Saturday, September 17, 2011

Extension Farm News Across N.C., 1954

Published in Extension Farm-News, July 1954 issue

Good things always get imitated, says D.J. Knight, Halifax County Negro farm agent. Knight said Halifax Negro farmers and their wives will hold a Ham and Egg Show and Sale next year in an attempt to imitate the successful show and sale held in Johnston County each spring. Knight said the Johnston event has been so successful in promoting better pork and poultry management that Halifax Negro families want to give it a try, too.
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It may not be a trend, but at least it’s interesting, says Rockingham County Farm Agent J.E. Foil in referring to Bruce Gunn’s decision to stop growing tobacco and become a truck farmer. Gunn, a long-time tobacco farmer of Wentworth, had always wanted to be a truck farmer. This year he made the big decision to switch farming operations completely. Tomato and potato plants were his first marketable crop; strawberries were his second. He sold 650 quarts of berries from a two-tenths acre plot, which grossed him $227.50. Gunn’s next truck crop for sale will be 8,000 lettuce plants. Seems like he’s doing all right, says Foil.
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Jim Allgood says Ben Dixon of Stella began to cure tobacco on June 9 to be the first man in the county to begin curing and to break all past records for Onslow. Mr. Dixon also recorded another first at the same time, because it was the first tobacco in Onslow to be harvested by a mechanical puller. The tobacco was set in the open field on April 12.
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Mrs. Annie J. Johnson, Negro home agent of Rowan County, and her home demonstration women have prepared and printed 500 copies of a 175-page book which records the splendid progress made by Rowan’s Negro citizens since 1943. It tells by text and picture of citizenship in action and compares favorable with well-edited college annuals.
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When Brennan Winslow of Belvidere, Route 1, injured himself with a blast of dynamite while working on his farm pond, his Perquimans County neighbors planted and cultivated his crops so the family would not suffer. As R.M. Thompson says, “His work is as caught up as anyone’s.”
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Home Demonstration women of the Southport Club in Brunswick County took part in the big Live Oak Festival early this month. Southport Club President Mrs. B.J. Holden says there was a parade, guest speakers, a boat race and special sight-seeing tours around the county and other historical points of interest for those who attended.
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Many Henderson County farmers are utilizing their surplus labor to supplement their incomes by selling pulp wood, says C.H. Thompson, assistant county agent. Thompson says that during the past year 9,500 cords of pulp wood have been shipped through the Hendersonville buying station, bringing local farmers about $100,000. Pulp wood thinning serves two purposes: it brings in needed money and makes the remaining timber more valuable.
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Citizens of Haywood County’s West Pigeon community are making sure no one gets lost around their neck of the woods. Residents, cooperating in the community’s long-range development program, have been working in the afternoons and evenings making signs to be placed at each road intersection. They are also making new community entrance signs to properly identify “The Beautiful Valley.”
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A total of 104 communities, representing 14 counties, are entered in the 1954 Western North Carolina Rural Community Development Program, according to Morris L. McGough, executive vice president of the Asheville Agricultural Development Council, Inc. McGough said the various counties are offering nearly $7,000 in prizes this year to stimulate the community development programs. Another $1,700 is being offered in area awards.
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Winners in the 1954 Home Demonstration Choral Awards contest were Rutherford County, first in mixed voices; Pitt, second in mixed voices; Forsyth, first in women’s chorus; Cabarrus, second in women’s chorus. Leaders of the choruses, who accepted prizes given by radio station WPTF during Farm and Home Week, were Mrs. Paul Davenport, Pitt County; Mrs. Helen Cole, Rutherford County; Mrs. Holly Lentz, Cabarrus; and Mrs. Lester Reich, Forsyth.
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For the seventh consecutive year, the North Carolina champion 4-H sheep shearer is from Watauga County. This time Dudley Norris, 15-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Norris of Sugar Grove, won top honors, becoming the third Norris boy to carry home the honors.
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The Jaycees of Mocksville sponsored a calf scramble to stimulate interest in artificial breeding in Davie County and local farmers loaned 25 calves for the 40 boys to catch. Each boy catching a calf was given one.
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State 4-H officers, elected during 4-H Congress at State College, are G.K. Davis, Gaston County, president; Nancy Mason, Iredell County, vice president; Mary Froebe, Mecklenburg, secretary-treasurer; and Glenn Woodley, Tyrrell, historian.
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Currituck 4-H members have been making money by cutting and polishing cypress knees to be used as lamp stands.
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Miss Mary Harris, former Randolph County home demonstration agent and a native of Cleveland County, is the new district agent in charge of the 16-county Eastern Home Demonstration District. Miss Harris replaces Mrs. Esther G. Willis.
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Assistant Editor J. Harold Parker joined the Department of Agricultural Information at State College. Parker is assigned to the Extension publications section. He replaces W.L. Carpenter, who is on a study leave at the University of Wisconsin. Parker, a native of Ellijay, Ga., is a graduate in agriculture of the University of Georgia.

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