The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-09
CAROLINA RICE CULTURE
METHODS NOW IN VOGUE A GREAT
IMPROVEMENT ON OLD WAYS.
Rice Plantations Near the Coast Are
Profitable When Well Managed
The Gales and the Birds.

Charleston Is. CT Letter in New York Post.
A modern tide-swamp rice plantation with
it's improved drainage. thrashing machines,
pounding mill and other labor-saving con-
trivances is worth a visit. The rice itself,
in all stages of growth. from the time it
first comes up until it glints golden in a
waist-high harvest. is beautiful TO see. The
fields under careful cultivation combine the
breadth and freedom of the prairie and the
trim symmetry of regularly laid-off ground.
The straight bitches thread through the
water-bordered squares like strands of sill
yer; all in orderly, promising, a checked-off
sheet of living green. Later, when the
slender stalks commence to head, a bur
nished haze is discerned over the field; that,
and the soft luminousness that belongs to
a water landscape the negro cabins in the
background, and the swarthy strong-limbed
men and women workers making an at
t~ractive picture.
The coast negro has a language distinct
from his fellows. His gibberish is hard to
understand even by those accustomed to
certain phases of 'gulla' talk. His form
and features are different. and he is at once
a higher and a lower type than his COM
peers of the corn and cotton fields-lower
perhaps in the scale of civilization, higher
in the sense of physical inurement. In days
when he had a recognized value, even if
that value was never put to a market test,
a good rice field darky was accounted of
more worth than his fellows, because Of
this peculiar resistance to conditions that
would undermine most constitutions. Pneu-
monia is the malady most dreaded in the
rice reserves. The hands can stand the
burning fevers and the teeth-chattering
chills that go before, but the "pneumone
sickness as they call it, uses them up.
There are few doctors. and missionaries are
not plenty in the dank rice lands. Before
emancipation the outer clothing that the
negro rice workers wore was generally
made from wooden or heavy material man
ufactured in England and brought to the
Plantation for the express purpos of guard
ing against such destructive illnesses. The
river winds blow chill on the over-heated
negroes digging in the soggy grounds. They
cannot afford to wear wooden clothing
now; coarse-grained cotton sacking is as
much as they can buy, and not much of
that. So the mortality among them is great.
But the r~ice-ield darby sticks to the rice
held and becomes as indigenous as the
thick-bodied water moccasins that sun
themselves in the shadows. There is a
freemaSonry, a sort of occult understand
ing, between him and all things that crawl.
He and his wife, and his children, and his
wifes children walk and hoe barefooted
among the serpent of the
ground, and neither element comes to harm.
me r1ce-1eld darky has q hard time of it,
but he never thinks of changing his occupa-
ton. He is at home on the fiat lands. with
the river fogs and the wraiths of miasma
that hover over the fields on moonlit nights
and sultry dawns. He is at home with the
"sprout' water and the stretch water
and the great ''gedderin' flow" (harvest)
He knows to a T the exact number of
inches deep each flooding should be. and the
exact number of days or weeks it should
stay on the ground. He is not in sympathy
with the upland cotton and corn, and pre-
fers to take out his rations in rice, red or
white, as may be convenient. Adverse and
isolated as his fate may be, in regard to
work, 1t is easy compared to the tough time
his ,progenitors had, who tended the rice
fields in the inland swamp lands. There
was no tidewater there to be turned in on
the crop and keep down the grass. 1t was
night in those days to keep the grass in
allegiance. The tide-lands are far easier of
cultivation.
HEROIC WOMAN.
A stalwart rice-field hand, a woman of
forty-ive or fifty, was advised to consult a
dentist because of aching teeth. She look
ed with contempt at the upland negro who
made the suggestion, Il goin' to let 'em
keep on achin' and botherin' for a day or
So" she said, land then when 1 gifts out
done with EN-, l goin8 take the scissors
and prize EN- out. Is done that heap of
times" This will show how tough and in
ured to physical ills the rice-worker is,
that may transcribe the peculiar lingo and
expression of the speaker. Life is not COM
pick in the rice fields. The natural school
prevails.
The rice-planter suffers most from the
rice birds and the equinoctial gales. The
gales do not come every year, but the birds
do. They like the rice when it is in milk,
that is. before the grain has hardened.
Thu u light on st the top tpe of m,i Z sT t5 a 60 stalk ak
peck at it; they take a nice long dram, so
to to speak, and get SO full that they cannot
birds are a delicacy in market just then.
The planter cannot guard against. the gales.
When the gales come disaster is %inevita-
the rice birds. It was found that rice plant
ed in May was in milk just in the time
when the rice birds were the thickest. so
of late no rice seed is planted during May.
1t is planted all along from the beginning
in june. but only a greenhorn plants rice Ts@ in
May. When the rice is in milk and the rice
birds are most in evidence negro boys are
employed TO keep as many of the marau-
ders away as they can by firing blank car
tridges of .gunpowder.
A rice plantation is always more or less
surrounded by fresh river water. which at
high tide Chat is, when the fresh water is
backed up by the salt water from the seal
can, by means of trunks and flood gates, be
turned on the land. The f~1oodgates have a
door on either side, and work automatical-
ly. The water has to be used very deli
cately and Discriminatory, 1t is the keynote
of successful rice culture, and gigantic fail
ures at the business can be traced to lack
of udgment in this respect.
PROFIT IN THE BUSINESS.
Rice was formerly cultivated on inland
swamp plantations altogether, and some in
land rice fields of large extent were in use
as late as 1860, but the great bulk of in
land rice lands was abandoned long ago.,
as far back as 1900, and the thought, ex-
p~erience and labor were gradually trans
ferred to the river swamps near the coast,
the superior advantages of the tide lands
and the better facilities for |irrigating them
having been discovered. There are many
plantations between Charleston and Savan-
nah where the area under cultivation is
acres. Rice property has improved in value
within the past two or three years. When
properly cultivated and brought to market
without loss from the storms, rice pays the
planter a handsome profit.
Skill and experience have done much to
planter has never yet been able to use ma
chinery in moving the crop. 1t is cut now,
as it was cut a century ago, by a sickle in
the Negroes hands. 1t is owing to the drain
ing bitches being so near together that ma
chinery is impracticable. To cut an acre of
rice a day is a full task. AS a general thing
the men do the cutting. the women do the
tying. The new-cut stalks are laid on the
stubble forty-eight hours to dry. then tied
into sheaVes about fifteen inches in circum-
ference and stacked out to cure. This cur
ing process makes another picture that
would hold an artists fancy. Supported on
rough upright poles several feet from the
smooth and orderly. arranged in squares
and t~riangles stretched across the field in
the sunlight. Even on dull autumn days
the gold sheen of the ripened sheaves
makes a bright spot in the otherwise color
less landscape.