The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-09-04
LOUISIANA RICE CROP.
Estimated at One-third That of Former
Years.
Drought Has Extended TO Texas Fields.
Absolute Failure in Many
Places.


sibIy a single exception, the most I'M
precedented in this section within the
memory of the oldest inhabitant," says
the Crowley Ua) Signal. There has
been no general rain of consequence
since the close of the planting season.
a few localities have been favored with
rains at intervals, just sufficient TO
keep corn. cotton, and other like crops
growing, but in many communities even
these crops have been so badly dam
aged by the dry weather that they will
make little or nothing. The cotton
crop is suffering heavy injury from the
continued drought. We are told that
in many portions of the State not more
than quarter cotton crop will be made,
while throughout southwestern Louis
lana there will be no more than half a
crop. Planters complain that bOlls are
shedding before maturing. The only
exception in this section, in so far as
we have learned, is in the territory
north of Rayne, where the planters
have been blessed with greater rainfall
than in less favored communities.
But no crop in Southwest Louisiana
has been damaged by the drought to
the extent of rice. With the eXcep-
ton of the irrigated lands, the crops in
this section of the State are practically
gone, and even the irrigated lands give
promise of a smaller yield per acre
than in more favorable seasons. All
doubt as to rice requiring rainfall and
hot damp atmosphere for the proper
filling and maturing Of the grain has
been removed by experience of the
past. Unless there be rain during the
heading season the grain will be light,
soft and more or less Sun-cracked.
But it should be remembered that the
acreage of irrigated rice in this sec
ton of the State is very small as COM
pared with the total area planted, and
did it give a heavy or even phenOme-
nal yield the crop must be very, very
short.
The providence" rice, and this con-
stitutes four-fifths of the acreage plan
ted in Southwest Louisiana, will be al
most total failure. Go consider
able distance III any direction that you
may any you will see thousands OF
acres that will not yield the seed
planted upon it. Field after field come
to view where the rice is absolutely
burned up, so dry that were a match
applied, it would burn like finder. The
earlier rice is beginning to head, much
of it at a height of ten to fifteen inches.
This rice will make nothing, no matter
how much rain might come. An occa-
sional field is to be seen which, if there
should be a rain sufficient for flooding
within the next week or ten days, fol-
h. lot h
would give a small yield. This is too
uncertain, however, to enter into any
calculation at this time.
The writer made a visit to Eunice
the early part of the week and found
than nearer home In a drive of sew
eral miles over a considerable area OF
territory, in company with Mr.. Louis
Mayer, one of Eunice's leading mer-
chants, and Messrs ]. p. TrOsclair and
A. j. Dupre, of Opelousas, we saw one
field of less than thirty acres of good
rice. Last season there was shipped
from Eunice something over 100, 900
bags of rice, but the entire crop of that
section will not exceed 5000 to 5000
bags this season.
In Calcasieu parish the outlook is
even more gloomy than here in Acadia.
as the proportionate area of irrigated
land is less. The rice planters in
Southern Texas have abandoned their
crop in nearly all cases where they are
not able to flood. The Texas rice crop
will be small factor in this season S
crop.
AS a result of the general drought
prevailing throughout the rice region
the crop of 1896 promises to be a very
small one as compared with the past
few years. Just how much smaller it
is impossible to conjecture with any
degree of accuracy, but conservative
men who have been over the country
express the belief that the crop of the
State will not exceed One-third of what
! it was last season.