The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1874-01-02
EmaigratiOm to Louisiama.

and New Louisiana. The following is
an extract:
There is not q parish in Louisiana
which does not offer powerful induce
ments to immigration ; not one which
will not most bitterly need it if the pres
ent perturbed political condition con-
tinues, for it is driving the original in
habitants from their homes. Closely
following upon the bloodshed in Grant
parish, came q hurried, voluminous m
igratiOn to Texas on the part of citi-
zens of the parish. They 1ocked into
the new Eden III the greatest terror,
and seemed determined to leave their
homes behind them forever. But the
troubles must some day have an end,
while there is no end save in the final
disruption of the world to the fairy
beauty and fertility of the bayou lands
andthe vast plains covered with lux
4lriant vegetation; The parishes Dor
dering on the Red River are especially
adapted to the staples, sugar, cotton,
wheat, corn, rye, and oats, and are &C.
cessible ut all seasons Of the year., the
river in their vicinity remaining navi-
gable. These parishes, six in num-
Der, comprise mor than eight thousand
five hundred square miles of rich allu-
vial land, and some of the largest towns
are situated in them. Shreveport, on
the west bank OF the river, is 1ikely to
be the second city in the State. It is
now the center of emigration into cas-
tern and northern Texas, and a line of
railway to it from Vicksburg is project
ed, which will give it increased COM
merCial Importance. In the parishes
which comprise southwestern Louisi-
ana, there are more than three millions
of acres of land of almost inexhaustible
fertility. The forests are composed of
oak, ash, locust pine, gum, maple, cy-
press, elm, willow, hickory, pecan, per-
simmon, dOgwood, mulberry, and mag
nolla trees. The giant expresses on the
lakes and bGyOus are numerous enough
to last for O century, though some of
their number be constantly taken away.
Employment to hundreds Of mills and
thousands of wOrkmen could readily be
furnished. The lumber could easily be
foated down the innumerable bayous
and along the abundant lakes to mar
ket. By the borders of the great desc
late sea-marshes of St. Mary and iberia,
runs a grand belt of timber from One
to two miles wide. A western editor
nee said that if the Teche lands of
Louisiana were in Illinois, they would
bring from three hundred to five hun
dred dollars per acre. And they could
be made worth that sum in their pres
ent situation in five years from this
writing by the introduction Of iutelli-
gent and labOriOus emigrants, and by
the amplificatiou of the States railway
system. The "Attakapas" region, as
the five parishes Or counties of St. Mary,
Iberia, Vermillion, St. Martin, and La
fayette were originally called, from the
name of a tribe Of Indians, is certainly
seductive enough to tempt the most
fastideOus of emigrants.
The Cattle-grazing regions are as ex-
tensive as remarkable. There are sew
en- great prairies, respectively named
Grand ChOlseuil, Attakapas, Opelousas,
Grand Prairie, Prairie MamOn, Calcas-
leu, and Aubine, all covered with rich
pasturage. Thousands of cattle roam
over these pralrles; the populations are
pastoral and uncultivated to a certain
extent. There are F~renchmen and wo-
men among them who are remote from
any active participation in the politics
of the State or the country at large, as
if they were in France. In the Marshes
cven cattle and horses subsist, and
Craze the year round upon a treacherous
surface, which Il horse bread on solder
ground will instantly sink and founder
in. | am not willing to vOuch for the
Louisiana statement that these marsh
bred cattle and horses are W~eb-foOted,
but such is the affirmation; and one in
fOrmant assures me that a proper sys-
tenn of transportation from the marshes
to New Orleans would develop this now
almost useless section immensely.
Thousands of cattle might be turned
in to grow fat and abide the time when
their owners should seek them for the
New Orleans market. They would not
even need a cOwherd's care. All the
p~rairies in Western Louisiana are pc
rennially green and upon them were
once located the largest vacheries in the
United States-vacheries whose owners
sometimes branded five thousandcalves
apiece yearly. Sheep by thousands
were also raised, but both these impOr-
fallen off since the war. The French
paid great attention to the cattle and
sheep husbandry in this section of Lou
isiana early in the last century, and it
has been estimated by a competent au-
thority that, allowing one animal to
be produced to every five acres, more
than two hundred and twenty thousand
cattle conld annually be reared and
transported from n single prairie
that of O%pelOusaS-a vast expanse of
natural meadow. It was not uncommon
for a stock raiser to possess from thir-
ty to forty thousand head of cattle, and
the stock raisers of one parish in that
section owned, twenty-five years before
the war;, one hundred thousand cattle
and thirty thousand horses. There is
no good reason why Louisiana should |
not be known in future as an extensive
a cattle-raising State as her neighbor,
Texas. She has nothing to fear from
the dangers incurred by proximity to a
foreign frontier, and there are no In
dams to manifest their uncomfortable
love for the illicit acquisition of horse
flesh.
But when you wish once again to find
the lost gate of Eden, when you wish to
gain the promised land, when you wish
to see in this rude, practical America of
ours al" earthly paradise" where life is
good because of the misunderstanding of
it by Nature with everything that is
fairest; when you wish to see planta-
tions at the height of culture, lawns as
fragrant, as clean-shaven as molly shad-
ed by graceful trees, as any sovereign's
seek the Teche country. It is
the pearl Of Louisiana; it is the perfec-
ton of the South.
MULTIPLYING BY FIVE.-Figures are
instrumentalities in the
Of mathematicians. With them