The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-07-19

think that anything that seemed so simple
4 could be so complex. All you have 10 do
4 apparently is to turn the water on and
off the fields at certain stages by means
! Of the dOOdgates that work so perfectly
/ and your crop is made OF course with
/ intervals of drying out and hoeing over.
| The natives, who have it all at their fn-
/ gers ends, rattle away gibly about the
/ sprout water and harvest water and it
seems clear as day and plain and easy
1 enough to go by but just let one of those
floodings set 100 deep over the fed by 50
much as a hairs breadth, or let 1t not be
deep enough, or be run off too coon, or too
/ late by even the length of a day and it
all over with you. You hear then about
the crop being drowned out, or the grass
getting ahead. or The maggots getting into
the roots or some such dire state, any one
of which doOms your prospects for the
year When its too late you discover that
/ there are more points to learn about rice
/ than about any other growing thing under
the sun, and what is more, that any enc
of those web-fOoted, raw-boned fed dar-
kies down there, with their sloping fore
heads and ape-like motions, is better in
formed on the crop and its suscepuDiliti ties
! and aptitudes any day than you would
/ be likely to be If you stayed there ten
/ years.
/ In all stages of development from the
! time the new grain first shows green along
| the trenches until 1t waves in the breast
/ high harvest or is stacked out to cure,
! a carefully tended rice field is an inspir-
! ing sight, suggesting at once the space
4 and freedom of the prairie and the sym
1 metry of regularly laid off ground. When
/ the rice is young it looks like promising
7 sheet of green interspersed and bordered
/ with silver. When the crop begins to
/ head a down haze is discerned over the
/ field that glistens when the sun strikes IT,,
/ and that and the mild lumin0usness that
/ always hangs about the lowlands, the
squat clay-chimneyed cabins showing out
/ here and there in the background, and the
! strong men and women working in the
! fields, makes a picture distinct from other
/ agricultural districts.
With all the new ideas adopted into
rice culture the negro and the mule are
! still important and Indispensable ele-
ments. The water can assist the young
rice to grow and keep back the grass 20
/ a certain extent but it cannot prepare the
/ land for planting, and at intervals during
growth the grass and menacng weeds
must be chopped out first by hand and at
| forwards by NIUE power. Then, too. no
machinery has ever yet been devised which
win assist in gathering the rice crop 1t
is cut now, as it was generations ago, by
| hand with a cythe bound into sheaves by
/ hand, and stacked out to cure on rough
/ poles in the field just as it always has
/ been. Machinery could, Of course, be de-
vised for cutting the grain and binding it
| into bundles, but the twenty-acre square
/ fields into which the main tract is divid-
! ed for purposes of cultivation are each
so cut up and interSected with open drains
/ thai machinery employed in them would
/ be mere of a hindrance than a help. This
! seems an especial arrangement OF ProVi-
dence, for the rice reserves are in a sec
! ton densely peopled with negroes, who de-
| PEND for a living entirely on the field work
/ they can get to do. These rice-hed ne
! groes are of another order from the ne
groes of the cotton-planting districts.
/ They are of a ioWer tyre, so far as their
| form, features and complexion are con-
| cerned, and their speech is so different
that even people used from babyhood 10
hearing negro dialect have to guess at the
| meaning, and the upland darkey himself
/ acknowledges that the "guHa" talk of his
| coast neghbor IS too much for his under
| standing.
Il been down to'ards Yemassee and dem
low country places tother day, and de
| people did "trip me up that bad in their
talk! I never half know what they had
| aim to say" is the cotton field darkey' 5
| comment after a trip through the coast
| lands and his white compeers are apt to
| be no more enlightened. Even in places
as near to the rice-growing districts as
| Charleston, Savannah and Georgetown the
wonder and amusement. There is no ac-
| counting for the exceptional oddly of
| speech save on the ground that on these
! plantations there were more slaves form
| erly than anywhere else In the South
| who for that reason came less in contact
| with their owner or, indeed, with any
| white people Since emancipation the pro-
! portion Of white people has decreased and
| the leavening influence has become even
| further removed, the blacks iapsing more
| into their original serni-civilized condl-
| ton.
| Although not up to him in the acquire
ments Of civilization, the rice-field negro
| Is ahead of his up-country brother in the
| sense of physical nuremcnt He can stand
more ills and weather them out longer and
with less noticeable effect than the more
refined type of negro. In days when he
| was property this fact was recognized.
! and an able-bodied rice-fleld negro was
| always held at a better price than any
| ether field worker lis work exposed him
20 great odds, and he was better taken
| care of on that account The big rice
| Planters always clothed their field hands
| In stout woo len outer garments that would
| protect them from the sudden changes OF
| weather and the constant dampness they
| experienced. The planters annually i'm
ported bo.ls of woollen cloth direct from
| the English mills for this express purpose.
| ana the precauuon did much to ward of
! pneumonia and pulmonary disorders. The