The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1915-05-11
RICHNESS OF LINCOLN COUNTY
BION H.
By BION II. BUTLER

trasting with the homes that have
been built by the folks who have
grown out of the earlier notions Old
houses with gardens about them that
tell Of yesterday, with big trees and
roses and sweet Williams and lilaCs
and the pOsieS our grandmOthers ia
vOred. New houses that know nothing
of the little windows and low roofs
and gables of their neighborS. Roads
that go out among wheat fields and
thrifty country places. Roads that go
down long hills and come to creeks
with big bridges.
Getting Good Roads.
Lincoln county is getting good
roads. The infection for improve
ment is at work, and presently from
one end to the other Of the county
will be highways of the most sub
stantial type. Then all signs indicate
a revolution. 1t is a kind of a pity,
but the old atmosphere Of Lincoln is
destined to give way to marked era
Of modern things. Probably the old
will always have an influence, and it
would be a mistake to do away with
the signs Of the early days. People
| like those things that tell where the
race came from. When good roads
are all over Lincoln county, and peo-
pie can come from all over the big
| common country and idle around here
over the hills and dig out the story
| of development they will come in
numbers, for romance is one of the
| spices of life that we are all after.
| Books are merely the romances set
| down on printed pages. Books are
not half so fascinating as the chapter
| that is written in disconnected para
graphs on the hill side itself. When
| you can stand on one hill and see be-
fore you the ridge where the British
held position, and where the colo
| nial troops under Colonel Locke were
arranged in the road below, where the
charge was made, where the British
fell back over the hill they had held
you begin to take some actual share
in the battle. You throw books away
and want to ramble over the fields
that for century and a half almos
have been fertilized by the blood O.
the patriots who went down that
, nation might arise.
LincOlnton is one Of the PiedmOn
, towns that will before long be the OBJ
, jective point of tourists from all owe
the United States. The good road i
> the first grade class in the study o
history. Good roads have made trave
possible and attractive over all o
Europe. When good roads have con
. whole world is aware of the pleasan
| villages like Lincolnton that aboun,
, in the North Carolina Piedmont sucl
pleasant places as this will be overrul
! all summer long with automobiles an
with strangers who are out for a fey
days or a few weeks or a summe
| vacation.
Great Farm County.
h Lincoln county is to be one Of tn
e great farm counties Of the South.
i is one of a group that has commence
), to prove up on the possibilities of tn
Piedmont hills. Lincoln is shown
t what can be done in wheat farming
= and wheat is to be staple in tn
: Piedmont North Carolina has neve
T fully realized what a wheat State th
n is to be some day. In the past whe
: wheat has been a spasmodic crop i
8 the West the South looked on it as
= crop of somewhat local importanc
: but not thing to depend on greatl.
e Much has been said in this countr
a about King Cotton. For a time Cor
e has been trying to dethrone the ol
e monarch, and corn has esta blished i
v self as a great crop i North Care
l. lima. Wheat has been too much over
IF looked. But wheat is a conner, an
will command recognition in the Stat
% in the years that are in sight, becaus
Is wheat is worth it, and because cour
T. ties like Lincoln can make Wnea
> Wheat is the great food crop for civil
Is zation. When wheat became 3 huma
N food nobody know0, but it IS like
n that for five thousand years as mar
IF men as could get it have been depent
# ing on it. Wheat has been cultivate
re SO long that the original wild grain
f. not in any place on the globe know
IS to mankind. All of civilization tn;
w can get it uses wheat for it's chief foe
,r stuff China, which lives SO largely c
,e rice, is anxious for wheat, and buys a
re she can pay for. Wheat is the stap
D. among all nations, and when anythiI
a. l. rated as of SlIDer excellence il