Eastern North Carolina as a Prospective Dairy Section
By A. C. KIMREY, N. C. Dairy Extension
Any section that aspires to be a dairy section must first possess such soil and weather conditions that will make it possible to economically produce an abundance of feed. Successful dairying, or any other branch of live stock production, is very largely dependent upon good economical feeding and this is not possible in a section where soil and weather conditions do not permit large crop production.
It is hardly possible that any section of this country can excel Eastern North Carolina when it comes to the question of ability to produce feed. It is richly endowed by nature with a deep fertile soil, and one that is exceptionally easy to cultivate, making it possible for the number of acres that can be cultivated by one man to be very large, as compared with other good sections of the country. In addition to a fertile soil, the section has an abundant rainfall, lack of which is one of the constant fears of dairymen in certain sections of our own State. A good soil, an abundant rainfall together with a very mild climate and long growing seasons, make it a section well adapted to feed crop growing.
Corn, for example, yields well in all of the eastern counties and corn is the great basic feed crop for the diary cow. In addition to corn, it is a well known fact that Eastern North Carolina can produce almost an unlimited amount of soy bean and pea vine hay, and no better hays for dairy cow feeding can be produced anywhere. In soy bean meal and cotton seed meal it has at its own door without any freight charges added the most common source of protein found in American feeding stuffs. In addition to these oats and rye seem to feel at home in our Costal Plain Section and produce good crops, which help to add variety to the home grown dairy ration.
Pasture, which is probably essential to permanent dairying can be provided in this coastal section, as has been demonstrated in practically every county by the county farm agents and others. It is, of course, true that there is at present no great amount of pasture in our fifty eastern counties, but this is because the farmers have considered grass an enemy instead of a friend, and is no evidence that pasture cannot be provided. Any section with a rich soil, long growing season, and amount of rainfall that Eastern North Carolina has, can grow grass and make good permanent pasture.
Next in importance after ability to grow feed, from a dairy standpoint, is the matter of markets. The first great market to be supplied is the local or home market. Dairy products should make up a greater portion of the daily diet of the people of Eastern Carolina. At present there are in the fifty counties that lie east of Raleigh only one dairy cow to every 14 people, or approximately one cow to every three families. The man who would be a dairyman in this section should first strive to see that his local market is well supplied. Scarcely a town in all Eastern Carolina has an ample supply of milk.
When the local needs are supplied, then the man who keeps cows can look for an outside market. He will not have to look far, for practically every farm in the eastern part of the State is within easy shipping distance of an already organized creamery, that is properly financed and on its feet, and that has already passed through that uneasy, experimental stage that all new creameries pass through. Selling cream for butter making purposes is the one market for dairy products that is open to every man who will feed and milk a cow, not only for a part of the year, but every day in the year, including both Sundays and holidays.
Now let me call attention to the fact that have been and are now keeping Eastern North Carolina from being a dairy section. Cotton is usually mentioned as being the cause. It is indirectly the cause, but not directly. In the first place the native cow in this section is a poor, non-profitable producer and has served as a discouraging factor to those who have attempted to do dairying with her. On the other hand a barn filled with good cows well fed and cared for will make cotton profits per acre of land involved take a back seat and keep it. Better cows must be brought in if dairying is to become a paying business, even with all the favorable conditions mentioned above.
The other handicap and probably the greatest that Eastern North Carolina has that keeps it from becoming a great dairy section is that the people, due to their past experiences as farmers, are not dairy minded, and any people that are not live stock minded develop into a dairy section far more slowly than their natural conditions would seem to justify. While it is necessary to bring in cows it may also be desirable to induce families to come in who are dairy minded and who appreciate the wonderful possibilities that the dairy cow possesses to help make Eastern North Carolina develop along safe and permanent agricultural lines.
