A BETTER COUNTY THROUGH IMPROVED FARM PRACTICES’
__ TRENTON, N. O. Thursday, July 16. 1953.
Number 10
cco Curing But the Job is Easier
Since the time more than 20
years ago when Forrest Smith ol
Kinston began fiddling around
with what eventually was the
first successful oil-burning to
bacco curer a great many
changes have taken place in the
business of growing and curing
tobacco. Smith as a boy on a
Duplin County farm knew the
back-breaking labors of tdhac
cd priming that Were folllowed
by the sleepless nights of “cur
ing.” He sought to end those
sleepless nights.
Smith finally succeeded and
today as President of
Smith Heating, Inc., of Kinston,
he is continuing to release to
bacco farmers, from the tedious
' task of “firing barns.” But in
this process which has brought
almost-fooi-proof mechanical
.coring to the tobacco barn
much pf the "romance” of to
bacco housing time has been
lost. Perhaps this loss is more
acutely felt by city folks who
were occasional visitors to the
barns at curing time who did
not know the full story of hard
work and sleepless nights.
Today the percentage of wood
fired' bams in this great fine
cured tobacco area is small and
getting smaller every season.
But for the few left this is an
Almost-final word' of last fond
greetings.
These nights around Ute bam
When little folks and big ones
gathered to hear the pop and
crackle of the wood In the fur
ce, to smell the beautiful
Above Leander King, and his
father, Matthiew KiM,«wlia ha«
been a tenant i on ttUT Henry
Canady farm for more than 40 i
years and two young Riders,
Jan and Libby, watch the glow
ing embers in the furnace of
one of the few remaining wood
burning tobacco barns in this
section.
(Polaroid Photo in a Minute by
Jack Rider)
dew covered watermelons were
the happy part of that time of
hard labor.
The patter of rain on a tin
roof, the pitch dark of country
side when one left the glow of
the furnace or the small light
the bam” the stuff that dreams
are made of. Now such nights
are a memory to the older and
much of the present generation
never knew and can never appre
ciate what they were like.
The tricks played on the
“first one asleep,” the chill in
the air after midnight, the
spake stories, the ghost stories,
the tretmendods tali tales of
what ‘Tm gonha buy when to
bacco-selling time comes,” older j
boys telling gigantic lies of their
conquests in the female world,
the bug-eyed youngster watch
ing snake thrown in the barn
furnace to “see his legs pop out,”
the smell of a pipe full of old
“RJR,” tlje (first taste of
“chawing tobacco,” and some
times, around some barns—for
the older folks,, a jar of “white
liMter” WMfcK-hW* only bracfed
one against the chill night air
but added flavor, and fancy to
PostaiExtensions
The Post Office Department in
Washington, finally sot aroused
out of the lethargy of the usual
summer swelter along the Po
tomac, has put its “OK” on ex
tension of postal sendee for new
areas around Kinston, the first
such extension in three years in
spite of great growth in these
areas. Kinston Postmaster
“Buck”’ Wooten announced
Tuesday that three new areas
would be added for daily door
to-door delivery, including 150
houses that will receive at-the
porch delivery and considerably
more that will get curbside de
livery. The three areas to get
this new service include Green
meade, Green Acres and Club
Pines. Wooten gave Congress
man L. H. Fountain a pat on the
back for his help in awaken
ing the folks in Washington.
the tall tales being told “at the
barn.” '
Alas; Mr. Smith, you served
us well. Tobacco cures better,
mofe safely and more cheaply
with your oil-burning gadget,
but there’s no way to roast an
ear of com about its blaze, no
fragrant odor of pine and oak
wood burning to tempt the ap
petite and to make even a fair
chicken or fish stew taste like
the purest ambrosia.
Oh Time! Turn Backward in
Your Blight, if only for one
night.
In 1940. It .'took the American,
farmer 47 hours to produce a
bushel of wheat; now it takes
only 31 hours
,Not a Crime As It Is
Viewed Today
5ffie old, pitiful non. sitting;
are in the dogr fennels one hot
ay last week on the banks, of
ease River, is bat one mode of
le pitiful hand of alcoholics
*t seem to thriye in this
in«e section of Kinston. A
tehtened phone call to the,
"ice station,, said, “A man’s
ten knocked in the head around
crowd gathered. Police walked
him to the jail rather than put
ting him in the police car due
to his filthy condition. After
looking at the old man, talking
to him and pondering over the
problem of “what to do with
him” hie said that he had enough
money to buy a bus ticket as
tar as Goldsboro. His offer was
accepted and the police, with
some relief, let him go, probably
to plague the police and the
conscience of folks in Wayne
County.
(Polaroid Photo in a Minute by
Jack Rider)
In the brief five and a frac
tion years since this paper was
begun in Kinston something
like 30 men have died in Kin
ston from chronic alcoholism.
Wretching from poison, punc
tured ulcers aggravated by the
strongest drink, burning to
ashes in fires, drowning in
Neuse River and walking blind
ly into cars and trucks have
been some of the ways in which
this, group died but their fun
damental disease was alcoholism.
Paradoxically these sick men
ever seem to increase along the
river bank, in Happersville and
on the 100 block of North Her
itage Street where they gather
to compare “notes”, and wait
for their next drink.
For as long as this writer can
remember these derelicts have
been approached with a feel
ing of disgust, perhaps infre
quently mingled with a little
pity. Never has any intelligent
effort been made by local so
ciety to retrieve these men from
the disease that plagues them.
Recent advances In medical
science now make it possible to
retrieve many of these men from
me awrul shadow - world in
which they live. In the past the
process has been to sober a
drunk up violently and sudden
ly and then hope for the best,
with principal emphasis plac
ed on the man’s mind.
Today, however, there is me
dicine available that4 dries up
the thirst for alcohol. Soon
some forward looking court is
going to sentence an alcoholic
to receiving this medicine once
a week for a year," or five years
and then with that much “good
time” behind him the drunk
has a chance to condition his
mind, his environment and 'his
finances in such a way that a
return to the bottle is less
likely, -
The blue-nosed, bigoted, un
Christian approach to the
drunk in the past in this North
Carolina area has been far too
mixed up with religion and po
litical emotionalism. This does
not mean, however, that the
church does not have a large
responsibility in helping the
drunk; find the way back to safe
ground. It does mean, however,
that pulpit-pounding and high
blown resolutions made by
groups that never take, or un
derstand a drink is comparable
to curing polio with a medicine
man’s tom-tom.
This enlightened civilization
of the 20th Century laughs at
the savage medicine man with
his hollering, dancing and stump
thumping; yet until recent years
this wild and fanatical “medi
cine” has been about all the
poor drunk could expect from his
fellow man.
The Du Pont Company an
nounced this week that the di
rector of its medical research
in Wilmington, Del., is assisting
greatly, but not in an official
manner, with the setting up of
a clinic in that city ifor in
tensive work in this field of
medicine. Perhaps reflections
from this ray of light will pen
etrate this far into the wilder
ness and remove some of the
ignorance and some of the blind
hypocrisy that surrounds the
approach to alcoholism. It will
eventually. The tragic question
is: How long will it take?
There are religious sects
among us today who refuse to
permit medicine or men of me
dicine to treat even their chil
dren. Such sects forget that
“All things are God given.” The
intelligence and experience of
a doctor, the pharmacist, the sci
entist are as much “God given”
as a preacher’s ability to put
words and prayers together. To
deny one is to deny the other.
People such as the pitiful old
man pictured with this article
need not forever be an embar
rassment and dead weight on
the community. Their crime is
being sick. Society does not
throw other incurables ito jail
because science has lagged in
developing a cure and because
society refuses to accept facts
for facts and prefers to deal in
richly worded platitudes.
For untold generations ven
ereal disease was allowed to run
rampant in the same bigoted
and ignorant fashion. But to
day, after less than 10 years of
all-out attack on these diseases
they have been reduced almost
to the vanishing point and the
little that remains is due to the
bottomless ignorance of the
sufferer.
Comfort Man Hurt
Joseph Metts of near Com
fort suffered a severely man
gled left collar bone area, con
siderable loss of blood and pos
sible other internal Injuries
Monday night when his tractor
was tarcm^km «U le«hng
to Cypress Creek Bridge. Hay
wood Philyaw, Who was pn the
tractor with Metts and who was
also plnnedfrlMm. escaped with
minor cute and bruises. It was
believed that a large truck
trailer forced the tractor off the
fill and kept on going. The
two men remained pinned under
the tractor for! some time before
they were found.
. During the first five months
of 1953 North Carolina hatch
eries produced 34,124,000 chicks,
3.8 per cent*, more than during
the same period last year.