The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1893-08-04
EXTRAORDINARY COTTON.
PERU GROWS IT IN A VARIETY OF
NATURAL COLORS.

rule, which devised the economy of ir-
rigation and impressed the discoverers
VIZ a sense of the wealth and beauty
et' 'he land now become bald, gray
sterile waste, but showing here and
there brilliant spot of verdure in the
midst of the general aridity.
The lands of the Piura lie four to
five degrees south of the equator, and
once in seven years are visited by floods
that wet n narrow belt along the banks,
whereby some 1900 acres are made
available for cultivation, all of which
is now appropriated to cotton. This
one wetting gives five crops, two per
year, and then the land rests to finish
the cycle of seven years and another
succession of five crops. The waters
of the Piura continue to flow until
some time in October, when the people
who live i'll the valley begin to sink
wells in the sands of the river bottom
for their daily supply. The disap-
| pearance of the river is SO gradual il is
not possible to designate the day when
it takes place. Not so, however, its
arrival, in February or March, when
the bed of the stream has been dry for
months and has been occupied by truck
| gardens.
Then the people become thirsty for
The river. Every traveller from up the
| valley is questioned as TO where the
river was when he passed. If he report
that it is coming II crowd of eager list
eners and questioners surround him as
if he brought important news from
some foreign loan commission; and
naturally enough, for the condition of
| the river, whether it contains much or
little water, is the prophecy of n years
crop. At last, generally about the
middle of February, one hears that the
river is twenty leagues away and is
coming; few days later it is only ten
leagues distant, and as it passes the
upper haciendas the Indians turn out
and welcome it with drum and fife and
fire rockets.
Sometimes there comes disappoint-
mcnt; for when it seems sure thing
and tho people of the city Of Piura in
the lower valley have begun to look
for it the river has ceased to flow; it
sinks away in the sands and they say,
"Thc river has gone back" This,
however, will last but few days.
Again it comes and we hear in Piura
that "The river is but league away
and will be with us to-day" Then
every horse and saddle is brought ont
and the people leave the city to meet
the messenger of glad tidings, of
health and riches to the arid land.
In all the year there is not in the
| north of Peru a feast to equal this.
No fatigue is felt by the multitudes
who travel through the heavy sands
soma ON foot, some on donkeys-poor
brutes, most patient of all created
beings-carrying two or three grown
men and women with a small family of
half-grown children; others again are
mounted on mules and then the elite
on horses. All are glad When you
meet the river it is little trickling
| strcamlet running here and there in
search of the lowest places; it stops to
fill the wells i'll its road that were ex-
cavated last season, and then runs for
ward in the same little rill. A short
distance farther up you will find a re-
spectacle stream, where the boys and
dogs run into it and lie down and
revel, and in n little time can swim. 1t
is for everybody season of real Joy,
and with many carnival of frolic.
The spectacle of it's approach wit
messed from the Bridge of Piura is
wonderful sight. You see the pioneers
of the marching host come slowly
around bend of the river mt the up
per edge OF the town, followed shortly
by the surging army of thousands Of
people; you hear the music of the
| band, the murmur of five thousand
| voices and the din of rockets which
throw n smoking line along the air.
The river has come!
1t has reached the bridge in the
early evening and the band plays while
the people dance on and under the
bridge all night long, or as long as the
increasing flood permits. If 5000 turn
| out to escort the river to Piura, it is
met by more than $4,000 at Catacaos,
an Indian pueblo six miles lower down
the stream.
The cotton produced in the valley
| of the Piura shows varying shades from
rich dark brown to the purest white,
80 finely graded that one can scarcely
tell where one color ends and the
other begins. At the present time the
cultivable area is so small that the de-
mands of the market cannot be met.
By the system proposed it ia hoped to
get more than million acres of the
fertile territory under the care of IL
rigation, when not only cotton, but
sugar, coffee, cocoa, indigo, all the
vegetables and fruits of the tropics can
be grown as they were centuries ago.
The appearance ola Peruvian cotton
field may well astonIsh an American
planter, for in the five years of it's
growth the plant often reaches
height of twenty feet, and in the
weeks of ripening has all the beauty
of an immense sunlit snowdrift.
The Peruvian tree cotton" of
which good deal has been written, is
really only an accident. The trees
are from seed deposited in some wet
place during an exceptionally high
flood and left without attention during
succeeding years. But where the sup
ply OF water permits the crop is re-
planted each seven years, the second,
third and fourth being the finest crops