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Show New Relief Plan Being Inaugurated Permanent reduction in the number num-ber of families receiving- relief is one of the results anticipated from the rural work centers now being developer!. de-veloper!. The plan for the work centers cen-ters has been worked out in Texas, according to the Federal Emergency Relief administration, and the Agricultural Agri-cultural Extension service of Texas has issued a description of projects vMch the FERA has called to the attention of other states as a possible possi-ble solution to some of the country's lelief problems. The community in which a work center is desired must first show that not less than ten families from relief rolls will be materially aided by the project. Part or all of these families may already be living in the community. It is also suggested that families that have moved from this community to the city, and have been put on the city relief rolls, be brought back upon application of their former neighbors, and placed in houses made habitable with aid of j relief funds. The work center would: then afford means of setting up small 1 manufacturing activities, for pro-1 ducts to be exchanged or sold local-j ly. This would supplement food and j other items which families are ex-i pected to produce on the small farms where they are being located. The community must first shoW that it can furnish suitable vacant, houses to be made habitable by! labor of the occupants in return for rent-free privileges. Relief funds may also be used for labor and a limited amount of material for new houses. Several acres must be donated by the community for site of the work center, title to be held by the community com-munity or, preferably a cooperative group. The community is expected to supply half the material for construction, con-struction, and half of the equipment, while labor is supplied by the relief administration. Products of the community house might include matresses, hansess,: chaps, quilts, canned goods, cured! meats and dozens of other commodities commod-ities needed in the neighborhood. In addition, repairs and parts could bej made there for furniture, farm machinery, and outbuildings. It is suggested that the work center be used for recreation also.j and that the equipment be such as could be converted and shifted easily from utilitarian to recreational recreation-al purposes. For instance, work tables are suggested with hinged tops, so that they could be convertible convert-ible into seats. This community house would be the "visible symbol of the new deal. It merges the possibilities of the already al-ready large movement toward the small farm with home manufacture, thereby stimulating a significant trend in rural life." Ths bureau of agricultural economics eco-nomics recently surveyed 123 factories factor-ies in fifteen eastern, southern, and central states, and found that factories fact-ories in small towns or in the open country are enabling many farm people who live within convenient distances of such establishments, to derive from them five different kinds of income: By selling some of their farm products to the factories; by performing certain steps in the manufacturing processes in their own homes or in small farm shops; by having a claim upon some of the profits of the business through investments in-vestments in the factory; and by selling foodstuffs and possibly other farm products on local markets that have been expanded because of the presence of the factory. o |