In Bladen County, Community Leaders Teach Their Neighbors, 1945

By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, Raleigh, as published in the Wilmington Star on May 28, 1945


In most counties, a splendid organization of neighborhood leaders has been perfected. These are men and women who have been selected by their neighbors to carry on the educational work affecting local people. Through their county home and farm agents, they get educational material pertaining to important farm movements, and pass this on to the people of the neighborhood. In return the people tell their leaders of their needs and this is sent back up the line until it reaches the agricultural authorities of the state and nation. It’s a very good arrangement and it works.

It works especially well in Bladen County where Mrs. Lillie L. Hester has been home agent for so many years that she could well be called a veteran. She and the farm agent, R.B. Harper, are doing excellent work. Mrs. Hester says that one reason why the work in the rural home has been so outstanding is because she has the aid of the women neighborhood leaders in addition to the fine leadership supplied by her home demonstration clubs. She also has an able assistant, Jean Craven, daughter of a former farm agent and one of the pioneers in Extension.

Mrs. Hester says that the neighborhood leaders cut across the home demonstration clubs and reach people both in and out of the clubs. They attend to the affairs of their local groups and try to carry to them all the good things that they know about.

For instance, out in Bladenboro, Route 2, is Mrs. Luther Bryan, who lives in a small community of 30 families. There is no home demonstration club out there, but last year Mrs. Bryan made four different visits to all of the families to share information on food production, fat salvage, gardens and other matters. Mrs. Bryan found time to do this although there are two small children in the family and she naturally helps her husband in handling their 20 acres of cultivated land. She has taught the use of the pressure canner in the neighborhood in addition to canning 360 quarts for feeding her own family. The Bryans live in a modest brick home with a well-sodded grass lawn beautified with shrubs. To one side is the garden and flowerbeds, and to the rear are the poultry yards and the service area, including the barns and outhouses.

Over in another neighborhood, a few miles away on the same rural route, are the June Singletarys, man and wife, both neighborhood leaders and outstanding in their contributions. They also have two children, and they cultivate 120 acres of land, grow some 800 to 1,000 Hampshire Red chickens, own seven brood sows, plant grain and tobacco, and produce corn on 50 acres for feed. The Singletarys have a beautiful old country home surrounded by boxwoods which look as if they were set shortly after North Carolina was first settled. To one side is a lovely lake surrounded by giant oaks from which hang the long tendrils of Spanish moss. These two people are noted for their neighborhood efforts with better varieties of crops, poultry growing, gardening, canning, and rural electrification.

The same is true of Mrs. T.A. Butler of near Bladenboro and Mrs. Warren Gooden of Clarkton. Mrs. Gooden has done remarkable work in teaching better gardening and canning. Last year, she personally canned over 700 quarts of food for winter, including 40 quarts of fresh meat. She sells between 1,000 and 1,200 broilers each year and gives away plants and cuttings of all kinds.

Mrs. Hobson Sanderlin of Council is another of the noted and charming Bladen leaders. There are four neighborhoods in the Carvers Creek community, each with four leaders, and these have united into an organization of which Mrs. Sanderlin is secretary and C.L. Braddy is president. The people meet together at the nearby grammar school for canning lessons, for demonstrations in renovating old furniture, for studying shrubs and flowers, for garden work, and for holding suppers or engaging in any other activity which seeks to promote the welfare of the community.

Mrs. Sanderlin wrote an Easter pageant calling for a cast of some 100 people and this has been so popular that it has been presented now for six years. Even the Negro people of the community help with the pageant by supplying a well-trained choir of 50 voices. There is no one building in the community large enough to hold the crowd, and only the first comers can find seats.

Mrs. Fatima Andrews is another leader living in the Kelly neighborhood, and has been very effective in teaching her people how to can fish and fruit for winter food.

The whole idea moves along over the county in wonderful harmony. Mrs. Hester says, “I wouldn’t even try to be a home agent in this large county were it not for these splendid women who help me every day. They make the job easy.”

Anson County Farmers Raising Turkeys, 1945

By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, Raleigh, as published in the Wilmington Star, May 21, 1945


Thirty-five thousand farm poults ranging in age from 2 to 9 weeks are developing in the various brood shelters of Anson County to provide a succulent dish for many a North Carolina home come Thanksgiving and Christmas. The poults are scattered mostly among 30 growers in the White Store section, where turkey growing was started and encouraged years ago by Farm Agent Jimmy Cameron and Home Agent Mrs. Rosalind Redfearn.

Some of the poults are in ramshackle buildings covered with tar paper or in cheaply constructed houses made largely of slabs from nearby sawmills. But these are not the rule. At the other end of the scale is the elaborate brick broiler house owned by J. Leonard Tice of Marshville, Route 1, or the cinder block house owned by his kinsman, H.D. Tice.

It is a treat to visit these turkey growers in company with Jimmy Cameron and see what great hopes and fears are encompassed within the bodies of the delicate and foolish little birds.

Jimmy, let it be known here, is a successful turkey grower in his own right. He grows out about 1,000 of the birds each season on his own dairy farm near Polkton on Brown Creek. About all he has to do with them is to know that they are there when he leaves at early dawn or returns after dark. The real work is done by is energetic son, who not only plays godfather to the 1,000 turkeys but also to some 5,000 broilers and baby chicks and a herd of 40 fine Jersey heifers. Labor being what it is, young “Judge” Cameron never manages to find an idle minute except in the middle hours of the night and at odd times Sundays. Lately when there was some questions as to whether he would be more useful on this farm or in his army—the army folks told him quite candidly that he would have a much easier time in the ranks.

But County Agent Cameron does know this dairy and poultry game from the practical standpoint, and when he goes out to visit among the turkey growers, he talks as one of them.

Near Peachland, J.T. Caudle has 2,800 of the little broadbreasted bronze poults now 9 weeks of age and just ready for the range. Mr. Caudle says he would have moved them to the open ground some days ago except that it had been rainy and cold through that section for about four or five weeks. His five well-constructed brooder houses are equipped with the ever-present, wire-floored sun porch and there are about 450 birds to each house.

“My turkeys are engaged now,” he said, “but don’t think it is all velvet when the time comes to sell them. These little one here are costing me right at $40 a day for feed alone.”

Mr. Caudle has 166 acres in his farm and is growing 55 acres in grain to provide feed for the voracious appetites for his birds. Last year, he and his father and brother sold about $25,000 worth of turkeys.

Then there is young L. Huntley Jr., also of near Peachland, who has between 1,900 and 2,000 birds. Last year he sold 1,006 finished turkeys and bought the 103 acres of land on which he and Mrs. Hundley have set up their lovely little farmstead. Mr. Huntley has a killing and dressing plant ready for the next marketing season.

His sister Mattie Lou Huntley, lives on the home farm some miles away and there she and her older sister, Pauline, are raising about 1,000 birds. Miss Huntley said they sold $4,700 worth last year and saved some of the best for a breeding flock. Right now she sells eggs from which she clears about $50 a week. All of the poults on the Huntley farm were hatched from eggs produced on the farm.

The first brooding work done in this section was by Mrs. W.D. Gulledge who had a flock of 75 breeding birds about 15 years ago. She was convinced at the time that the turkey “business” would soon by overdone because so many wanted to keep a turkey hen or two.

Since that time, H.P. Tice has been keeping a breeding flock of 500 birds and last winter he built a nice cinder block laying house for the pens. This house, 100 feet long and 30 feet wide, is lighted, has roosting and nesting places. Mr. Tice planted a grazing crop in front of the house and kept his lights on all night long. He says that last January alone, he sold enough eggs to pay the total cost of the house.

It should be kept in mind that the eggs sell for about 50 cents down to 30 cents, each depending on the breed and the season. Right now, with the demand for poults at about a standstill, the eggs sell for 20 cents, wholesale.

Mr. Cameron says that some of the more progressive Negro farmers in Anson County have caught the fever and are growing turkeys. Martin Chambers has grown out 1,000 birds in a very economical way and has now turned them on range. He has been offered $2,000 for his birds as they stand but he says that he will get twice that this fall.

The whole turkey raising business in Anson County is built on quality. The growers have been buying new breeding toms from the State College poultry department each season and they have learned about good feeding, sanitation and a full finish. The poults are kept warm and comfortable until they are ready for the range and then they are moved out where there is fresh ground and plenty of grazing. They need constant attention even when on range. The growers plant Biloxi soybeans for the summer grazing and say the birds move down through a field of the beans like a horde of destroyers consuming the beans as they go. When they have finished a field, the beans first grazed are ready for them again and over they go for the second time. Along with the turkeys has come less cotton, more feed crops, and a more fertile land. The whole idea has resulted in more food for hungry consumers.

Preparing for War, 1940-1942

From Knowledge Is Power, a history of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, N.C. State University, written Dr. William L. Carpenter, head of the Department of Agricultural Sciences, and Dr. Dean W. Colvard, Dean of the School of Agriculure. The rest of this chapter is online at http://harvest.cals.ncsu.edu/applications/calshistory/chapter11.html.

Wartime activities started considerably ahead of the Japanese invasion of United States territory in December, 1941. In the United States a military draft went into effect in October, 1940. Young men were called up for a one-year period of military service. "I'll be back in a year little darling," was a popular song that fall.

Special Programs

"Farm Folk of North Carolina," stated the extension annual report, "answered the rumblings of war in 1940 with a preparedness program which included: Livestock expansion to counteract loss of world markets for other commodities; cooperation in agricultural adjustment; conservation and planning programs; canning for home security; and mattress-making for comfort and for physical and mental strength."

In 1941 agents in eight southeastern counties near Fort Bragg became involved in army maneuvers. Their assignment was to contact farmers, explain the situation, and help secure maneuver rights on their farms. Some 18,217 landowners granted rights on 2,556,000 acres of land. That fall 400,000 troops trained across the fields and among the longleaf pines.

To conduct a program of "Citizenship Training for Democracy" was another assignment handed to the extension service in 1941. This assignment was carried out through 952 discussion groups; at 570 patriotic programs, pageants, and ceremonies; and at 8,927 meetings of farmers, home demonstration and 4-H clubs, local leaders, and discussion groups.

In April, 1941, came word on a state food and feed production drive, with extension assigned a key role. It was called the "Food and Feed for Family Living" campaign.

Despite previous efforts to encourage food production, the 1940 Census of Population revealed that of the 278,000 farms in the state, 31,000 had no garden, 86,000 were without hogs, 33,000 were without a chicken of any kind, and no cows were being milked on 98,000 farms.

In October came a national campaign, with the announcement that an old campaigner, dressed in a natty new outfit, was making his rounds of every North Carolina farm home.

Often turned away, when he was known as "Live-at-Home," his rejuvenated appearance together with more power and political and economic crisis at hand, will gain him entrance into practically every home.
Now labeled "Food-for-Freedom," a campaign has been launched which will enlist the aid of farm families the country over in meeting the increasing needs of both people of the United States and Great Britain.^l

The government was asking for increased production of milk, eggs, beef and veal, lamb and mutton, corn, oats, barley, rye, hay, soybeans, peanuts for oil, and vegetables. State and county goals were established and "Extension agents led AAA committeemen in a house-to-house canvass of every farm, and the result was that every goal, with the exception of that for peanut-production-for-oil, was overpledged."

The nation's farmers were called on to produce the greatest amount of food, feed, fibers, and other vital farm materials ever taken from the land. They were called on to feed the nation and, to some extent, the people of its allies.

"As the nation slips rapidly into high gear in its all-out production effort, a clear plan is slowly coming to the front for farm people's part in the war," declared the editor of Extension Farm-News in January, 1942. "Food, fats, feed, and fiber" were the extension goals for 1942. The weather was good and acreage and yields were up. All livestock showed an increase over the year before, with milk production 21 percent greater than in 1941.

Director I.O. Schaub designated February 9 to 14, 1942, as "Victory Garden Week" in North Carolina. Throughout the war, gardens sprang up on fa!ms, along roadsides, on vacant city lots, and in front yards. For 1944 the value of home gardens in the state was estimated at $68 million.

A drive to collect iron and steel scrap came along just after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and was renewed several times during the war. By the end of the war, extension-led scrap drives had contributed millions of pounds of scrap metal, rubber, paper, and fats and grease to the war effort.

In 1943 the extension service was assigned operation of the farm labor program. Fred Sloan, promoted from district agent to state program leader in 1941, headed up this activity. It consisted of urging farmers to cooperate with each other and share their labor and machinery, recruiting migrants, and putting prisoners of war to work on the farms. In 1943,1,500 Italian prisoners harvested peanuts on 541 farms in eight North Carolina counties.

To make the labor more efficient, farmers were urged to keep their machinery in good repair, and special machinery dinics were held.

At a five-state regional conference on May 8, 1942, in Asheville, extension was given the assignment of acquainting rural people with President Roosevelt's seven-point program to control the cost of living, to be completed by June 7.

Extension's job will be to see that every rural citizen fully understands the philosophy of the program and the dangers of inflation. We will be expected to explain to farm people the situation with respect to rising prices; how the control of living costs affects them personally and limits the cost of the war; and the ways that the cost of living may be stabilized through bond-buying, taxes, price regulation, rationing, and by other measures.²

District conferences of county farm and home agents were held between May 13 and 22. The next two weeks were allotted for the completion of the educational setup in the counties and neighborhoods.

A new concept -- neighborhood leaders -- was put to use.³ Development of the concept started in September, 1941. By the end of the war, a total of 55,000 volunteer leaders had served in the state. The idea was to have one leader for every 10 farm families, or a leader within walking distance of every farm in the state. Two percent of the leaders were appointed, 55 percent were selected by farm people at county and community meetings, and 43 percent were actually elected. They were credited with leadership in the scrap metal, garden, farm machinery repair, and 4-H enrollment campaigns.

The experiment station also went "all out" in an effort to find the facts and design the specifications that would make the maximum contribution to food production in the war effort. Ninety percent of the projects were revised to answer some wartime problem. L.D. Baver, station director from 1941 to 1947 (Chapter 12), likened the farmer to the soldier and the experiment station to the designers of guns and other weapons of war. "The job of farming in war time, like the job of war itself, consists in making the most effective use of all available means -- labor, machinery, fertilizer, facts."⁴

1. "Food for Freedom Campaign," Extension Farm-News, November, 1941, p. 1. For other stories detailing extension responsibilities and activities, see Extension Farm-News from November 1941 through the war years, and the extension annual reports for 1941-1945.
2. "Extension Given Big War-Time Job," Extension Farm-News, May 1941, p. 1.
3. "Study of Two Counties Reveals Effectiveness of Neighborhood Plan," Extension Farm-News, June, 1942, p. 1; and "Final Tabulation Shows 27,281 Good Neighbors," Extension Farm-News, August, 1942, p. 1.
4. "Your Experiment Station Goes To War," Research and Farming, N.C. Agricultural Experiment Station annual report, 1942, pp. 11-13. See also "Agriculture and the War," 1943 annual report, pp. 9-11.

Farmer's Day in Mecklenburg County, 1954

From Charlotte: Spearhead of the New South! Published September, 1954, by the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce

By C.W. Gilcrist, president of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce

There was a time when rural and urban America were poles apart. They had a different conception of living, and their interests were widely divergent. Today this is no longer true.

We have seen the time when many young men left the farms for the more lucrative opportunities in the city. Today our agricultural colleges are graduating young men who operate the farms with the same scientific “know-how” as is evidenced in the chemical laboratory and the county house of trade. The modern farmer must of necessity be a business man. The stock market and the produce exchange are watched with the same interest by farmer and city dweller alike.

Charlotte and Mecklenburg have long been synonymous in interest and beliefs. As individuals we still see too little of each other.

A simple formula will help all of us, at least once a year getting together, breaking bread, learning a little, having fun. This is the purpose of Farmer’s Day to be held at the fairgrounds on September 15^th. Make your plans now to attend. You will find it a rewarding experience.

-=-

To be congratulated are Zeb C. Strawn, chairman of the 1954 Farmer’s Day, and the various committees which have worked faithfully and well in arranging this year’s event.

The fairgrounds were secured and programs printed through the efforts of B.A. Lowrance. Henry G. Newson and George Hobson were responsible for the invitations.

The farm demonstrations were arranged through Mrs. Rub Hatcher’s committee of Charlie Marcotte, M.S. Burdette, R.C. Hartley and F.O. Godley.

Allen Ashcraft made arrangements for the bar-b-que luncheon and other refreshments. Walter J. Kline and J.L. Spivey will officiate as a welcoming committee and direct traffic on the 15^th.

Gilbert Brauch, agricultural committee chairman, Sam Castleman, John D. Edmond, and Kenneth O. Hobbs are responsible for the all-important financial arrangements for the event.

To these committeemen and other members of the Agricultural Committee, the Chamber of Commerce wishes to express its sincere appreciation for their fine work.

FARMER’S DAY PROGRAM

12:30     Invocation, Rev. J.C. Jones, Newell Baptist Church

              Old-Fashioned Barbecue, Prepared by J.W. Oehler Jr.

1:15        Special Entertainment, Arthur Smith & His Crackerjacks

1:30        Introduction of special guests

                                Zeb C. Strawn, Master of Ceremonies

                                Frank H. Jeter, Agricultural Editor, N.C. State College, Speaker

2:15        Farm Machinery Demonstration, Mrs. Rube Hatcher, Project Chairman, and George Hobson, County Farm Agent

                Home Improvement Demonstration, Miss Helen John Wright, County Home Demonstration Agent

3:30        Final Drawing for Prizes

New Chemicals Help Crop and Dairy Farms, 1946

“Carolina Farm Comment” by F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, Raleigh, as published May 13, 1946, in the Wilmington Star

So many new chemicals are being prepared for use on the farm these days that it is hard for one to keep up with all of them. All sorts of preparations are being developing for the killing of weeds, for instance. Only last week, Farm Agent A.V. Thomas conducted a demonstration using chemicals to control sandspurs in a Jones County pasture.

The tests were made on E.E. Bell’s farm where the sandspurs had covered a small area. The results are not yet apparent but, if these chemicals are like others which have appeared on the farm market, they presumably make the weeds grow until they are exhausted and then die. That seems a strange way to kill a plant, but that’s the way it is.

PROVES SATISFACTORY

This new chemical, Fermate, used to prevent blue mold in tobacco plant beds seems to have done a satisfactory job. Robeson County farmers say the blue mold situation has cleared up nicely in that county. Every man who used the Fermate to control the disease this year will use it again next season. They also found that while nearly every bed sprayed with the Fermate had a little of the blue mold, it was only a light infestation, and the plants recovered quickly. The spray really controlled the trouble until the plants were ready to be set.

That seems to be the experience of most tobacco growers. The Fermate is not an absolute preventive, but it does keep the blue mold under control and so well checked that the plants are able to grow out of it without too much damage. The material is worth the price just for this good effect alone. Many of those who had trouble with the disease, in spite of spraying, perhaps did not use the material exactly as it should have been used, because many growers had to apply the spray with make-shift apparatus. It was nearly impossible to get the spraying equipment needed. Tobacco growers say they hope they shall be able to get such equipment next year.

PROTEST LOSS

It seems a shame, they say, that farmers are compelled to lose so much now because they cannot get tractors, plows, combines, and other equipment that they so badly need, all because selfish interests are holding up the production of coal and manufactured products to their own personal advantage.

Jonas Fields of Seven Springs in Wayne County has just completed the work with another chemical which he used last fall in controlling weeds in his tobacco bed. He used Cyanamid to do this and secured excellent results. All spring, while his neighbors were laboriously picking or pulling the weeds from their plant beds with their hands, Mr. Fields had practically no weeds. But he did not follow the manufacturers’ recommendations in using the chemical. Instead, he just let it remain on the top of the soil until it came time for him to plant his tobacco seed. Then he prepared the plant bed in the usual manner.

AGENTS IMPRESSED

He secured such good results that a number of top men, officials of the manufacturing company, went down to Wayne County to see for themselves. They told Farm Agent C.S. Mintz that they were very much impressed with Mr. Fields’ results. There is no doubt that this cyanamid does control the weeds. Joe Anthony, over in Wilson County, says there is no comparison as to the amount of hand labor needed where the material is used and where it is, there are no weeds. Wilson tobacco growers are progressive and they try out every good thing coming their way. Their use of the cyanamid each fall on tobacco plant beds has increased rapidly.

Still another new chemical is being tried out by eastern Carolina tobacco growers this year. This is our old friend copper sulphate or bluestone. Some growers have added a little of this bluestone to their tobacco fertilizers, particularly to dark soils, to get the effect of the copper as a fertilizing element. Preliminary tests show that the copper does add to the yield and vigor of the plant on such dark soils, but it also affects the taste of the tobacco.

GROWERS PLAN TEST

Two Wayne County growers will try one acre each with the copper suphate added to their fertilizer this year, but the material is not being recommended by Experiment Station research men.

A.M. Frazelle of Richlands, Route 1, in Onslow County, used Cyanamid on 400 yards of tobacco bed last fall to control weeds, and has had practically no weeds at all this spring, reports Charley Clark, farm agent. Right next to this treated bed, however; is another bed of 400 yards which had so many weeds that there have been practically no tobacco plants available for setting.

CUTS WEED COSTS

It cost Mr. Frazelle just about $150 to have his weeds picked from his tobacco beds not treated with the cyanamid, and, nothing where they were treated. He has invited all of his neighbors over to see the difference, an no one need ask what he plans to do this coming fall as he again selects the sites for his plant beds.

Mr. Frazelle also used the Fermate solution to spray his plant beds this spring, treating them twice each week. There was little or no blue mold on the treated beds. Those not treated were severely attacked by the disease. It seems, therefore, that all of us must learn to know and live with these new chemicals as they come along if we are to stay in the farming business.

DAIRYMEN EXPERIMENT WITH DDT

Dairymen are getting ready to use the new DDT spray to keep flies under control this summer. Charles Turner, who owns the Vine Knoll Dairy near Reidsville in Rockingham County, has just applied his first spray of DDT to the walls and windows of his milk house; and, when J.E. Foil went out there the other afternoon, not a fly could be found on the premises. In fact, such excellent control was secured that Mr. Foil has asked all the other dairymen of Rockingham County to visit Mr. Turner’s dairy and see the results for themselves.

Down in Hyde County, R.B. Stotesbury is spraying one-half of his apple orchard with a DDT solution and comparing it with his regular spray material. D.M. Swink, a neighbor, is using the material to spray his pecan grove so as to control the nut chose bearer, an insect which has been causing him considerable losses each season. J.P. Woodward, farm agent in Hyde County, says this spraying is really experimental work and is being done in cooperation with Dr. Clyde Smith, associate entomologist of the North Carolina Experiment Station.

Dr. Smith, by the way, has prepared a rather interesting little multilithed pamphlet on the practical use of DDT on North Carolina farms; and, if you would like to have a copy, let me know and I shall be glad to send one to you free of charge. Just drop a line to Frank Jeter, editor, North Carolina State College, and your copy will come immediately.

Home Demonstration Women Traveling to Ceylon, 1956

From the May 1956 issue of Extension Farm-News

Six North Carolina rural women will be delegates to the annual meeting of Associated Country Women of the World next winter. The meeting will be held in Ceylon.

Miss Ruth Current, state home demonstration agent, made the announcement.

The six Tar Heel women scheduled to attend the Ceylon meeting are Mrs. J.C. Berryhill, Charlotte, Route 8; Mrs. E.P. Gibson, Laurel Hill, Route 1; Mrs. Charles W. Gough, Hamptonville; Mrs. L.B. Pate, New Bern, Route 2; Mrs. Ralph Proffit, Bald Creek; and Mrs. Robert Starling, Greenville, Route 3. Miss Current expects to accompany the North Carolina delegation to the meeting and the group will be away from this country approximately a month.

Forced Air Removed Feed Flavors in Milk, 1948

If you are old enough, you will remember flavor changes in milk in the spring and fall, when cows switched from pasture to silage. You probably also remember the off-taste that occurred when the cows found wild onions in the spring. The following is from Research and Farming, the 1948 annual report of the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, published by N.C. State College, Raleigh

Several different types of food flavors can be removed from milk by blowing air through it, according to W.M. Roberts, F.M. Haig, and M.L. Shumaker, who have completed several trials of the new method.

The process consists of heating the off-flavored milk to 150 degrees F., and blowing filtered air through it until the flavor is removed. This usually requires from 20 to 60 minutes, depending on the intensity of the off-flavor. 

It is necessary to spray milk by circulation into the vat so that the foam which forms can be dispersed. After the flavor is removed, the milk is homogenized at 2,500 to 3,000 pounds per square inch pressure and cooled.

Practically all volatile feed flavors are eliminated by this treatment. The milk has normal keeping qualities. From 3 to 8 per cent of the water is lost by evaporation.