Goldsboro weekly argus., 1915-04-01

county annually for food and feed
stuffs that can be produced at home
much cheaper than they can be brought
from the West. It means that practi-
cally every dollar for which our farm
products sell must go out of the coun-
ty for commodities which ought to be
grown at home. How fast are we GO
ing to accumulate wealth in the rural
districts as long as this goes on?
Wayne County produces annually crops
which are worth about three and a
half million dollars. The county has
a total accumulated wealth of about
eleven and half million dollars, or a
per capita country wealth of only $751;
This represents the amount of wealth
the farmers have saved from their big
crops in over two hundred years.
Permanent farm prosperity cannot
be reckoned in wealth produced; it
must be reckoned in wealth retained
The farm wealth produced by cotton
and tobacco under a tenancy system,
as we have it, disappears out of the
community as though by evaporation
over night. Neither producers, land
lords, nor supply merchants are able
to hold 1t. 1t slips through their fin
gers for the most part in some sixty
days, and goes to enrich the ends of
the earth.
The accumulated wealth is the ma
terial basis Of wel1-being and progress.
Upon it depends the self-sustaining,
self-protecting, self-elevating ability
Of the community. Improved public
highways, attention to public health
and sanitation, home comforts, con-
farms with sufficient operating capital
are distinctly related to the accumu-
lated wealth OF the community. It is
the source of support for the schools
and churches, law and order. Now
home-raised food and feedstuffs are re-
lated to the accumulation of farm
wealth in farm communities. It is
commonly supposed that it is an exer-
else of judgment and good business to
raise cotton and tobacco, and buy farm
I
strangers from other counties and
states. But the county of North Caro-
lima that heads the list in per-capita
wealth of country population is Allie
ghany; and Allegheny raises very little
tobacco and no cotton. It per-acre
yield is $4.S3 as against $22.S4 for
Wayne; yet its per-capita wealth for
the country population is $500 as
against 1881 for Wayne. Allegheny is
a cerea1-producing hay and forage,
and 1ive-stock-raising county.
i Wayne County will always need to
u grow cotton and tobacco; but while 1t
is growing these, our barns and bins
} pantries and cribs, ought to be filled
} with home-raised food and feedstuffs
: Otherwise the accumulation of COM
munity wealth in our country regions
/ is we'll nigh impossible.
. We have said that Wayne is want
: ing in its home-raised food supplies
but in order that we may see more
specifically in just what we are defc-
lent, let US give careful study to the
comparisons of what we produce an6
, what we consume of the different foot
commodities. OF meat Wayne County
: produces a small surplus. 1t needs
for its population of 35,698, 5,426, ,00t
pounds annually. 1T produces an
nual1y 6,531 200 pounds, surplus O
D 925, 900 lbs. 1t produces 155, ,237 pounds
: of butter. 1t needs annually 1,713,00t
pounds, deficit of 1867, 900 pounds
It needs 625, ,715 dozen eggs annually
1 it produces only 252, ,269 dozen, short
p age of $4,000 dozen annually. 1t pro
I duces 13s eggs per week for each per
j. son in the county. OF poultry it pro
d sons, or Per year for each person II
the county. We think of Wayne as
g great corn producing county. Well
8 it produces 645,292 bushels, and i
s consumes 1,106,292 bushels, a shortag
O of 461 900 bushels. For the work AMI
: mails in the county 1856 tons of ha
: and forage are needed. The count
o produces 800 tons, . deficit OF $50
It tons. The farmers alone Of the count
4 ,
= expend annually for feed for animal
It on the farm s70,813. Wayne count
/ produces 1886 bushels of wheat an
It nual1y on $40 acres. The populatio
IS of the county consumes annually 214
IS 1872 bushels.
1t Let us go farther with this stud
'e and see just where Wayne count
n ranks among the other SO counties {
y the state. Wayne County ranks:
i 5th In the total crop values-$3,4 ,497
n 1o3.
18th in number of Corn Club boys
4 "a.
is 9Th in hogs per thousand acres-8
of 10Th In cattle per thousand acres
3, 18th in per acre crop yield-$22.84.
le Gath in per capita food productie
So -s44.