mand for investment buying and home
sites and attracting considerable pro
portion of buyers from the North who
are impressed with the prospects in
the Sandhills.
COOK PLACE IS SOLD
BY turn BUCHAN
Fine Midland Orchard Goes to
Robert G. Shaw, Who Hails
from Boston.
Frank Buchan negotiated a fine sale
last week, with the help of Richard
Tufts, which disposed of the Will Cook
orchard between Pinehurst and Knoll
wood Village to Robert G. Shaw, of
Boston. This is one of the valuable
young properties in the Pinehurst vi
cinity. It includes 50 acres, a model
modern bungalow, and it is understood
that it brought close to $20,000. Will
Cook has been one of the prominent
successful orchard men for years, for
a long time having the management
of the big Van Lindley orchard. When
it was sold and cut up he planted an
orchard for himself in the immediate
neighborhood and everybody who
drives that way knows that Mr. Shaw
has bought a highly desirable prop
erty.
One of the significances of this
transaction is that it leaves Will Cook
free to turn loose on another piece of
ground, and brings into the Midland
road region another enthusiastic
peach man and new settler, and em
phasizes the values of the kind of
property that is opening along this
new avenue. By the time Mr. Shaw
has operated his orchard a few years
the encroachment of Pinehurst from
the one side and Knollwood from the
other will bring his holding up to
home site prices and he will be cutting
it into small tracts for building and
making money in that way. The Mid
land road is orchard locations for a
while, but ultimately the expectation
is that it will be a solid succession
of homes from Pinehurst to Southern
Pines.
Frank Buchan is quietly selling a
great deal of land in big and little
tracts. In . the last five or six years
he has handled close to a million dol
lars' worth of Sandhill property, and
he has been a ready buyer as well as
a ready and capable seller. Some of
the biggest trnsactions ever recorded
have been through his efforts, and he
was one of the first men to see the
direction of prices, and to point out
to buyers that no price is too high a
price for desirable locations in this re
gion. Frank Buchan was largely in
strumental in making ten dollar sand
hill land blossom into $200 sandhill
land, and the interesting feature about
it is that when he began to ask a hun
dred or two hundred dollars an acre
people did not hesitate to pay it. The
Midland sale is a fair price for a
mighty good property, and some of
these days its value will be much high
er.
CO-OP CASES IN SUPREME
COURT
Tobacco Growers Gain Favorable
Decisions; Heavy Deliveries
as Season Nears End
Favorable decisions for the Tobacco
Growers’ Co-operative Association re
sulted in four out of six cases recent
ly tried before the Supreme Court of
North Carolina.
Chief Justice Walter A. Clarke in
handing down the most important
opinion resulting from recent co-op
erative cases before the North Caro
lina Supreme Court last week, declar
ed that a member in a suit against
the co-operative association cannot
raise the question of insufficient sign
up. The Chief Justice found no evi
dences of fraud on the part of the to
bacco association and upheld the de
cision of the Superior Court against
G. H. Pittman, a wealthy merchant
who had been an early and earnest
advocte of co-operative marketing and
later alleged fraud in securing his con
tract.
In the cast of the Tobacco Associ
ation vs. J. L. Bland the Supreme
Court affirmed the action of the Su
perior Court in dissolving an injunc
tion, but held that failure to settle for
the 1922 crop prior to the 1923 deliv
ery season does not constitute a
breach of the contract by the associ
ation and does not relieve the member
from further performance of hi? con
tract. Intense interest has centered
about this case which Jas. H. Pou,
well-known member of the Raleigh
bar, summarized as follows:
“The court does not hold that un
less the association has settled with
its members for one year’s crop, it
cannot secure an injunction against
them to prevent them from selling
their next year’s crop in violation of
their contract. It follows that the
association is not compelled to make
a final accounting for one year’s crop
before the next is harvested and de
livered to it.”
A great rush of deliveries to the
co-operative tobacco warehouses is
marking the last operations of the
association’s second season, which
closes on March 28 at all the delivery
points for the bright and dark leaf of
Virginia-Carolina farmers which still
remain open. While close to five mil
lion pounds of tobacco reached the co
operative receiving points last week,
new contracts were pouring in from
North Carolina and Virginia. Over a
hundred North Carolina farmers sign
ed during the first few days of March.
S. D. FRISSELL.
MY COMMUNITY
My community is the place where
my home is founded, where my chil
dren are educated, where my income
is earned, where my friends dwell, and
where my life is chiefly lived. I have
chosen it, after due consideration,
from among all the places on earth. It
is the home spot for me. Here let
me live until death claims me. Then
let my neighbors say I was a friend
to a man.—Cotton Grower.
FREEDOM TO THINK
THE STATE’S NEED
Judge Winston Tells Kiwanians Intel
lectual, Religious and Political
Independence is Necessary
The Kiwanis Club held its meeting
Wednesday at the country club house
in Southern Pines. A full house greet
ed the officers and the speakers who
had been secured for the dinner hour.
After proper deference had been paid
to the dinner the president announced
that Judge Robert Winston, of North
Carolina, would talk briefly on the
conditions that face the state.
Judge Winston needs no introduc
tion to the majority of the people of
the slate, but to any of this section
who have not been here long enough
to know who he is. The Pilot will say
that he has been one of the foremost
public men during recent years, and
is now looking back on a creditable
career and taking life in comfortable
fashion, spending his winters at
Southern Pines.
Judge Winston said so much in the
short period allotted to him that his
entire address should be printed, but
the space allowed is not sufficient to
give more than a brief synopsis. His
whole argument turned on the value
of thinking, and he seemed to fear
that we do not think enough in this
state, and that we do not encourage
independent and fearless thinking.
He said any man ought to have the
right to be a republican in this state
if he wants to, which the Judges do
not, or to be a Jew, or Catholic, op
Mohammedan, or Buddhist, and that
he should be as much respected for
his views on religion, politics, morals,
progress or anything else as the man
is who differs.
Judge Winston did not give very
hearty approval of Cameron Morrison
who told teachers of public schools
what they should teach, for the judge
argued that any thinking instructor
should be free to teach the student
to think for himself on any line, and
that every man should have absolute
political, religious and intellectual
freedom. “Truth,’’ said the Judge, “is
never so poor and helpless that it can
not stand without a prop.” Great
thinkers are the need of this state, he
told his hearers, and not office holders.
The office holder is afraid of his job,
and will not think and stand courage-
(Continued on page 8)
DR. ROSSER SAYS
TRY CANTALOPES
Thinks This Would Be Good Di-
versification for Sandhills
Around Vass
Dr. R. G. Rosser thinks the coun
try around Vass has opportunities
that are not developed as they might
be, and that along with peaches, dew
berries, and other more familiarr
things it would be wise to make can
taloupes for the market. Talking to
The Pilot on this subject the doctor
said, “We have here a soil and climate
that are known to produce melons of
all kinds to perfection, and canta
loupes flourish as if they were native.
That this part of the state can make
cantaloupes that) will compete with
anything that goes to market is so
generally understood that no talk is
necessary on that score. Then we
have here the best possible distribu
tion facilities. The Seaboard delivers
express and refrigerator freight di
rectly into the Potomac yards at
Washington without unloading or
touching until that distributing cen
ter is reached. The Potomac yards
are the great breaking up point for
all freight bound north, and there is
sold a great proportion of the South
ern stuff sent northward.
“Arrangements are such that ex
press shipments loaded up to the time
the six o’clock train goes south can
go forward and be in Washington in
the morning, and in New York and
Philadelphia in the early afternoon,
and shipments at the station before
the morning train goes out can for
ward their stuff to reach New York
the next morning in time for the mar
kets. The train service is practically
perfect, and the Seaboard has a record
for getting its fruit shipments
through.
“We have now in the county a peach
growers’ association and an organi
zation of the dewberry men, and can
taloupes could be worked either with
these or through another organiza
tion. Fruit men in the county know
how to do these things now. I would
like to plant some cantaloupes this
year, but to make the venture wise
several farmers should form a plan
and plant acreage enough to be sure
of enough fruit to load cars rather
than to ship by express. Cantaloupes
grow prolifically, and the name of the
Sandhill Cantaloupe would make a hit
in the market. Just as Sandhill peach
es and dewberries have. We would
have the reputation that the other
folks have been years in building up.”
The Pilot passes this proposition
along to the farmers and the Chamber
of Commerce of Vass, with the recom
mendation that it is worthy of con
sideration and action.
SENATOR LENROOT
United States Senator from Wiscon
sin, is in Southern Pines, where he
has come for a rest from the strenu
ous work on the committee that has
in charge the oil tribulations now agi
tating Washington and the senate. He
has since resigned as chairman of this
committee. He has not been improv
ing as fast as he hoped for and may
have to stay in the Sandhills for some
time yet.