State Health Nurse Checks Cleveland County Students, 1922

A state board of health nurse inspects students at a Cleveland County school, March 1922. (From UNC-Chapel Hill’s Learn NC, online at http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/13041). The photo taken by Ellis Studio in Shelby is part of the Dr. George M. Cooper Photograph Collection, PhC.41, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC.

Lee County Agent's Week, 1948

From the April 1948 issue of Extension Farm-News, a monthly newsletter sent from N.C. State College to state Extension Service employees

From the notes of K.S. Harmon, Lee County’s Extension Agent, for the week of March 8 through 13, 1948:

A lot of talk about recent weather, impatient farmers talking on street corner, a bale of hay in the trunk of a farmer’s car. A family milk cow staked out in a barren corn field. Farmers seeding lespedeza and applying top-dressing to small grain. A few farmers wanting to fertilize their pastures, wishing for potash. A new alfalfa producer tickled pink over the early spring growth of his prospective hay crop. A farm woman buying garden seeds, and, of course, some flower seed. Hundreds wanting to know what kind of hybrid corn to plant. Last minute signing of AAA farm plans. Ladino clover pastures looking fine, especially the ones with fescue. A lot of curiosity and interest in the Soil Conservation field day planned for March 26.

Hens Vs. Gardens; Pot Wins

From the Asheville Citizen, April 26, 1943

COLLEGE STATION, Raleigh—Victory gardens have been asking the extension service at N.C. State College for all kinds of information about vegetable growing, including that on bugs, blisters, and blights which attack their crops, but Editor F.H. Jeter was “stumped” today when he received a request on how how to fight—the neighbor’s chickens. There is no publication available on this subject.

The woman explained that her husband and children were anxious for a fine “victory garden” this year as she was, but that past experience showed that their gardening efforts would be in vain unless they could get some help. The minute they started planting, the chickens came over to help with the digging.

She said that she had called the attention of her neighbors to the fact that it is against the law for chickens to run at large and in the adjoining garden, but for some reason her neighbors did not seem to understand.

So in a letter to the extension service, she asks just how far she should go in explaining the law to the chickens, since she had failed so utterly with her neighbors. She said that she felt sure that if the chickens could only understand the law and the serious need for more fresh vegetables, they would remain on their own premises.

Jeter sent her directions for cookery, including the various methods preparing chickens for the table.

Will a Recipe Do? 1943

From the Greensboro News, April 9, 1943

RALEIGH, April 8—(AP)—A gardening question stumped the agricultural extension division of State College today.

The gardener, a woman, wanted to combat the neighbor’s chickens. Editor F.H. Jeter of the extension division’s publications, had to admit he didn’t have a booklet on the subject.

But he sent her a cook book.

Mr. Balance and His Pigs Featured in Progressive Farmer, 1943

From the Fairmont Messenger, April 8, 1943

The March issue of The Progressive Farmer carried an article by F.H. Jeter, editor of State College Extension Service, featuring Mr. Cutlar Balance of St. Paul’s Route 2, and a few of the fine pigs on his farm. The article was accompanied by a picture of Mr. Balance and his pigs.

Mr. Balance, Mr. Jeter say, is probably North Carolina’s leading breeder of Poland China hogs. He is President of the State Association of Livestock Mutuals.

Dynamiting Ditches Saved Time and Money, 1946

By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, Raleigh, as published in the April 1, 1946 issue of the Charlotte News

Because of a shortage of labor, farmers are using dynamite in blowing ditches and they are saving money. Under present conditions, the dynamite gives a much quicker job and results in a saving of money because the blowing of ditches does not take but a fraction of the labor necessary in ditching by hand.

Frank Doggett, new soil conservationist of the Extension Service at State College, says that farmers in the soil conservation districts are substituting dynamite for labor in solving many tough drainage problems.

According to Doggett, District Supervisor R.C. Jordan and County Agent C.W. Overman recently assisted Cotton Bright White of the Albemarle Soil Conservation in blowing 618 feet of ditch at a cost of $96 as compared with the cost of about $400 had the job been done by hand.

The problem was to connect a lead ditch across the Welch tract of land to the main ditch of the Bear Creek Drainage District. First a permit was obtained to open a ditch across the Welch land and the job was begun.

A large spoil bank on the edge of the large main ditch was blasted through. Then holes were sunk along the proposed ditch line and loaded with 50 per cent ditching dynamite. When the workers were ready to shoot the charge, the neighbors were invited to witness and blast and about 60 gathered at a safe distance from the section where the ditch was to be blown.

With one mighty heave, roots, stumps, earth, and water were thrown high into the air and scattered over a wide area. When the spectators went in to see the results, they found a V-shaped ditch about 4 feet deep and wide across the top. The sides sloped at 45-degree angles and there was no need for any hand labor to make corrections. A complete job had been done.

White spent $90 for 500 pounds of dynamite and the cost of putting it down was $6. “Had I done this job with hand labor, I estimate the cost would have been about $400,” White said, “and where could I have gotten the labor to do it? With machinery, the cost would have been somewhat less than by hand.”

Doggett says that White and all of the farmers present were impressed by the fact that the dynamite left no spoil bank along the edge of the ditch to give trouble in the future. Such would have been the case had the ditch been constructed by hand labor.

The soil was scattered over a wide area and now water can drain into the ditch in all sections along the 618 feet. A spoil bank would prevent this.

Howard Ellis, agricultural engineer of the State College Extension Service, calls particular attention to the need for safety in the handling of dynamite because a number of accidents have occurred recently in Eastern North Carolina where most of the dynamite is being used. He suggests that farmers discuss safety measures with the county agent before they begin the use of dynamite in blasting.

Farmers' Income, 1937

From the April 1937 issue of The Nation’s Agriculture

Farmers sold $626 million worth of farm products in January as compared with $550 million in January a year ago, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics has reported.

This 14 per cent gain in income was entirely the result of higher prices and was made despite a 6 per cent decrease in the volume of sales. Prices of farm products averaged 20 per cent higher than in January 1936, with prices of grains, tobacco and potatoes showing the greatest increase. Larger receipts from apples and a number of truck crops also contributed to the month’s gain in income.