The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1902-07-11
FARMERS RUSHING IN.
Rice Belt Filled With Homeseekers
From Everywhere.


eyes, it is fact that the livery
stable men are now short of horses
and carriages all over the South
western portion of louisiana said
Mr.. j. F. Wellington, of Jennings, to
a Picayune reporter. THAT is, the
iverymen have not got enough horses
and carriages to go around among
the large numbers of northern and
western land hunters and home hun
tiers that are now fiocking into the rice
belt like bees in field of clover just
in bloom. We expect to get a little
rest after the middle of July until fall.
The farmers during that time will have
to stay at home and take care of their
harvesting.
"You people down here in New Or
leans do not fully realize what great
boom we are having in the rice belt.
1t will soon be the most thickly popu-
lated portion of the South. All of the
prairie land not now devoted to the
culture of rice is rapidly being divided
up into 100 acre farms. There is more
money in raising rice than in raising
corn or wheat out west and the work
is easier. The inviting feature in the
rice growing business is that it is a
sure crop. Irrigation insures a crop
every year with scarcely the element
of doubt entering the proposition.
Given we of Louisiana do not know
all the valuable minerals that underlie
"a Tn ln ,,ia hn1 OF
we now have proved that the oil de-
posit is superior to that at Beaumont
Gushers will be brought in on the
Jennings field with great rapidity
from this time on. It will only be
question of few months when we will
from that port oil can be loaded on
ocean-going vessels and on barges
that can be taken up the bayous to
the Mississippi river direct, a great
advantage over the Beaumont field.
1.-The sugar planters and the rice
mill owners are now fully alive to the
Importance of oil as fuel and those
who have not already installed the
necessary machinery to burn oil are
doing so as rapidly as possible. 1t
is no trouble now to place contracts
for fuel oil as the planters and rice
mill people are asking for them right
along.
Another important mineral that
will soon be counted among Louis
iana's most valuable assets is sulphur.
Only about 10 tons of sulphur are be-
ing taken out of the ground in the
vicinity of Sulphur City now, whereas
L predict that thousands of tons will
be taken out daily before many more
years pass by. The sulphur deposits
of Southwest Louisiana are known to
be more extensive than those of famed
Sicily and yet the confines of the i'm
mense deposits are not known.
ga pessimist of the most pronounced
type could not be able to say anything
worse than that Louisiana has a
future before it equal to the most bril-
liant attachments of any other state in
the Union.
81 want to say that the class of peo-
pie that are settling in the rice belt is
of the best citizenship that the United
States produces. The farmers who
are fiocl1ing in to build up that por-
ton of the state are home-makers.
They come to stay and to raise their
families there. They will be large
consumers of all the best merchandise
that is known on the New Orleans
market. They will, besides creating
immense wealth, also consume i'm
mense amounts of product, the sale of
which will make other people rich"