PROGRESS IN NORTH CAROLINA AGRICULTURE 



WITH A BRIEF DISCUSSION OF 



Food and Feed Products Shipped Into North Carolina During 1911. 



BY 



J. L. BURGESS, Agronomist, 



AND 



G. M. GARREN, Assistant in Agronomt. 



STATUS OF THE FARMER. 



Forty years ago iSTorth Carolina was a good state to be "from." Now 

 it is one of the very best states in the Union to be "in." 



Agriculture in those days was frequently thought of as a hardship 

 imposed upon the unfortunates who had to "toil" the soil for a living, 

 and was in many cases looked upon as an occupation suitable only for 

 those who were either financially or mentally incapable of pursuing 

 a more popular calling. 



But a change has come. Instead of being a drudgery and a despised 

 menial occupation, as it once was, farming has within the last two 

 decades been elevated to a position having the dignity of a profession, 

 or a business, touching the intellect at every angle and taxing the mind 

 to the utmost in grappling with the problems that daily arise on the 

 farm for solution. 



Men everywhere are coming to view the business of farming in a 

 different light. They are beginning to realize that there is no occupa- 

 tion more honorable, more necessary to the welfare of the State, more 

 deserving of the best efforts and energies in man, than that of tilling 

 the soil. Indeed, it is the most noble of occupations, having been 

 divinely instituted when man was first placed upon the earth. Emerson 

 has pointed out that "The first farmer was the first man, and all his- 

 toric nobility rests on the possession and use of land." 



THE FUNDAMENTAL CALLING. 



Agriculture is the foundation of all other occupations — mining, man- 

 ufacture, commerce, etc. If we cease to plow, the miner will lay down 

 his pick ; the factory wheels will stop ; locomotives will stand cold and 

 lifeless upon the tracks; abandoned ships will decay in the harbors; 

 school children will come home to stay; church bells will cease to ring; 

 and, very soon, savages will again roam over the face of the earth. 



An ample food supply is essential to the highest moral, intellectual, 

 and physical development of the human race. All wars, whether indus- 

 trial or sanguinary, are, in their last analysis, waged over an actual or 



