Entered as second-class matter June I, 1933. at the Postofflee at Raleigh. North Carolina, under the Act of March 3. 1879.
ODUM'S BOOKS AND BULLS
i\orlli Carolina's renowned soci¬
ologist Howard W. Odum says lie
thinks more of liis hulls than his
hooks. There are ar£unientK and an
interesting story for both the bulls
and books.
By JAY JENKINS
HOWARD WASHINGTON
ODUM of the University of
North Carolina in Chapel
Hill has a standard ioke about his
herd of more than sixty prize
Jerseys and the more than twenty
books he has written.
"My bulls,” he often has said,
"are more valuable than my
books.” Then, to prove he has not
rated his bulls too highly, he re¬
calls that one governor of North
Carolina said that one good bull
THE STATE. MAY 27. 1950
was worth two county commis¬
sioners.
The joke does not exaggerate
the quality of the Odum bulls,
since he is one of only five men in
this country who holds the title.
"Master Breeder.” from the Amer¬
ican Jersey Cattle Club, a non¬
commercial organization. But the
joke does not do justice to the
Odum books, which have won for
him the reputation as the top re¬
gional expert on the South.
At least one governor would
disagree with Odum's humorous
evaluation of the relative worth of
his bulls and books. Former Gov¬
ernor Frank Dixon of Alabama
studied Odum’s Southern Regions
as a textbook to prepare himself
for his State’s highest office. And
the large volume, with its com¬
prehensive statistics about every
hase of life in the section, has
een a source book for many other
officials, authors, scholars and
teachers since it appeared in 1936.
Some of his colleagues regard
Odum, the sociologist, and Odum,
the Jersey breeder, with wonder.
They find it difficult to understand
the personality of a man who man¬
ages to combine the trait of im¬
patience with the characteristic of
patience which is so necessary
both to a thorough, painstaking
sociologist and to a cattle breeder.
"Howard Odum.” one of those
colleagues said, "wants to build a
university before breakfast — and
build it his way." This impatience,
spurred by an insatiable curiosity
and quickened by a desire for so¬
lutions, has driven Odum for forty
years and it drives him yet.
Odum, a large, slightly stooped
man with alert blue eyes and a
hesitant manner of speaking, has
found that his dual careers as a
cattle breeder and as a sociologist
have been mutually beneficial.
As a line breeder of Jerseys, for
example, he has discovered that
the introduction of inferior strains
of blood in his registered herd
often has raised the type and pro¬
duction of the herd, Mixed strains,
on the other hand, have not been
permitted on the Island of Jersey,
home of the breed, for more than
a hundred years. For about the
same length of time. Island-of-
Jersey cattle have not attained the
quality of cattle bred away from
the Island.
Just as he learned that a diversi¬
fication of blood strains has helped
Jerseys, so did Odum, the sociolo¬
gist, arrive at the belief long ago
that a more diversified agriculture
in the South will lead to a "richer
culture, and a better way of life.”
For more than thirty years in his
books and teachings he has advo-
( Continued on page 24)
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