The Wilmington morning star., 1946-02-04
FUTURE
HERE UNCERTAIN
BY r. w. GALPHIN
New Hanover County Agent

AAoAO"S1 Ooellty - d IdLuc1 Del
Gus question especially to the
farming people and to the business
people in the city of Wilmington
The farmers had very little chance
during the war years to build ur
a reserve to take them over any
depression years in the future as
the OPA has put ceiling on thei1
products and not flooring taking
away the profits that they might
have had to set aside for the fu.
ture and turning it back to others
not particularly the consumers.
The labor situation at present
is very bad as it takes a lot OF
hand labor to make and harvest
crops of vegetables. We believe
however that the labor situation
will become better as time goes
on because the excess money that
has been pouring into labor will
certainly begin to pour out again
and as money becomes tight the
laborers will work better there
fore we expect to have both more
and better laborers. The price OF
down very much unless we have
another depression like we had in
1929 to 1888.
Fertilizer Outlook
We expect our fertilizers to i'm
prove as the government will turn
production back to the producers
and not try to sell fertilizer on
units rather than on quality. There
is lot of low grade materials
that will not fit well into making
high analysis fertilizer and that
carry a lot of the so called minor
elements which are greatly need
ed in this county both for vege-
tables and for livestock.
The farmers of the county have
not been experimenting in the past
several years with new vegetables
but they have done some expert
mental work on varieties of tahe
vegetables that they have been
planting in the past for instance
they have tried a variety of the
lettuce known as the Great
Lakes. This variety when it is
good is superior to anything that
they had but it appears that the
type has not been set and the re-
suits that they have received have
not always been satisfactory how.
ever as this variety Of lettuce be.
comes set it will be a great i'm,
provement over anything we have
had in the past in iceberg lettuce
which 10 one Of the major crops
in this county.
Celery Possibilities
There is some land in the county
that Is suitable for growing eel.
cry and this crop might become
a good crop as there is no celery
planted for some distance up and
down the Atlantic Coast. I believe
this area could fit well in the mar.
keting time table for celery.
AS yet the transportation by air
has not shown the farmers what
it can do for them in marketing
their crops however we well
know that beans picked today AND
eaten tomorrow are much better
than those picked and shipped
either by truck or by rail and are
several days on the road. We have
many other crops that are like
these also. The farmers outlook
for future at this time is not as
bright as it should be due to cell
ings that are put upon them t.
take away their just profit as ev
erybody is entitled to a fair profit
Of course, we hear about the Won
derful profits that farmers make
at times on certain crops but we
do not hear about the losses sus
tanned from the rest of their crops
but with work we can expect .
fair living out Of our vegetables
here in the county If we are moi
hampered too much.
Dairy Difficulties
The dairy outlook is rather diff
cult as the dairy farmer has made
nothing and in some cases have
barely gotten by. The only .hins
that kept them from going in the
red was the payment by the Fed
eral Government of a subsidy or
the milk produced. The diaries are
about all closed down except {
lew large ones. One or two new
diaries have come back into pro
duction. but we are still import
ing a large amount of our fluic
milk from other parts of the coun
try.
There is room in the county TO,
raising a small amount of bee,
cattle. This will help take care q
local consumers, and it wou;c
really be an asset to the county
if we had a few beef herds or
cutover timber lands between
SCOTS Hill and Castle Hayne
Pork Prospects
The hog population of the coun.
ty is also down and until we gel
better prices or cheaper labo,
there will not be much improve.
ment in the number of hogs II
the county. There are some how
ever, that have been fed on gar
bage and these will continue !,
be raised aslong as there is n1nct
garbage around town. These will
decrease as the garbage decre.s
es, but there will be places -
raise hogs on other products viii
out the garbage and these vii
give better class of meat. W. W.