The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-08-01
NORTH CAROLINA'S BIGGEST ASSET

II is deyeloDed. to run the factories
there. 1t is worth three-quarters OF
a million dollars to the city every
year. 1t was the opposite OF wealth..
1t was in the way Of Transportation.
| What has changed this, making II a
| great wealth-producing power, three
quarters Of a million dollars worth
| eyery year? 1t is the education OF
the school. Don't you see Just as
it was in the case of the coal mine
Il know where there is a great BODY
Of land hat was sold at one cent an
acre three generations ago. II is helu
now. $4,000 acres, at $500 an acre.
If YOU wanted it all together, you
could not get any portion, you could
not get it all. for hat amount. What
has made the difference? The cleo
trio railroad has been built through
it, and carries out timber. Men nave
invented the sawmill with the great
flexible band saw, and have invented
the machinery by WHICH this crude
lumber may be made UP into furnl-
ture for the home, and agricultural
implements for the fields of the West
and the South. For that eaSOn It
has that value
The best illustration in North Car
trained minds is seen in the develop
ment Of wna is called the sand hill
section of North Carolina. Twenty
FIVE years ago most OF the land be-
tween Cameron and Hamlet was re-
garded as worthless and when Mr.
and bought up a large Quantity of
land, he paid for it on the basis of
pine trees growing on it, and the say
ing was that, when the trees were cut
off, the land was only good to hold
the world together" When Mr.. Page
I timber for a time the sand land was
a drug on the market, producing
nothing, but latterIy that very land,
which was regarded as worthless, has
come to produce the best grapes and
the best peaches and the best dew
berries in North Carolina, and what
would have ~astounded tho early
Scotch settlers Of that country, who
settled along the valleys and river
bottoms, it has come to be regarded
as such fine cotton land that the
farmers from Marlboro county, South
Carolina, are selling out their high
priced land and buying these old,
sand hills in North Carolina and ac-
tually growing a bale of cotton to
the acre. Our North Carolina far
mers did not, however, wait for the
South Carolina famers to do this.
They began it and their success in
duced the farmers from our sister
C%o<o 40 ooroo hnrN no o,1f;yofo fhtS
land, nee thought not to be worth
cultivation.
AS the State more and more edu-
Gates it's people it will train more
men to be dissatisfied with a quarter
Of a bale OF cotton to the acre, with
seeing the waters run idly to the sea.
with using hand tools instead Of mod
ern agricultural implements and with
other methods that bring too small
a return. Education disgatisfes
peopls-it gives them a divine dis
content 1t adds to their wants, in
creases their desires and they are ne
longer satisfied to have only the things
they earn with their own hands. They
wish to earn more and therefore they
employ l~abor-saving measures and
make two blades Of grass grow where
one formerly grew. They get out
Of an acre of land more than they
could get before they understood its
chemistry and applied the right sort
Of fertilizer. North Carolina has
not appreciated early enough the
truth hat education is wealth. The
fact that we have built a new schoOl
that We are getting to value educa-
ton because Ne are putting our
money in it. A man does not put
his money into a thing he doesn't be
lieve in and North Carolina has