Monday, April 6, 2015

Farm and Home News From Across North Carolina, April 1955

"Personal Mention" by Frank Jeter as published in the April 1955 issue of Extension Farm-News
"The Colonel is gone," they said on the State College campus early that Sunday morning March 13. Those words held a note of poignant sadness, because the Colonel had grown through the years, grown in strength, maturity and ability; grown in the love and esteem of those who had known him through the long years he had served State College and the State of North Carolina; grown in the hearts of his friends; and grown in the respect of those who had followed his career as educator and public servant over the years. Colonel John W. Harrelson was fatally stricken giving one last service to the college he loved so well as he took part in dedicating the new D.H. Hill Library on Saturday evening, March 12. No greater monument can be erected to his memory than the one he himself constructed in the hearts of those who knew him and had worked with him. The building he helped to dedicate is only one part of the tremendous physical expansion of a State College plant which bloomed to its highest fruition under his constant and intense cultivation.

Then, we have the high honor of another winner of the O. Max Gardner Award…Dr. Z.P. Metcalf, scientist, scholar, friend and educator, received the grant and citation at the dinner concluding the Third Conference on the State of The University and thus joins the ranks of those whom Governor Gardner sought to reward for their services to the state and to mankind. Dr. Metcalf joins an illustrious group, which includes another faculty member of this College, Dr. D.B. Anderson.

The most talked about event of the spring was the late and devastating freeze which wiped out North Carolina’s peach crop and heavily injured all early berries, vegetables, and flowers. The mountain apple crop was severely injured and it appears now that North Carolinians will eat imported fruit this season. The vegetables were replanted.

In Duplin County, the most talked about event of the spring was the dedication of its new $40,000 office addition to the County Agricultural Building in Kenansville. Credit Melvin Cording, sacrificial public-spirited dairyman, as one of the moving spirits in getting the new building and in laboring with the county commissioners, agricultural workers, tax payers and others, to have a farm building that matches in utility the new health center, also built through the same cooperative enterprise. No one happier than Vernon Reynolds, Mrs. Pauline Johnson, and their associates on the Duplin Extension staff. Credit also that solid citizen Ellis Vestal for much of the hard work done in getting the new addition. It is the result of a wonderful understanding and cooperation among the people of the county.

E.J. Simpson says you ought to see his new bulletin rack. Bill Lewis and the folks in Wilson are shouting aloud in their glee over new Extension quarters, about a mile and a half out of town and accessible to all roads, with plenty of parking space, and an auditorium seating 250 persons comfortably.

In his time of joy, however, Bill and the other Extension personnel, were saddened by the passing of Carter Washington Foster, former Negro County Agent of Wilson County for 13 years and one of the great leaders of his race in North Carolina. C.W. Foster made a great contribution to the advancement of all rural people in the county.

No better district meeting of North Carolina home demonstration clubs than the one held in Pittsboro on April 6 by the clubs of the 14th District. You never saw such a full auditorium of well-dressed ladies (the next Sunday was Easter, you know) and they had a real meeting. Mrs. C.W. Lutterloch, District Chairman, presided with that simple grace and dignity which seems typical of the demonstration club women of this state..

Lady Astor carried back to England a jar or two of sorghum molasses grown by Charley Gardner of Ashe and cooked by Wiley Severt of the Beaver Creek section. Word came that the noble lady of Virginia might perhaps swap a jar of the homemade molasses with good Queen Elizabeth, provided the Queen throws in plenty of "boot." Charley gave the molasses to his sister-in-law Mrs. J.W. Dupree who is Governor Hodges’ secretary, and she in turn provided the syrup when the Governor needed to present Lady Astor with a real treat.

Word comes from Dr. J.O. Halverson, former animal nutritionist of the Experiment Station and now in Tucson, Arizona, telling of the passing there of James W. Johansen in late March. Mr. Johansen was an Extension economist at State College until 1948 and a valued staff member for a number of years when farm management and farm economics were developed in stature on the campus.

Edmund Aycock has been welcomed to Raleigh as a member of the farm group at Wachovia Bank, joining the staff of Wayne Corpening.

Lemuel Goode is receiving acclaim by sheep men for having developed a new type of polled Dorset sheep. The Dorset breed is becoming of greater importance in this state since sheep growing is on the increase and the livestock folks look for this new breed to fill a real need. The polled characteristics have been fixed by careful breeding.

A.C. Kimrey, retired dairy specialist, is honored by his three sons in the establishment of the $300 scholarship to State College. The scholarship is available to those 4-H Club boys interested in dairy husbandry, and was awarded to W.J. Lindley Jr. of Alamance County as the first winner. "Joe Billy" is a member of the Eli Whitney 4-H Club and one of the leading club members in his home county.

It’s easy to see why Charlie Jackson of Person remains in the heavyweight class. Recently he and Tom Hobgood, fellow assistant agent, stopped by the home of the Archie Denny’s at dinnertime and allowed themselves to be persuaded to stay for the meal. "We consumed a round of fresh vegetables, corn bread, meats and then topped it all off with strawberries and ice cream," Charley says, and we likewise expect him to just happen to be at the same farm again about meal time in the very near future.

John Wrinn tells of a wonderful remuda owned by V.T. Watkins of Macon County and thereby sent this editorial staff on a mad rush to their Websters.

Here’s a bet you didn’t know either. On Washington’s birthday, Tom Brandon of Martin County had been a county agent for 37 years, 4 months, and 23 days and for that day he called a farm meeting. He sent cards to those supposed to be there. He announced the meeting four times on his radio program, and he had a piece in the Williamston Enterprise. Not a soul showed up but Tom.

Our manners to Florence Cox and Mary Harris as they assume their new duties as district agents in the eastern and western districts respectively. And at this writing, Mrs. Mary Lee McAllister, southeastern district agent, is seriously ill at Monroe.

A worthy tribute to W.H. Darst, veteran seedsman, first man to be presented with the bronze plaque of the North Carolina Crop Improvement Association for services in promoting the production and planting of certified crop seeds in North Carolina.

Furney Todd is new specialist in plant diseases; W.L. Turner, new man in public affairs extension; Miss Josephine Cusick, new specialist in home and farm development approach; D.G. Harwood Jr., new specialist in farm management; and W.Glenn Tussey, new cotton marketing specialist…all well-trained and hard workers.

Seventy-one successful livestock schools held this past winter, says Jack Kelley.

Sam Dobson talked pastures and grazing crops at the dairy schools and believes he reached about as many dairymen with one television appearance over WUNC-TV as he did at all the schools.

Dean I.O. Schaub’s informal history of the Experiment Station is being well received over the state and nation…a good job, prepared with the Dean’s usual efficiency, and done with that personal touch which this master of agricultural education can give so efficiently.

Mrs. Hattie Smith credits us with 3,718 newspaper recoveries for March with the $-H Clubs and Club Week heading the list with 1,304 clippings. Did you see Joe Powell’s latest photo adorning the pages of the Smith-Douglas house organ as the editors attempted to answer the question, "What is a county agent?" Certainly they could have found no better answer.

A great meeting of the North Carolina Negro Home Demonstration Council in Raleigh on March 30 when more than 3,000 leaders gathered in the city’s Memorial auditorium to plan their work for 1955 and to hear reports of progress from over the state. We tip our badly weathered hat to Northampton, Nash, Lee, Franklin and Watauga counties for their well-prepared books on the united farm or Challenge program in those five counties.

Orchids too go to Ralph Mills, temperamental photographer in our Visual Aids section, for being selected as its "Tarheel of the Week" by Raleigh’s morning paper, Bill Humphries’ News and Observer.

News comes from Alamance that C.F. "Chick" Parrish has instituted a new baby sitting service in the Poultry Extension Office. Chick himself is quite adept at the job, said one Alamance mother who attended the poultry school at Graham.

Walter Kulash authors a comprehensive review of work being done with insecticide-fertilizer mixtures in Farm Chemicals for March. The furrow matched this with an interesting summary of J.C. Brown’s news material on the successful North Carolina Nickels for Know-How campaign last fall.

So glad you enjoyed Easter…We did, too.

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