ESTIMATES OF FOOD PRODUCTS SHIPPED INTO 

 NORTH CAROLINA IN 1909 



INTRODUCTION 



There was a time when the farmers of North Carolina produced 

 all the staple crops consumed in the State ; but that time has passed. 

 The recent exploitation of our water-power, our nearness to the 

 sources of raw material from field, forest and mine, and our eas.^ 

 access, by our numerous railway systems, to deep water on the coast 

 have all combined to accelerate our growth into a leading manufac- 

 turing State, having all the demands made by such a State upon the 

 crop-producing capacity of its agricultural districts. 



When the Battle Cotton Mill was erected on Tar Eiver, in 1816 

 the vast majority of North Carolinians were on the farm. But as- 

 the cotton milling industry and other manufacturing enterprises grew 

 up many of the farmers found it more profitable to move to the milb 

 and, with their families, work for wages than to remain on the farm, 

 where only the bare necessaries of life could be secured on account 

 of the general lack of markets for their surplus products. 



By thus draining the rural districts the manufacturing towns have 

 grown larger and larger, till now those farmers who chose to remain 

 on their lands are entirely unable, by their present methods, to supply 

 themselves and spare enough for their neighbors in the towns. 



What is found in the following pages, therefore, will not be con- 

 strued to mean that our farmers are not prosperous, but that the de- 

 mands made on them are far in excess of the supply, and should em- 

 phasize the great opportunities offered by our local markets for in- 

 vestment in and operation of farm lands in this State. 



Early in the year this division was directed to ascertain, so far at 

 possible, the approximate amounts of food products shipped into 

 the State from outside sources during 1909. Six hundred copies of 

 the following letter and blank were addressed to secretaries of com- 

 mercial clubs, mayors, traffic managers of the different railroads and 

 leading business men of the State. From these six hundred letter? 

 only one hundred and thirty replies were received, and nine of these 

 gave percentages rather than figures. These replies may be considered 

 to cover from one-fifth to one-fourth of the State. 



We took special pains to eliminate all duplications, so that no 

 estimate could have been counted twice. No estimations were sub- 

 mitted by jobbers or wholesale dealers. 



Among our replies we found but fourteen from counties vnth a 

 good local market, and but two from cities that would be considered 



