By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, Raleigh, as published in the Charlotte Observer on Oct. 25, 1948
Almost as far west as we can go in North Carolina is the little county of Graham. It was named after William A. Graham, former Governor, and contains only about 175,000 acres of land. About 19 out of every 20 acres of this land are covered with forest trees, and those forests are beautiful at the present time. Graham County lies just south of the Tennessee River. It is bounded on the west by the magnificent Smoky Mountains. Inside the county there are numerous small streams, all flowing into the Cheoah River, which in turn flows into the Tennessee. These valleys are rich and fertile. In fact, they comprise about all the land that can be cultivated in Graham County and it is only their high fertility that makes it possible for farming to be profitable.
The county has been noted in the past for its beef cattle production. Native grasses, free of onions, not only make fine grazing but are highly nutritious. More lately there has been a shift from beef cattle to dairying as new roads and milk routes make it convenient to market fresh, cold milk in wholesale quantities.
But so often, we lowlanders do not understand that our mountain citizens are just about as good farmers as we are and that they live much as we do. The mountains are no longer isolated. The Tennessee Valley Authority and the local REA lines have brought electric current to every cove. There are fine highways all through that section; good farm homes abound; and the people have their radios and newspapers just as does the average Piedmont or Coastal Plains farmer. Of course, the ground is rugged, and the hills are steep, and erosion must be fought continually, especially where the trees have been removed from the hills and sold for lumber.
P.J. Gibson, county agent, says that 94 per cent of Graham County is covered with forests. Yet the supply of timber grows less and less each succeeding year. The average farm woodland in the county is now producing less than 1,000 board feet an acre; and so the men who own land in the mountain county have begun to give attention to the better handling of their farm forests. They are cutting out the scrubby underbrush and are setting out seedlings of popular and pine. Just recently the TVA nursery serving that area allocated for the use of Graham farmers alone this winter; 10,000 white pine; 35,000 shortleaf pine; 3,000 black locust; 5,000 yellow poplar; 500 white ash; and 500 red cedar. Mr. Gibson says these trees will be secured by the individual farmers and planted this winter. The seedlings are delivered in Robbinsville at no cost to the man who will set them out.
But not only do mountain farmers have great concern about the future of their timber supplies. They are realizing that much of the valley soil that once yielded so abundantly is becoming exhausted. Its mineral elements are being depleted and crops no longer produce high acre yields without lime, phosphate, and other fertilizers. Not only that—but as land is cleared, it washes away. So the people have organized by communities, on each watershed, and they have adopted new methods of farming to build their standards of living.
R.W. Shoffner, who travels all through that territory as district farm agent, says that some of the results are really amazing. By their organized efforts, the neighborhoods are transforming their total situation and are increasing their individual incomes. In Graham County, for instance, the little Sweetwater community was organized back in 1942, about six years ago. Naturally, it is out ahead of other communities in the use of limestone and phosphate to improve the lands and in the adding of modern conveniences to make rural homes more comfortable. The last organized communities in Graham are Long Creek, Stecoah, and Bear Creek. In between are Sweetgum, Santeetlah, Tuskeegee, Panther, Wolf Creek, Atoah, Yellow Creek, Cochrans-Gladdens Creek, and Mountain Creek. Five hundred farms in these 12 communities are being definitely improved through the joint efforts of their owners.
One of the interesting things about this community effort is that the neighbors vote on one farm to be a demonstration place. They select a family which they believe can carry out the ideas of the county agent and the Tennessee Valley folks, and then this family tries to put these ideas into operation insofar as it can. They keep a careful record of all results. The neighboring farms are also eligible to get TVA phosphate for use on their pastures and soil lands. They see what has happened on that main demonstration place and pretty soon they see the same results being secured on their own places. Another thing, these communities have learned that by working together they can bring about so many changes which the individual could not or would not do alone. In fact, he wouldn’t try it because he would fear ridicule, perhaps.
But take the case of the Stecoah farmers. For years, they have allowed the old “open range” in that community. This means that the man with crops and a garden fenced them in if he wanted to gather any kind of a harvest. The livestock ran free to wander as it would. And this livestock would almost always pick out the best corn patch in the community if it were not protected by a fence. But the Stecoah people decided they wanted to go into the business of selling milk. They wanted to have a milk route to come into the community. This meant more hay, better pastures, and better dairy cows. Obviously, the individual couldn’t go very far in this with beef cattle and scrub animals of all kinds wandering about over the place. So, they took community action and closed the range. They no longer have free range. From now on the cattle will be confined to pastures and lots. After the people had decided on this, they got to work mineralizing their sod lands, renovating old pastures, and seeding new ones. Now the community is on its way to produce and sell cold mountain milk, highly nutritious, and almost totally free of any kind of odor or bacteria.
The folks also found that there were some jobs in this new kind of farming that were a little more complicated than the old style and were more than the individual, working alone, could handle.
This was the case in the Franks Creek section, for instance. Here J.L. Postelle, Ralph Matheson, Jesse Hyde, and Wayne Holloway set an example of community co-operation not exceeded anywhere. These men have worked out a system of labor sharing, especially during harvest time, that makes the work on each farm easily done. Each man does that thing which he can do best and his neighbor does the same. The sum total of their efforts means more prosperity for the four families.
In their community efforts, the rural families, more than any other, are not always looking for a dollar. No one needs it any more than they do; but not every farm family is interested primarily in getting a dollar for every service rendered. In the Bear Creek community, for instance, the people decided that they needed a new church. The old one was just about gone and was a disgrace to such an up-and-coming neighborhood. The folks of Bear Creek got together, cut the timber, and built a new Baptist Church and wired it for electrical current. It was built and paid for last year.
The East Buffalo watershed also has just finished its new and modern Lone Oak Baptist Church with the entire community furnishing money, materials, and labor to have a better place in which to worship.
Mr. Gibson says that these examples are just a few that are being brought about as a result community interest and organization. The farms are small, markets are far distant, the amount of produce to sell from each farm is not great. The people, therefore, are thinking strongly now of pooling their produce just as they have worked out the milk routes to come in and carry out that high grade mountain milk.
To see what has happened in the homes as a result of all this, we go back to the Sweetwater community—the first watershed valley to be organized—back in 1942. The farm home of Mr. and Mrs. H.T. Davis is a good example. As the income of this family has increased, they have done what farm families everywhere try to do—they have set about adding those little things which mean so much to a better family life. These additions have been made by the Davis family a little at a time; but if you could visit this rural mountain home today, you will find a new and modernized kitchen with beautiful refinished walls and all the necessary electrical equipment. Mrs. Davis says she didn’t have heat in the kitchen so when she bought a stove on which to cook the family meals, she bought a combination electrical and wood range. In the winter when it gets awfully cold in Graham County, Mrs. Davis uses the wood burning feature of her range and says it keeps the kitchen nice and cozy. Then in summer, when it gets almost as hot up there in the day as it does in Charlotte, Mrs. Davis uses the electrical part of her dual purpose range. She says this certainly is a convenience too, while she is busy doing her canning for winter.
The Davises also own a big nine-foot electrical refrigerator. This is a rather large size, but Mrs. Davis says somehow it always manages to stay filled with many things which she needs to keep cold. Over at the end of the kitchen, under the windows, is a beautiful two-basin sink with wide drainboards on either side and the daughters find that this makes dish-washing easy.
The Davises also like to live well. The living room has been beautifully redecorated. So has one bedroom and the hall. The family is now in the midst of its plans for the other rooms. Both Mrs. Davis and her two married daughters, Mrs. Clarence Crisp and Mrs. Floyd Phillips, are members of the local home demonstration club. They are active in the church and community activities and the husband is one of the leading farmers of Graham County. In fact, he is on the watershed committee which forms the policies of all community action undertaken by those who live in the Sweetwater neighborhood.
Graham farmers are quick to adopt the new things which will aid them in making a better living. For instance, there has been lots of trouble over the county with a late blight of tomatoes. This disease seems to kill out the tomato vines just about as soon as they are fully loaded with fruit. Talmadge Sherrill of the Sweetwater community whipped that trouble this year by dusting his small crop of 50 plants with a copper preparation. He used $6 worth of the copper sulphate dust and harvested 25 bushels of tomatoes. He actually sold $42.50 worth and said he would have done better but that the wilt, a seed-bourne disease, came in and killed some of his plants after he fought the blight successfully. The wilt cut his yield in half, he estimates.
Austin Sherrill of the Talulah area treated 180 plants with the copper spray at a cost of $7 and sold $209.80 worth of tomatoes from 100 vines. In addition, his family enjoyed the tomatoes all summer and his wife canned 50 quarts for winter use.
Graham farmers have also organized an artificial breeding association; they are fighting all kinds of animal and plant troubles, and they have learned to work together.
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