Clarence Poe, Memories of North Carolina Farming, 1964

By Clarence Poe, as published in the May, 1964, issue of Extension News, a monthly newsletter for county agents and specialists. Dr. Poe was senior editor and board chairman of The Progressive Farmer magazine. To see a photo of Dr. Poe with Frank Jeter, go to http://historicalstate.lib.ncsu.edu/catalog/0227562

I have been asked to put down on paper some of my memories of Agricultural Extension work in this state. In doing so, I shall give most attention to the early history of Extension work and still earlier efforts to extend agricultural knowledge before the term “Extension work” was adopted.

My memories of North Carolina farming go back to the time around 1886 when I used to drop seed corn for my father. The furrow had been opened and dropped two grains on each spot where my big toe left its mark as I walked.

Perhaps I might first mention that my father and mother were both interested in better farm methods. They subscribed for and regularly read Home & Farm, published in Louisville, Ky. My father grew red clover before anyone else in the community. He also ordered seed wheat of a supposedly productive variety. The wheat came in a gaily colored box and I learned my letters from that box. There was no experiment station to test seeds and I seriously doubt that our supposedly improved variety was any better than Chatham County farmers themselves had grown.

My most vivid memory of bad agricultural practices has to do with the terrible lack of soil conservation at that time. It was then taken for granted that the soil we cultivated would wear out just as would a man’s coat. The result was that on every cultivated field on a steep or sloping area the soil was soon pockmarked with gullies and galled spots. This belief that soil must be expected to wear out continued for years after I was grown. Hence, on my first trip to Europe in 1908, I reported with especial emphasis the fact that in England, Germany and France I found farmers cultivating land on which crops had been grown for hundreds of years and was still productive.

The chief trouble here in the South was that our Coastal Plains soils were virtually melted by our heavy rains. Not only did nobody know how to stop this but there was no great public concern about the damage erosion was doing. It was thought perfectly natural for a man to let his cultivated land wear out and then clear “new ground” to take its place. Or, if a farmer had no new ground, he could go West where fertile land was cheap and abundant. Even the river and creek lowlands around us were offered at prices we would now think ridiculous. I have a deed for one tract of land my great grandfather bought. Although much of it was creek bottoms, the price was only $1 an acre--$280 for 280 acres.

Wealthier landowners of course had bought river bottom lands on Deep, Haw and Rocky rivers and they were little troubled by erosion. My father’s own land was fearfully impoverished by erosion and numerous gullies in spite of the “hillside ditches” hopelessly used to prevent gullies.

It was about 1890 that the first great step in American soil conservation was taken. This was the introduction of the Mangum terrace by a Wake County farmer, Priestly H. Mangum, to which The Progressive Farmer and Colonel Polk gave most immediate and enthusiastic support.

It was around this time, too, that a movement was begun which we may well call the ancestor of Agricultural Extension. The North Carolina Department of Agriculture inaugurated a system of “Farmers Institutes.” One or more was supposed to be held in each county and the speakers (or teachers if you prefer to call them such) were farmers who had won recognition as outstandingly good farmers. The most distinguished man sent out by the State Agricultural College (then called A&M) was Professor W.F. Massey.

Professor Massey had originally intended to be a Methodist preacher and he carried into the Farmers Institute work much of the fervor and moral enthusiasm which he would otherwise have expounded from the pulpit.

At the time almost the only soil-improving plant was the cowpea, and Professor Massey was honored as “the Apostle of the Cowpea.” Other agricultural leaders had preached the economic value of soil saving but Professor Massey preached it as a moral duty. All over North Carolina he proclaimed this doctrine: “We are tenants of the almighty and responsible to Him for the use we make of His soil which must feed all future generations of mankind.”When about 80 years old he said to me, “For 40 years my morning prayer has been that God might enable me to help someone take better care of his soil.”

One pioneer Farmers Institute leader was T.B. Parker. Like most of his fellow workers he had never attended any agricultural college but he was a deeply observing man whose good practices on his own farm had led to his statewide service.

Later Dr. Tait Butler came to North Carolina as State Veterinarian and was soon given a large place in directing Farmers Institute work. At that time a great part of the dairy cows in the state were so poorly nourished that springtime found them shockingly weak “on the lift,” it was said.

The usual explanation was that the cows had hollow horn or hollow tail. For hollow tail, the prescribed remedy was to split the tail and pour salt into it. Of course, a cow nine-tenths dead became lively racing away from this treatment of her!

If a cow was said to have hollow horn, part of her horn was sawed off. For all such ridiculous tomfoolery as we would call it now, Dr. Butler bluntly told farmers, “Your cows don’t have hollow horn or hollow tail. What ails them is hollow bellies,” and this diagnosis soon began to be generally accepted.

Dr. Butler also ridiculed the average so-called pasture as being, “a piece of land with a wire around it where no grass grows.” Later he led the fight for exterminating cattle tick and thereby freeing the state from Texas cattle fever.

I think Dr. Butler and Mr. Parker were chiefly responsible for setting up Women’s Institutes—forerunner of Home Demonstration work, so long conducted by Dr. Jane S. McKimmon.

Young Benjamin W. Kilgore, graduate of Mississippi A&M College, came up to North Carolina about this time and became an ally of Dr. Butler and myself in our efforts to improve farm practices. Dr. Kilgore became State Director of Extension which for a time was under the joint control of the Department of Agriculture and A&M College. Of course, having so much power caused some people to be envious of him, and I recall one occasion when Governor Morrison sent for Robert W. Scott (Governor Scott’s father) and me to talk over the situation. One of Morrison’s ungrammatical remarks I still remember.

Mr. Scott reminded him that every man in public position should expect some criticism. “Why, I have even heard criticism of you, Governor.” Too which Morrison replied, “Well, they don’t say I ain’t doing nothing, do they?” From that time on I think he was a strong supporter of Extension work and Dr. Kilgore as its director.

Of the great pioneer in Agricultural Extension Dr. Seaman A. Knapp I have vivid memories. On one occasion some of us arranged for him to make a speech to the General Assembly—impressive, of course, as his addresses were, I heard him make another famous address at Pinehurst, speaking to the Conference for Education in the South.

Dr. Knapp was a man of massive build and powerful physique. It was not until years later that I found that two crippling accidents in his young manhood had put him on crutches for seven years. Somehow I think that this personal suffering gave him greater sympathy for all poor and struggling men and women. He had something like genius in selecting his co-workers. Extension work at that time was called Farm Demonstration work and the county agents were called farm demonstration agents. To them—men and women—Dr. Knapp was a hero and patron saint.

Many of them shared the feeling expressed by T.J.W. Broom, long-time county agent, Union County, North Carolina, who said, “When I go up and down my county and see the progress our farm people are making and think of my privilege to help them, a feeling of gladness comes over me and there is a song in my heart all the day long.”

Such were some phases of “the day of small things” when Extension work was begun here in North Carolina. The greatest thing I could ask for these present-day workers with their broad scientific knowledge and expanding vista of achievement would be that they serve all our people, including the poverty-cursed, so well that they may say with Tom Broom, “there is a song in my heart all the day long.”