The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1874-05-06
The outh.Western Floods.

Throughout the South and West tn
recent floods have been terribly dt
structive, and especially in Louisiana
ewhere thousands of acres have bee
soverfooded, and immense damag
done to tho cotton, sugar end ric
crops. The extent of the damag
(which. mas resulted from the grca
overflow is just beginning to be full,
understood. That it was vast wa
iresdily conceived, but that it SHOULD
fintolve i've millions Of acres, and
Spopu!ation Of 17s,OOo, was apparently
beyond reasonable calculation. 1c
such is really the case. In the cottoI
: regions it is now asccrtained tha
mine Of the largest and richest par
fishes producing cotton have been in
undated The parishes Of Carroll
Morehouse, Richland, Madison, Frank.
lin, Tensas, Caldwell, Concordia and
Catahoula are all over oyerHowed,
and embracing fully 100000 acres.
The amount of cotton land in these
parishes, in actual cultivation, is as,
scertaincd to be $4,000 acres, besides
100000 acres in corn. These esti-
mates include only tho large places,
leaving out hundreds ofsmall farmers,
and all estimates for cattle, hogs and
gardens. The population of these
.niue parishes is 2O.393 whites and
54,O23 blacks, according to the census
;of 1870. In the sugar-producing par.
ishes, the ascertained facts discover
.an equal if not a greater amount of
ruin aud suffering. These parishes
,are Poite Coupce, East Baton Rouge,
West Baton Rouge, Iberville, Asccn-
sion, :. Assumption, Lafourche, St.
james, st. John the Baptiste, St.
Charles, Terreboune aud Plasque-
,rniaes.. The overflow lin these par
'ishes covers nearly 100000 acres,
titled and untitled, including a pro-
;'duotion of $4,000 hogsheads Of sugar,
besides q large product of rice and
tho crops Of the small farmers, Of
whom there are many hundreds who
have lost their stock and pretty much
everything else they possessed. The
population of these parishes, accord
dng to tho census Of 1870. was SO, 1868
swhitcs and 1924 blacks, making q
total Of l2A6O9, from which must be
deducted the population of East Ba-
ton Rouge, as only small portion Of
thatparish has suffered from overflow.
That deduction being made, the par
'ishes named contain population of
103,609. ... ..
/ In all the parishes named, it is be-
lieved that more than $4,000 people
are now in actual suffering for the
necessary supplies of life, and that in
less than sixty days the number Of
those whose circumstances will re-
.quire aHevia:ion will increase to more
sthan fifty thousand persons.
.. The whole rico and sugar region in
the Lafourche, District is represented
ITO be under water; and what this
means, commercially, will be under
stood WREN it is stated that tho bayou
and coast land which is thus laid
waste produced before tho war nearly
all the sugar that was consumed in
the United States. All the best rice
crops were also produced there. Many
Of the finest estates, within eighteen
miles Of New Orleans cvcn, have been
swept away and tho city. itself is
threatened with foundation from, the
,rear levees. Since the destructive
crcvasse Of 1871, there had been no
overflow Of consequence, and the
planters seem to have been lullcd into
a false security, >.. "
" As protection against the recur-
renee of similar owls, the New York
Herald calls attention to suggestion
of Mr.. Calhoun, made in his address
to the Memphis Convention in 1915,
that the Government rclinquish IFS
claim to the public lands to the
States in which they; alio,~ and thus
enable these States to dcfray the
expense of erecting substantial lcvees
out Of the proceeds Of sale. The Her.
adj says: "... ....'"
: That perfect security is attainablc
with proper engineering skill is be-
.yond all question. We do not read
in recent times of great: inundations
of the Pc, although ts.bed is eonsid-
erably higher than tho plain through
which it flows, and in some places
higher than, the roofs Of che houses
near its banks; and yet the Pc, like
all tho other rivers in that part Of
Italy, is subject to great spring foods
by the melting sof the
snow among the Alps. The great (
rivers which discharge their waters {
into the German Sea-tho Rhine, the
Neuse and the would annu- t
ally subsnerge the regions near the i
lower part Of tbeir course if they were |
not protected by great dikes. THEFT