G.P. Hood, G.W. Falls Hope Local Farmers Will Supply Area With Cured Meat, Oct. 29, 1921

Your advice to our farmers to save their pork reminds me that I have been trying for several weeks to secure a country ham, but all of our merchants say that it is impossible for them to secure any from the farmers in this community and they have been forced to supply the trade with hams from the pork packers of Chicago.

In Wayne County, where I was raised, it was the custom to use all of their pork; hams, shoulders, and sides as country bacon, and to sell only the back-bones, spare ribs and sausage soon after the hogs were killed. In this way their meat was placed on the market thruout the entire year and used almost entirely by the people who lived in towns of that county. This kind of meat was always in big demand and brings a good price.

North Carolina bacon, and especially hams, should have a reputation equal to if not better than Smithfield.

Yours very truly, G.P. Hood, Vice President and Cashier, Carolina Banking & Trust Company

-=-

Supplementing your most timely and valuable article in last week’s Independent I am glad to add my unqualified endorsement to your suggestions.

Pasquotank and other Northeastern North Carolina counties have increased the quantity and quality of swine production equal to that of some middle western pork producing center. |With 40 to 60,000 herds to be placed on the market during the next few months we will perhaps over supply our accessible dressed pork markets, and a great loss is likely to occur.

The farmers of this section realize that swine with soy beans, improved pastures, catch crops, and plenty of corn go hand-in-hand, and the outlook is encouraging for developing a great pork producing center, provided we are able to find a market for our product that will yield a good profit.

With our ideal climatic conditions, and soils adaptable for producing all kinds grazing crops, we are fast building up a great industry that will eventually be the greatest source of revenue for this section; therefore, to maintain and foster this great industry, markets, and packing plants must be established, and such should be developed in the heart of this great producing area. There are three sources of outlet for the pork producers of this section:

First, car lot shipments of live hogs to packers in foreign cities where much unjust discrimination is made against the farmers in peanut and soy bean territory.

Second, shipments of dressed pork to Commission merchants, small packing plants, and fresh meat dealers, where driftage, lossage and expenses absorb all profits, and a little more.

Third, curing meat on the farm. This is the most important and intelligent method for marketing, according to our present outlook, since our local demand and facilities are inadequate for the production. The home curing of pork is a good practice, and should be more extensively adopted, since good home-cured pork always has a ready market.

The cleanest meat a farmer can use is the product of his own farm, and his surplus can take the place of Chicago, Kansas City, Richmond, and others on the local market. The pork sold from this section is returned a finished product with a price attached equal to three or four times the amount received by the producer. Why not overcome this great leakage by practicing the home curing method of marketing our product and furnish the consuming public that have been unable to find a source of supply?

--G.W. Falls, Farm Demonstration Agent.

From The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, Oct. 29, 1921