From “Carolina Farm Notes” by F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, Raleigh, as published in the February 1945 issue of The Southern Planter
Although he owns only 203 acres of land, R.C. White of King, Stokes County, uses his cleared land to produce as much as possible and insists that his tenants follow the same balanced program of production that he follows. During the past year, for instance, there was produced on the White farm 102 barns of tobacco, 700 bushels of wheat, 448 bushels of oats, 800 bushels of corn, 112 tons of hay, and 500 bushels of good lespedeza seed. In addition to these crops, the farm supported 12 head of dairy cattle and five work animals.
INSULATES WITH HAY
When M.C. Gore of Brunswick County found himself with 3,400 bushels of excellent sweet potatoes last fall and no place to store them, he cleaned out his feed barn, lined the walls with hay, and installed some oil burning heaters and reports the situation well in hand. The climate is mild in Brunswick so that heat is only needed in cases of extreme cold.
Up in the foothill section, E.M. Frye of Caldwell County produced 357 bushels of Sequoia seed Irish potatoes and had no adequate storage. He bought five bags of cement, made a concrete base, stacked 52 bales of straw on it for the four sides of a house, covered it with a gable roof shingled with composition shingles and now has stored within this comfortable building his Irish potatoes, as well as apples, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and other farm products.
WILDLIFE PROTECTION
Nesting birds, baby rabbits and other of the smaller forms of wildlife in Union County will have a better chance to survive this spring as the result of a contract made between the 4-H Club boys of the county and a biological supply house which has agreed to take 500 stray cats from the club members. The club members have agreed to supply the cats by May 1. Most of them are found in the broomsedge and brus of abandoned fields and near vacant tenant houses. More than 100 had been shipped by the first of the year.
HARDWORKING SAMPSON COUNTY BOY
When the time came to select the outstanding 4-H Club member in Sampson County for 1944, the committee in charge came to the record of Stewart Carr of the Halls Club and stopped. This is what they found. Stewart had grown:
--10 acres of wheat, producing 420 bushels
--1.8 acre of Irish potatoes, yielding 185 bags
--1 acre of sweet potatoes, producing 150 bushels
--2 acres of tobacco, yielding 1,407 pounds in spite of hail damage
--2 acres of cotton, yielding 1,646 pounds of lint
--3 acres of corn, producing 189 bushels
--10 acres of soybeans for seed, yielding 150 bushels
--5 acres of soybeans for hay, yielding 9 tons
--1 acre of garden
--1/10th acre of peanuts, yielding 110 pounds
He owned a cow that produced $115 worth of products, a pig weighing 300 pounds, a bull that brought him $145, a calf worth $20, and he grew 100 broilers weighing 264 pounds. In addition to attending to all these things, he somehow found time to cut 10 cords of much needed wood.
The committee very quickly awarded Stewart the $25 War Bond offered by a local bank for the best club member.
ASHE COUNTY FARMERS BUILD FARM INCOME
Departing from the old-style subsistence farming into a more balanced production aimed at using the national agricultural advantages of the county, farmers in Ashe County have in this past year secured an income of $3,906,162 without engaging in any large scale commercial farming. About 900 families sell milk to the local cheese factor and others to plants having milk routes in the county. A total of 16,384,000 pounds of milk was sold last year from 1,760 farms for $614,812. The truck crops, including snapbeans, cabbage, and Irish potatoes, brought in $662,812. Surplus beef cattle sold for about $600,000, tobacco for $594,000, poultry and eggs for $475,000, forest products for $614,750, sheep and wool for $70,000, swine for $75,000, and other items, including roots, herbs, fruits and berries, sold for close to $200,000. Two small auction markets established in West Jefferson in 1943 helped to promote the sale of truck crops.
WHY BOYS LEAVE HOME
Lack of dry stovewood is one good reason why boys leave home, offers J.A. Wilson, farm agent in Polk County, who has been waging a campaign in his county this past winter to have a more properly managed system of wood cutting around the home.
“Many fine boys and girls have been driven away from the farm by the burden of wood cutting,” he says. “The first thing to do is to have a shed where the wood may be kept dry. Then the fires will burn and the cooking will not be so hard. Next, let’s not drag our wood cutting over every day in the year but set aside two or three days and get the neighbors to come over as with the corn shucking or hog-killing. The farm will be a much more pleasant place if this is done.”
Mr. Wilson suggests also that the fuel wood be carefully selected from the farm woodland so that the trees suitable for timber may be allowed to grow unhampered.
BORON FOR FRUIT
The good effects of applying a small amount of borax to alfalfa, sweet potatoes, and lespedeza have been established in North Carolina. Now comes the apple gorwers of western North Caorlina, who say there is apparently a deficiency of boron in some of the soils of that section. E.B. Barnwell of the Edneyville community in Henderson County seems to have been the worst sufferer this past season. The fruit becomes corky, the twigs die back and the rosette disease affects the leaves. The deficiency affects one apple variety in one way and the other in another way but the growers agree that the McIntosh, Courtland and Ben Davis were the three worst hurt last year. After these came the Rome Beauty. Applications of one to 16 ounces of borax per tree seemed to correct the trouble.
MORE PEANUTS PER ACRE
Again comes indisputable evidence that dusting peanuts with fine sulphur for at least three times during the growing season will reduce losses from the leafspot diseases and will increase the yield and quality of both nuts and hay. Isaac Parker, D.L. Parker, G.B. Storey, William Dixon, Mrs. L.H. Holloman of Hertford County and Earl Dixon secured an average increase per acre of 294 pounds of nuts worth $26.50 per acre as compared with where they did not use the dust. The material cost only $3 an acre.
In Halifax County, growers arranged with dealers in four towns to assemble peanut hay at central points for the convenience of buyers wishing to get the roughage in carlots. Dairymen, especially, were anxious to buy the hay. That which came from dusted peanuts was of better quality.
MORE FREEZER LOCKERS
North Carolina entered the new year with 4 ½ times as many freezer lockers as in 1944 and counting those plants under construction or for which priorities have been granted, the number of lockers is seven times that of one year ago. Indications are that a tremendous expansion will follow the war. As soon as all the plants now planned are completed, there will be 10,418 lockers capable of serving 50,000 persons, and with the normal turnover in food stored, about 5 million pounds of food should be handled by the lockers in 1945. In addition, between 8 and 10 million pounds of meat will be cured. Dr. D.E. Brady, meat specialist at State College, says that considering the normal meat spoilage in home curing, these lockers will save at least 1 million pounds that ordinarily would have been lost.
LIKE HYBRID CORN
Farmers of Stanly County report one of the best corn crops on record despite unseasonal dry weather in early summer. There were 250 acres of hybrid corn grown and not one farmer was dissatisfied with it, says W.Z. Smith, farm agent. One grower, E.B. Smith, weighed in 80 bushels an acre on 15 acres of the hybrid and other farmers say their yields were equally as good with both named and hybrid varieties. The agent now has requests for 30 bushels of the N.C. hybrid seed and says that much more will be ordered before planting time.
Stanly farmers plan to have a part in the proposed effort to double the acre yield of corn in the state during the next 10 years.
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