The Opelousas courier., 1892-01-16
CULTIVATED WITH WATER.
HOW RICE rs RAISED FOR MARKET
IN LOUISIANA.
Water is the First and Last Want
of Rice Growers-Grassing the
Crop-Yhe Nuisance of the Birds

ANAH7s
"Tell you something about rice in
louisiana" repeated Andrew G.
Wilkinson, the owner of a large rice mill
in New Orleans, where the rice grown
on his plantations is cleaned, at the Gil
sey House. s'Isee that the papers have
just found out that Englishmen are try
ing to buy up and form a trust of the
| rice mills in the South, although the
agents have been down there for some
thing over six months. Nobody is
quicker than JohnBull to scent a bargain
and when the South began its march IN
the road of its present marvellous growth
he simply poured his money IN a golden
stream into our Southern States. He
bought our coal and iron mines, our
timberlands, the phosphate beds aud now
he is trying to form q trust IN the rice
mills. While it will take several mil
lion dollars to in any way give them the
CONTROL of the rice market, if they do
succeed in getting it o mighty good pay
ing Investment 1t will be.
sNew Orleans is the chief rice MILL
ing city in America. Fifty years ago
we did not have such a thing as a rice
mill, bat now we have sixteen, working
go rice Founders and employing more
than twelve hundred men. Working
these sixteen mills all the year and
helped by four other large steam mills,
we in New Orleans will be hard pressed
to handle all of last seasons rice crop.
Louisiana has always been known as b
Sugar State, but we also want to add to
it that of the Rice State of the Union.
elbow Is it cultivated Well, the first
necessity of profitable rice culture is a
comparatively level piece Of land, prop
erly prepared for the seed. This field
must be located so as to be conveniently
irrigated from the prairie reservoir or the
6ume in the levee. Highland rice g
not pay in Louisiana, the only profitable
rice being that grown in water. Water
is the first and last want of spFouting,
growing and r1pening rice. Before the
ground is ready for the seed it is divided
up by q system of little levees aud water
ing bitches 1t is then planted In drills
dug by machines-or, rather, I should
say that the machine is the proper way
to do it, but the seed is frequently broad
casted with us in Louisiana.
aThen comes the most delicate part,
in the water manipulation. After the
seed is planted the soil is thoroughly
saturated with water to sprout 1t, but
the water is at once taken off when the
seeds have evenly germinated, and kept
off until the tender shoots of the plant
rise two or three inches above the
ground. You can easily see that the
young plants may be either drowned out
or dried up by the least i~nattention In
regulating the flow. On the other Hand.
with too much water, cra~dsh invade
the fields and devour the delicate plants,
while with none at all, rice caterplllars
cut them down and kill them. II you
neglect the main fume you not only risk
the total loss of your crop, but by per-
hitting the water to get ahead of you
there may come q break in the leye9 and
away go your cattle and crops.
stThe most expensive part of rice
growing m when it is about q foot
high, after it has been literally watered;
I mean the grassing of the rice. You
see, the laborers wade through the rice,
pulling up and throwing into heaps all
the weeds and water grasses they find.
This grassing costs on an average about
81 an acre, ana after that is over the rice
planter has but little to do except to
give it plenty of water. One peculiar
thing about irrigation is that the heads
of the rice plants never fill out, no mat
ter how much water you give them arti-
fcially, unless there are plentiful rains.
Zone feature of rice cultivation would
be great fun to city sp%ortsmen, put it's q
terrible nuisance to US. / mean the birds.
Talk about yeur ducks and geese hiding
the sun. Perfect clouds of rice birds,
English sparrows, summer ducks, rail
and other fowl Of the air and water,
come to see if they can't harvest our
crops for US. From daybreak to dark a
perfect fusillade from the guns and old
muskets is heard in hundreds of square
miles OF country. Over In this field you
hear the shrill shouts of Creole farmers
shrieking in French patois; from the
next probably the deep chested Whoop Of
negro seld hands, and In another the
hoarse wells of the new American rice
groWers-those who have come from the
great Northern wheat fields. It Is screaml
-pop!- whoopi- bangl- boom!-
boom in the noisiest battle from dawn
to dark that you ever hear. The rice
birds are cur worst enemies, aud while
We kill millions of them, left to manure
the fields, other millions come in TO take
their places. The ravages Of the rice
birds som years are fearful, the crop
being almost o total loss.
las soon as a pale yellow tint appears
over the level heads of the opening
grain the water is carefully drawn off,
the fields being drained as thoroughly Us
possible, aud the work Of harvesting is
begun. The dried sheaves are cartel
direct from the field to the steam
thresher, where the grain IS prepared for
market.
THE profits 10 rice planting, with
good luck, will IN a few years make any
man rich. The yields on good lands IN
Louisiana give from fifty to seTenty-ive
bushels to the acre. Rice is a plant
which is generous to the attentive and
industrious farmer; but it resents neglect
more than any other cereal. As maa can
cultivate fifteen to twenty acres of rice
land, and If strong and industrious he
can easily secure from 1000 to 1900
bushels Of rice, worth at present prices
II * - ryZ%&#E1 EZZTEF - - - =