76 The Bulletin. 



that Dr. Hopkins was able to give us should be a part and parcel of the 

 ultimate system we want to get. We cannot safely adopt possibly all of the 

 things that Dr. Hopkins advised ; we cannot do it in any one year, but ever 

 during the transition period we should have our minds and thoughts upon 

 the ultimate adoption of such a system as will bring about the success we are 

 after. The farm must be regarded as a business home. In the study of the 

 problems upon your farm, or the problem of general farming, it will not do 

 for any one man to center his interest solely upon the problem of producing 

 more corn to the acre, nor should he center his entire interest upon producing 

 more cotton upon an acre, nor should he turn himself to the production of 

 more hogs or more cattle upon the farm, although each one is a necessary 

 part of the general business of conducting his farm. But he should so bring 

 all these things together that when he adopts the final system he has one that 

 will produce upon his own farm crops he can sell for cash, crops that furnish 

 food for animals and for the human race, and a system of cropping that 

 maintains the fertility of his soil. When he has his farming down to that 

 point that he maintains his soil at the least possible cost, he has his problem 

 solved. Now, it is my belief that in that system we must use each of these 

 valuable crops in the various territories as an important part of the system ; 

 but upon each farm there must be produced other crops, working into a perfect 

 rotation and maintaining the fertility of the soil indefinitely at the least 

 possible cost. In order to get that and to have it upon a safe and sound basis, 

 we must have live stock as a part of our farming system. 



As a comparison, the last agricultural census shows that for every farm in 

 this State the value of the live stock is $247 per farm, the value of the 

 machinery $73 per farm. In South Carolina the value of the live stock is $256 

 and the machinery $S0 ; in Georgia the live stock is worth $276 and the 

 machinery $72 ; in Alabama, live stock $250 and machinery $62 ; in Mississippi, 

 live stock $274 and machinery $62. Let us take a live-stock State, a State 

 that has diversified farming. In Illinois the value of the live stock on each 

 farm is $1,226. of the machinery $296; in Iowa the live stock is worth $1,811, 

 machinery $440; Missouri, live stock $1,031 and machinery $1,083. 



Take the main crops — corn, oats, wheat, barley, rye, forage crops, cotton, 

 tobacco, potatoes, sweet potatoes — and figure up for 1909, as I did, the total 

 production of two of these States. For the sake of comparison : in North 

 Carolina the crop averaged $411 for each farm ; in Iowa the crop averaged 

 $1,316 per farm. At the same time, the soil of this State is capable of pro- 

 ducing, when properly handled, as much if not more than the soil of that 

 State. Whereas they are tied to relatively a few crops. North Carolina has a 

 wonderful number of crops that can be used in a system of agriculture. 

 Hence the opportunity for establishing here a system that will endure and 

 that will be attractive on account of the climatic conditions, and the general 

 surroundings of the country cannot be exceeded in any other section. We 

 do not keep a sufliciently careful account of what brings profits — what things 

 we do upon the farm that are done at a loss and what things give us the profit. 

 In the expenditure of fertilizer, in the utilization of teams, in the failure to 

 use sufficient horse-power, and in many other ways we are falling short of 

 doing the work in the best possible way. I hope the time will come when 

 instead of an average of 1.2 horses or mules per farm in this State there will 

 be not less than 4 per farm ; instead of 1.2 dairy cows per farm there will be 

 7 to 10 per farm; instead of 19 head of poultry per farm there will be an 

 average of 100 head per farm, as is the average in some of the great poultry 

 States. 



Now, the problem of to-day is not the problem of having 400 of the best 

 farmers in the State of North Carolina come to a great meeting of this sort 

 and renew their allegiance to the cause of better agriculture; but the problem 

 is to get the information in the hands of these experts and get it to the man 

 on the farm, so that he will change his system of farming. This problem ha,s 

 just been attacked in the South. Beginning in 1904 in the State of Texas, 

 with small means and with no criterion to go by, the demonstration work 

 has attempted to bring about a system to help solve this problem of getting 

 after the man upon the farm, who needs the information. There are 185.000 

 white farmers in the State of North Carolina. If 1 per cent were to come 



