The Bulletin. ^ 



surpassed by any State in the South and hardly equaled by any State in 

 the Union. The farmers of North Carolina have been behind this good 

 roads movement ever since its inception, thus showing the progressive 

 spirit which pervades the agricultural classes of this State. 



Telephones. 



In addition to our superb transportation facilities, rural telephones 

 are found everywhere, thus putting the farmer in immediate communi- 

 cation wdth the markets of iiis own locality and with those of distant 

 localities at a cost ranging from seventy five cents to $1.00 per month. 



EDUCATION. 



In North Carolina, as in every other state, education — agricultural 

 education — lies at the foundation of all good and successful farming. 

 The ignorant man can no longer "farm if he can do nothing else." The 

 needs of the increasing population and the demands of refined taste 

 require that not only a greater acreage production, but that a finer qual- 

 ity of product be placed upon the market, and this can be done by intelli- 

 gent farming only. Poor lands cannot make high average acre-yields and 

 rich lands can not produce fine quality when manipulated by unskilled 

 hands. Regardless of the yield per acre, there is no land so poor as 

 that of the ignorant farmer, and none so rich as that of the man who 

 knows how to manage his soils. 



Gold mines and phosphate beds are but barren waste to the man who 

 knows nothing of what is beneath the surface, while they are rich 

 treasures to the man of trained mind and skilled hand. Less than forty 

 years ago "Old Eed Mountain" in Alabama was given "to boot" in a 

 horse swap. Since then the vast deposits of iron ore stored away in those 

 hills have built Birmingham and rolled millions upon millions of dol- 

 lars into the coffers of the ironmasters. Why did not the original 

 owner get a fortune out of these rich deposits of ore? And so it has 

 been with the owners of many poor North Carolina farms. Hundreds 

 of "old worn-out farms" have been sold or given to boot, as it were, 

 by the erstwhile owners, who, failing to properly understand the local 

 conditions and the possibilities of their acres, could not even support 

 themselves and their families. The buyers, knowing the intrinsic value 

 and nature of the soils, took the farms in hand for a nominal sum and 

 have made a fortune where the original owners made a failure. The 

 ones with their families are, perhaps, operatives in some cotton mill, 

 while the others, with their families, are veritable lords of the land, 

 using the cotton mill town as a market for their produce. 



The locomotive existed in the mind of the inventor long before it 

 stood upon the track. The statue always exists in the mind of the 

 sculptor long before it emerges from the stone. So it is with the agri- 

 cultural artist and the agricultural manufacturer. His ideal pork, beef, 

 milch and draft animals, his maximum corn, wheat, and cotton crops 

 exist in his mind months before they are found in the herd or in the 

 field. The most fundamentally important things for farmers to possess, 

 therefore, are not good land, good stock, good tools, good markets, and 

 reliable labor, but correct ideals and proper vision. No castles were 

 ever built on earth that were not first built in the air. These funda- 



