The Bulletin. 



MARKETS. 



The greatest asset of any agricultural community is a good local mar- 

 ket. There was a time when the North Carolina farmer looked in vain 

 for a home market, but that time has passed. There was a time when 

 no one seemed to want anything we had to sell, but economic conditions 

 have so changed that nothing short of a :N'ational calamity is likely to 

 reduce the present demand for the products of the ISTorth Carolina 

 farm. 



In respect to local markets, ISTorth Carolina is unexcelled and rarely 

 equaled, by any state in the Union. We have no great metropolis 

 like Baltimore or Washington to handle the bulk of our farm products, 

 but Ave do have a large number of thriving cities — Asheville, Gastoma, 

 Charlotte, Winston, Salisbury, Greensboro, Monroe, Durham, Raleigh, 

 Wilmington, Goldsboro, New Bern, Wilson, Rocky Mount, Tarboro. 

 Kinston, Greenville, Washington, Henderson, High Point, Elizabeth 

 City, Fayetteville, and a number of others ranging in population from 

 3,000 to over 30,000 and scattered broadcast over the entire State. It 

 would be practically impossible for a farmer to locate in North Caro- 

 lina and not be within easy reach of some good home market. The 

 day is fast approaching when it will be unnecessary for the North Car- 

 olina farmer to look outside the State for a market for his staple prod- 

 ucts. This statement can hardly be called visionary when we note the 

 increase in number and kinds of manufactories within our borders and 

 the large towns and consequent good markets which necessarily attend 

 these manufacturing enterprises. New England is coming south with 

 her mills and markets. These industries are constantly calling for more 

 labor, and, since only white labor is wanted, a large percentage of the 

 white farmers that were on the farm twenty years ago are now working 

 in the mills. The former producers of farm products have been trans- 

 formed into consumers of farm products and producers of finished mill 

 products. In other words, the mills have collected men, women, and 

 children from large extents of territory and thus made good local mar- 

 kets for those of the rural population who preferred to stay on the 

 farm. 



North Carolina has a population of hundreds of thousands more than 

 Kansas, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, or Mississippi, 

 and more than the states of Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyo- 

 ming, Vermont, and Delaware all combined, with a very large percent- 

 age of it in the different manufacturing towns. This should give great 

 emphasis to the importance of our local markets for farm produce. 

 This fact is brought out clearly in the following table : 



