Farm Trucks in North Carolina and Other States, March 10, 1920

From the University of North Carolina News Letter, Chapel Hill, N.C., March 10, 1920

Farm Trucks in North Carolina

There are 50,000 motor trucks in the farm regions of the United States, owned by farmers and used for farm purposes alone, not counting trailers, or trucks used for general custom hauling or on regular established routes. So reports the Weekly News Letter of the federal Department of Agriculture, February 25, 1920. The table printed elsewhere in this issue is valuable mainly as an indication of the general distribution of such motor trucks.

The farmers of North Carolina own 1,450 motor trucks. The farmers of only 14 states own such trucks in larger numbers, and only two of these are southern states, Georgia and Texas. The Lone Star state owns some 200 farm trucks more than North Carolina, but it is five times larger.

In the ownership of motor trucks the farmers of North Carolina rank right along with the farmers of the rich states of Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

Here is a comforting indication that North Carolina is moving rapidly ahead in power machinery in farm regions; that she is moving up out of hand-farming on a small scale into machine farming on a large scale. We say comforting, because intensive crop-farming with expensive human labor equipped with hand tools can never compete in net profits and accumulated wealth with expansive farming on larger areas cultivated by abundant horse and machine power.

Herein lies the explanation of why the Carolina farm worker in 1919 produced gross crop values averaging only $828 as against $1,335 in Iowa and $1,431 in Nebraska. While the net profits in the farm regions of these middle western states are maximum, the net profits in North Carolina and other cotton and tobacco states are minimum.

Hand labor is expensive; its profits are largely consumed in the processes of production. In crop-lien areas in average years expensive time-credit consumes pretty near all the net profits long before the crops are harvested.

Motor Trucks for Farm Uses

Alabama, 847

Arizona, 95

Arkansas, 721

California, 1,019

Colorado, 804

Connecticut, 357

Delaware, 100

Florida, 380

Georgia, 1,808

Idaho, 329

Illinois, 2,261

Indiana, 1,548

Iowa, 2,773

Kansas, 1,732

Kentucky, 818

Louisiana, 310

Maine, 435

Maryland, 596

Massachusetts, 661

Michigan, 1,636

Minnesota, 1,255

Mississippi, 957

Missouri, 2,065

Montana, 359

Nebraska, 2,939

Nevada, 41

New Hampshire, 283

New Jersey, 862

New Mexico, 104

New York, 3,171

North Carolina, 1,450

North Dakota, 501

Ohio, 2,261

Oklahoma, 723

Oregon, 369

Pennsylvania, 2,760

Rhode Island, 152

South Carolina, 1,190

South Dakota, 1,708

Tennessee, 978

Texas, 1,668

Utah, 173

Vermont, 282

Virginia, 1,128

Washington, 682

West Virginia, 465

Wisconsin, 1,465

Wyoming, 174

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