Miner Home From the Far West Claims There's Gold, Silver, Copper in Western North Carolina, 1926

The Polk County News, Tryon, N.C., “Published Every Week in the Mountain Paradise,” Thursday afternoon, June 17, 1926. At the top of the banner: Tryon Has a Year Round Climate Equal to the Riviera.

Precious Metals in Our Hills…Veteran Miner Sees Rich Future for Western North Carolina

Chimney Rock, N.C., June 16—It is a generally admitted fact that Western North Carolina is rich in natural resources, such as water power and forest products, but few people know of the wealth in gold, silver and copper ore which abound in rich veins running on or near the surface of the mountains in certain sections of Buncombe, Rutherford, Yancey, Madison and McDowell counties, as does Andrew T. Guthrie, veteran miner, who recently has been prospecting in this section.

Mr. Guthrie, who is now making headquarters in Asheville, a few days ago returned from a prospecting expedition which took him into parts of five counties. He brought back numerous samples of ore which he declares are absolute proof that this section is amazingly rich in precious metals.

North Carolina papers some time ago stated that Mr. Guthrie was born in Buncombe County in 1853, leaving his native state in early manhood for the far west. He spent 47 years mining and prospecting in different localities from the Mexican border up to the Canadian boundary line. Mr. Guthrie states that he returned to this section about six months ago intending to stay only a short time, but finding that his native state offers better prospects for gold and silver than he found in most places during his prospecting of nearly half a century in the far west, the veteran digger is very enthusiastic in his recent finds, so much so that he goes out day after day, paying his own expenses, backed up only by his firm belief in the mineral wealth of this section, and usually brings back with him real specimens as proof of his statements.

“I don’t ask anybody to make my word for a thing I say,” said Mr. Guthrie. “Right here’s the stuff to prove it,” pointing to numerous specimens of ore that lay on the table before him. Some of these were obtained from the Rees Creek section, and Mr. Guthrie states that $40,000 a ton is a conservative estimate of its possible yield of silver.

Coping With Food Shortage Caused by War, 1917

“Food Emergency Problem for All,” from the High Point Review, June 7, 1917

Raleigh—John Paul Lucas, executive secretary of the North Carolina Food Conservation Commission, in reviewing the food situation in this state gave out a lot of good advice in his suggestions of ways every person can help improve the food situation.

Mr. Lucas wrote as follows:

Too many of our people are regarding the food emergency, which is really just in its incipiency, as a problem for the farmer, the trucker, their neighbor or someone else more or less remote from themselves. There is something of the spirit of “Let George do it.” Fortunately, this spirit has been rapidly disappearing and it is not too much to hope that all the people of North Carolina will quickly realize that, while the farmers’ responsibility and opportunity are greatest possibly, each person has an individual duty and responsibility.

A large number of people who realize their individual responsibility have asked themselves and others, “What can I do?” In answer to this question and for the information of others who may have given the matter no thought I am giving below a list of recommendations that are being made to farmer, housewife, gardener and citizen generally. I can think of no one in any position or condition to whom some of these suggestions are not applicable. Here they are:

Cultivate and fertilize every available foot of tillable land that you can possibly take care of. Cultivate more carefully and fertilize more heavily than under normal circumstances.

Put stubble land in corn, soy beans, peas, potatoes, or sorghum as soon as the grain is off. Here lies one of our greatest opportunities for increasing the acreage of food and feed crops.

Where there is a poor stand of cotton, replant with soy beans or peas. Also plant these crops in corn.

Save all the clover and vetch seed possible. Both are going to be unusually scarce and high priced. Vetch can e threshed with oats or by themselves. If you don’t know how to harvest clover seed, write the U.S. Department of Agriculture for Farmers’ Bulletin No. 656.

Breed all sows and gilts for fall pigs and be sure to raise sufficient feed for them—in the form of pastures principally. Raise meat not only for your own demands but for the market. Prices are sky-high.

Raise all the chickens you can, whether you live in the country or in town. Shut up the cocks and cockerels and preserve your surplus eggs in water glass solution.

Raise and eat all the fresh vegetables you can and can all the surplus you can’t eat. See that every glass jar is filled with vegetables and fruits and if you still have surplus, buy more jars and cans.

Don’t throw away scraps of meat and fat. Use meat in soup, hash, croquets, and fats for frying and shortening.

Cook potatoes in the peel. Tests have shown that 20 per cent is lost when potatoes are peeled before cooking.

Don’t waste bits of bread. Use them in puddings or in dressings for meat.

Don’t despise skim milk and buttermilk. They have a high food value and are generally cheap. Use them largely, especially for children.

See that all labor as well as foodstuffs is properly used. The farmers are handicapped for lack of labor. The people of town and city must see that available labor of men and boys is offered to the farmers. This service is just as patriotic and effective as that of the boys who don their uniforms and shoulder their rifles.

Walter Bickett Thanks Dear Old Union County, 1916

“Card From Hon. T.W. Bickett,” from the Friday, June 16, 1916 issue of The Monroe Journal—“The Union County Paper—Everybody Reads It”

To the folks at home: In the Bickett column “Sweet Union” leads all the rest. In royal fashion she stood by her native son, and that son can never forget the tribute of love for him and his people—most of whom have passed over the Great Divide. God bless dear old Union! May she prosper in basket and store, and may her hard-working, debt-paying, God-fearing citizenship continue to be an asset and an inspiration to the State.

                --Walter Bickett

Eight-Year-Old Dick White Catches 3-Foot Shark at Murrell's Inlet, 1926

The Polk County News, Tryon, N.C., “Published Every Week in the Mountain Paradise,” Thursday afternoon, June 17, 1926. At the top of the banner: Tryon Has a Year Round Climate Equal to the Riviera.

Rock Hill Youth Gets Three-Foot Shark on Coast

Rock Hill, S.C.—Fishermen in this vicinity will put the soft pedal on their tales of prowess when they learn of the achievement of a youthful disciple of the redoubtable Ike Walton, Dick White, 8-year-old son of Mrs. Eva Moore White of Oakland Avenue, who has added to his list of achievements the landing of a three-foot shark.

The “catch” was made at Murrell’s Inlet, where the lad with his mother and other relatives have been spending several days. On Thursday the boys went out in a small boat with an old colored fisherman as guide and chaperone. When the “bite” came it took the combined efforts of the group to haul in the surprising catch. The shark belonged to the shovel-horse breed.

Support School Superintendent, Praise Maude McCullough, Support Local Hospital, 1925

From the editorial page of The Carolina Mountaineer, Waynesville, N.C., June 4, 1925; Wm. A. Band, editor-owner.

The Carolina Mountaineer is firmly backing up the new superintendent of schools of Haywood County. We consider that Mr. Allen’s exceedingly well qualified for the office he now has. His life work has been for the cause of education. He is earnestly working to build up the school system of this great county and if he is given the proper cooperation we believe he will succeed in giving this county the greatest, most progressive and enduring school system that will make it the finest in America.

Petty bickering, lack of co-operation, personalities, and dissention among the members of our school officials can only lead to chaos.

For the sake of Haywood County’s greatest asset—our children—back up our superintendent and give the future leaders of our state and nation a fighting chance by an education. We cannot be too extravagant for the great cause of education.

Honor to Whom Honor Is Due, Miss Maude McCullough

In November, 1923, the County Board of Education secured the services of a woman to fill a three-fold job in the office of County Superintendent. She was to be stenographer, bookkeeper and filing clerk.

The increase in the number of schools in the county, in the necessity and importance of keeping records and statistics as authorized by the State Department of Public Instruction and likewise, the increased demand upon the superintendent’s time for inspecting and directing the schools in other words, the tremendous growth in the educational system made it impossible then, as it is even more so now, for the county superintendent to intelligently look after the schools and keep up his office work. To conduct the latter work, with the superintendent absent a greater part of the time from the office, returned not only a person of sound business experience and ideas, but one of expert ability as an accountant and bookkeeper. Another feature of additional responsibility was that just at this time the State Department was making new requirements of this county office. The correct initiation of these meant economy and efficiency for the future, provided those in control of school administration Haywood County chose to disregard partisan and other political considerations and direct our schools along the lines of service.

As things have turned out the County Board of Education at that time must have been especially inspired, when they chose Miss Maude McCullough to fill the job. She has proven herself to be a perfect dynamo of efficiency in the manner in which she has conducted the office since assuming charge. All requirements made by the State Department have been met in the systems used. Mr. Frank Edmundson, Director of the state of a uniform system of bookkeeping for all counties, stated after inspecting her books that they were the best kept in North Carolina.

There were no tangles in her records to be unraveled. And yet for this expert service Haywood County has had to pay only $1,800 a year. A bargain and economy at that. Miss McCullough has not only given the highest type of service to her position, but through her vision and enthusiasm has given inspiration in education in our county.

Benefit Picture for Haywood County Hospital

In courtesy to the Waynesville Civic League, Capt. Edwards will give the wonderful picture Scaramouche at the Waynewood Theatre Friday, June 5^th, as a benefit for the Haywood County Hospital. Those who have not seen this high price picture will have an opportunity to see it as the popular price of 30 cents. The leading parts are taken by Alice Terry and Ramon Novarro, and their characterization of the persons they represent is superb.

Everyone will co-operate and make this occasion a huge success for our worthy hospital that means so much to the county.

Music Education Is a Necessity, 1916

“The Dust of Monroe,” from the June 16, 1916 issue of The Monroe Journal.

The public demand for music, it seems, has made it almost a necessity in our daily lives, and just how much it benefits would be impossible to tell. Think of its influence in the home, providing pleasure and recreation for us, inspiring and stimulating ambitions, reforming disposition and ennobling character.

The church could scarcely exist without it. What is more inspiring and truly uplifting? “It is as religious naturally as a breath from heaven, as pure as a flake of wafted snow ere it touches the earth.

What stimulates our patriotism and idealizes our country more than our national and state hymns? Could a true American listen to Dixie and not hurrah with applause? What is likely to make a child a true American more than the singing of national hymns? Every Canadian school child has sung “God save the Queen (or King) every school day of its life. This fact alone would keep Canada from ever joining the United States.

If music then has such an influence over the home life, the religious life, the national life, surely it must have over the intellectual life.

Education does not help our child only to find what is beneficial through life—not simply in earning a living or making money—but in wisely using it, and in being the most service in life. Real education is the education that stimulates to a most useful life—this is the key to success.

The man who is not useful is a menace to himself, to society and to the world. The woman who is not useful is a menace to herself, to womanhood, to man and to all life with which her own life comes in contact. We should not only be useful but know that we are useful. What little boy’s heart doesn’t throb with a thought of usefulness when he brings father’s slippers after a day of toil? What little girl’s face does not glow with the thought of helping mother, after she has washed the supper dishes? It is not just the doing but knowing that we are useful, to feel that some one needs us, that some thing is better because of us, and that the work we do would be missed were we to neglect it.

These are the qualities that fit our boys and girls for life. The school that best helps to form character, not the one that imparts the most information, is the school the present should demand. The chief mission of schools some 50 years ago was to teach children to read, write and cipher. Play was considered a big waste of time in children.

The magnifying of the three R’s will drive all life and spirit out of any child. You’ve heard of the little boy who prayed all night that he might wake and find his school house reduced to ashes. He wasn’t a bad boy, and he didn’t mind work, but the idea was in him that education was a kind of punishment.

Music taught in the schools, I believe, helps to correct this. Children will learn 10 times as well if the day is made bright and cheery—study made appetizing and relishing, not boring. Let’s teach the children not only to sing, but what they sing, why and how. The child should be taught the difference in music and vulgar noise. Then trashy shows and ragtime vaudevilles will not appeal to them.

I hope that we may soon have music taught in our school, organized chorus work and a school orchestra. Orchestras have been introduced in many American high schools and the introduction of the sound producing machine has done much to bring the orchestral masterpieces of the great music thinkers nearer to our children.

Let’s have more music in our schools if it is the noblest inspiration, the most brilliant art, if it makes us more devout, more patriotic, more intellectual, more inspired for good and useful lives.

Let’s begin the school day with music. It will surely breathe a religious spirit into the entire day. Let’s intersperse the literary work by singing “America,” “Star Spangled Banner,” “Dixie” and our state hymns. Then let’s encourage the need of a sound producing machine in our school, so that our children may listen to and grow to love the masterpieces of master minds like Handel, Wagner, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven, the story of whose lives are more fascinating than Napoleon or Caesar.

                --L.A.L.

4-H Congress, Agricultural Labor Shortage, Soybeans, New Cheese Factory, 1917

From the High Point Review, June 7, 1917. Agriculture club work became 4-H clubs in North Carolina, and A. and E. College is now North Carolina State University. The Extension Division and the Office of Farm Management are part of the University.

Raleigh—Fully 500 members of the boys’ agricultural clubs of the state are expected here for the boys’ and girls’ short course in agriculture to be given at the A. and E. College from august 21 to 24.

Plans are under way by the office of agriculture club work to make one of the most determined efforts yet made by the Extension Service to instruct, entertain and inspire the youthful farmers who will attend this meeting.

Last August over 350 members of the agricultural clubs visited the college for the short course, and it is estimated that over 500 will be on hand this year. A special effort will be made to show the importance of food and feed production to the ones who will come, and the course of instruction will be along these lines. The only charge will be the cost of the three meals for the four days and the reduced transportation charges. Rooms will be furnished free by the college.

The Corn Club enrollment is continuing to grow says A.K. Robertson, corn club agent. The county agents over the state are responding almost daily with additional names of young boys who desire to assit in the production of more food crops. Recently, County Agent Morris of Granville County sent in 14 names for the corn club, bringing the county enrollment up to about 60. This is a gratifying showing as this county is one that is devoted almost entirely to tobacco production.

Caswell County is another where tobacco is the main crop, yet it also has a splendid enrollment of 70 members growing corn, peas and beans.

County Agent Graeber of Mecklenburg and Proffitt of Rutherford both have good enrollments and write that the members are all hard at work and that the prospect for their crops are fine.

Stanly County continues to lead in the corn club work, with a total enrollment of 196 boys and as many acres of corn. In this county, Mr. S.J. Lewis is getting good results with his boys, as well as with his adult cooperators.

Mr. J.E. Moses of the Pig Club work has just received a letter from one of his enthusiastic pig club members telling of the profits of pig raising. “I have sold two more pigs for $7 apiece, which is $14, and the same man brought a sow here to be served,” says the boy, David Worth, who lives in Wake County. “The fee was $2.50 and $1 for feed. When all put together it will be $18 more in the bank. Don’t tell me that there isn’t any money in the hog business because I know there is.”

Solving State Labor Problem

The county demonstration agents in North Carolina will be used for the purpose of bringing the farmer and the laborer together and solving the serious labor situation which confronts the state. The clearing house for all such information will be the office of farm management of the Agricultural Extension Service at West Raleigh.

The North Carolina State Food Conservation Commission in co-operation with the State Agricultural Extension Service, has arranged for the farm demonstration agents in their respective counties to ascertain from farmers their need for additional labor in producing food and other crops. Also for recording labor available for such purposes, and to bring farmer and laborer together.

If the farmer wants extra help, he should communicate the fact to the demonstration agents with a statement as to the length of time the help is wanted, the purpose for which it is to be used, and the wages he is willing to or expects to pay. Parties desiring work on farms should notify the demonstration agent stating when they will be ready to begin work, what kind of work they can do, for how long a period they wish employment, and what wages they expect.

In counties having demonstration agents, requests for labor needed and for work or employment wanted should be sent directly to the Office of Farm Management, West Raleigh, from where the effort will be made to put the farmer and prospective laborer in touch.

By taking up this work neither the demonstration agents in the respective counties nor the state farm management man guarantees to get labor for the farmer nor employment for the laborer, but they do agree to use their best efforts in these lines.

Soy Beans Good as Steak

Mr. C.B. Williams, chief of the division of agronomy, states that there is a great increase this year in acreage devoted to soy beans in North Carolina. This is as it should be, and our people should see to it that some of these beans are saved at the end of the season for food purposes.

Soy beans are much richer in protein than lima beans or sirloin steak. In fact they contain practically double the amount of protein, and the same soy beans contain about the same amount of fat or oil that is contained in a sirloin steak and more than 10 times the amount of oil in lima beans. Dr. W.A. Evans, president of the American Public Health Association, has stated that for men who are engaged in hard manual labor, where they burn up a lot of their tissues in the effort, will find soy beans as suitable as steak as a fuel.

To prepare this nutritious food, soak the beans in a 10 per cent common salt solution over night. Then drain off the salt water and roast the beans in an oven or a peanut roaster. Exercise great care that the beans are not scorched, as this would impart a bitter taste to the beans. Remove when the cotyledons begin to turn brown. For other recipes, write to C.B. Williams, Extension Division, A.& E., Raleigh, N.C.

New Cheese Factory

Despite the fact that the factories are paying nearly twice as much this year for the milk as they did last, cheese factories are apparently thriving in Western North Carolina, a charter having been granted by the Secretary of State to the Silver Stone Co-Operative Cheese Factory at Vilas in Watauga County.

Last year the factories in Watauga County paid a flat rate of 10 cents per gallon for whole milk used in the manufacture of full cream cheese. This season they are paying 20 cents per gallon for milk.