New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1867-06-29
REBUILDING THE LBVEEs.

the loyal anu law -aoiuIu5 PSOPAS u lilo
state. not alone to define and strengthen the
military and supplementary bills so that
treacherous executive cannot thwart the
object the people had in passing them, bu.
that attention may also be called to the i'm
mediate material wants OF the south and the
absolute necessity for relief from the ma
tional government.
The people of the United States, through
Endorsements or appropriations by CON
gress, must invest money in the south be-
fore they can expect much relief IN the
way OF sharing the burden of the national
debt. The south, or that portion OF the
south which before the war furnished
staple that produced nearly four hundred
millions of foreign exchange, can produce
but little until the levees Of the Mississippi
are repaired and the vast area of the most
fertile land on the globe is again placed
under cultivation.
A sound political economy requires that
everything consumed within the country
should be raised by its people, provided
that the same can be done at less cost
than something else raised therein can be
exchanged for it. It is hardly necessary to
argue that if sugar, rice, ETC., can be pro-
duced in Louisiana at a cheaper rate than
any other thing produced in this country
can be carried abroad and exchanged for
these articles. it is to the great interest of
the country that sugar, rice, etc, should be
produced at home.
The products peculiar to great portion
of the country protected by the levees are
sugar and cotton-grown probably scarce
" anywhere else in the United States.
These lands in Louisiana always have been
and always will be confined mainly to the
cultivation of sugar and cotton.
OF the capacity of that portion Of Louisi
ana submerged during the last few years,
in the production of sugar alone, it is not
necessary to say anything beyond asserting
the simple fact that during the year 1860
about five hundred thousand hogsheads, av-
eraging one thousand pounds each, or FIVE
hundred millions pounds Of sugar, were
produced, which, at the present minimum
value Of ten cents per pound, would pro-
dalce the enormous sum of .ffty millions Of
dollars. The cultivation and manufacture
Of that sugar also at the same time pro-
duced an average Of seventy gallons OF mo-
lasses to each hogshead of sugar, making
the enormous quantity of thirty-fve mil
lions of gallons, which at the present mini
mnm value Of sixty cents per gallon would
produce the sum Of toentgone millions Of
dollars. At the present rate oil in
ternal revenue duty OF one cent
per pound on sugar and three cents
per gallon on molasses it would yield
six million and fifty thousand dollars an
nually to the treasury from the cultivation
of the article of sugar alone. This is, Of
itself, certainly sufficient reason to make
it not only desirable but imperatively
necessary that that branch Of domestic in
dustry should be restored as speedily as
possible, not to say anything of the fact
that the same articles Of sugar and molas-
SEES are at this time as extensively consumed
in this country as they were then, and that
the same quantity has to be annually i'm
ported from abroad and this comes to the
consumer burdened with all the costs and
charges incident to foreign importations.
Again. the portion OF Louisiana over
flowed in 1865 and 1866 is-at least large
portion of it--as well adapted to the cnlti-
walton of rice, an immense quantity of
which is annually consumed in the United
States, and nearly the whole Of which is
now imported from abroad. The cultiva-
ton of sugar, according to all methods yet
discovered, requires large plantations, and
extensive, as we'll as expensive machinery,
including an outlay of large capital in each
establishment The cultivation Of rice, on
the contrary, may be engaged in by per-
sons of small or almost no capital as it,
like wheat or rye, may be cultivated in
large or small fields at the option Of the
farmer, and when matured may be cut and
stacked like those cereals, to be threshed
when wanted, while sugar-cane must be
Immediately ground up as it is cut, or ire
trievably lost to the grower. Not having the
statistics with regard to the cotton crop at
hand, it is sufficient TO give general
idea by stating that it extends from
the mouth of the Red river up
the Mississippi on both banks, a distance of
about one thousand miles, having mean
breadth of at least three miles on each
bank, thus giving an area of at least six
thousand square miles. This land being
entirely of alluvial formation is of the
most productive quality on the face
Of the globe, readily giving one bale
of cotton per acre, as may be readily
seen from an examination of the statistics
as contained in the census returns OF
1860. The quantity Of that staple which
can be produced in that area, (were the
whole successfully protected from overflow
and brought into eultivatien), may be
easily estimated. OF that portion of these
lands situated in Louisiana, subject to over
flow, the statistics of 1860 are set forth in the
memorial addressed to congress by the
levee commissioners, to show that in 1860
there was produced In thirty-six parishes,
liable to be Inundated, either ,oholy or IN part,
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