The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1900-08-28

valuation OF farm lands in our State
according to the Auditors report is
not where the soil is most fertile
naturally not in Halifax, Edgecome,
Hyde, Craven, Northampton, but in
Durham, CASTOR, Alamance, Meek
lenburg and Buncombe, where a
large proportion of the population is
not engaged in producing food, but
in buying and consuming.
It is common to hear lamentations
and even abuse, because so many of
Eour people are moving from the
country to cities and towns. This
may not be always beneficial to the
mass. but it is decidedly helpful to
those who remain in the country and
cultivate the soil. Every person that
moves from the farm to the. factory,
to the city, to the town, decreases
the number of food producers and
increases the number of food con
sumers. He thus adds to the mum
Der of buyers on the market, and
helps raise the price. If four-ffths
of the population of North Carolina
were engaged in industries not agri-
cultural, only one-fifth remaining
agricultural, that fifth, having I'M
limited markets for all their produce.
would be twice, thrice or four times
as prosperous as they are today and
far more independent than jewellers
in cities and towns.
The future of our State depends
very largely, I might almost say de-
ponds largely, upon the building up
of manufactures and the growth of
cities and towns; for, until this is
done, we shall have no home mar
kets, but shall be forced to rely alb
solutely upon cotton, corn, wheat,
oats, tobacco and other staple crops,
in competition with the more fertile
soils of other States. We can COM
pete with these only by producing
staple crops as surplus and by grad
ually raising the fertility of our soil
until it equals theirs. It will re-
quire time to increase the fertility
of our soil. Until we have abundant
local markets, we shall be forced to
raise staple crops, not as a surplus,
but as sole crops. Our first and
chief hope, therefore, is in the build
ing up of local markets. We should
hail with satisfaction every increase
in our urban population, hoping for
the advent of the time when all
North Carolina farmers, like those
of New England, will be within
sound of the locomotive or the mill
whistle. (.
We have in North Carolina every
facility for the production of wealth.
Our soil is poor, but it can be made
richer. I think it a moderate state
ment to say that the average yield
per acre of every crop now raised in
North Carolina, within 25 years, by
a system of intense cultivation, of
rigid economy, of intelligent applica-
ton of scientific principles, may be
at least doubled. The productivity
of the soil of England has been more
than doubled in the last hundred
years. This, too, although the yield
one hundred years ago was quite
large, twice as large as that of North.
Carolina to-day. Our climate is the
best on the Continent, a golden mean
between the cold of the North and
the heat of the South. We have a
regular succession of seasons, album
dant rain fall, plenty of ever-fowing
rivers and streams, with sufficient
variety of soil and temperature, ex-
tending from our high mountain
ranges to the ocean, to enable rs to
produce every article of food essen
tial to human comfort and enjoy
ment. If our State had a popula-
ton of five millions, we could feed
them entirely at home and give them
not only all the comforts but all the
luxuries that can be purchased by
milionaires. =
Our mineral reiources are vast and
varied. Our trucking region is
large and growing. Our fish areas
are the best on the Atlantic Coast.
Our health resorts for summer, for
winter, for consumptives, rheumat-
les, dyspeptics and victims of other
maladies, r close to the great cities
of the Continent and uneqqalled in
in the variety and the extent Of their
attractions and advantages. Our
forests can furnish timber for every