Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1904-06-04

of clearing it could scarcely be less
| considerable item in any other rice
country in the world. AS it is al sutli-
| cicntly fertile. the only questions that
arise concerning any particular tract
are whether it is close enough to an ir-
riSation plant and whether there is a
clay subsoil To make il hold the water
Apart from the flooding and draining
the methods and implements employed
i'll growing rice are practically the
same that are used with wheat
1t is solely because Americans cult
vate this crop with machinery that
they can afford to cultivate it at all.
The industry brings them in COMPETE.
ton with what is doubtless the cheap
est Gin the sense of being the worst
PAID labor i'm the world Ii is not put
ting the case To strongly to say that
one American using machinery grows
as much rice as thirty men can grow
by hand in China.
There are scarcely be any question
that at present the profits are very high
rs compared with other forms of agri-
culture in the South. 1t is only since
1884, when a Whcat-grower from Iowa
brought n twine-binding harvester to
Louisiana and tried it on rice, that Gull
tivation with the machinery of wheat
growing has been practised. When.
one remembers how long rice has been
grown by the old hand methods and
that this grain is the daily food of
more human beings than any other
product of the earth, the innovation
seems scarcely less important than the
invention of the cotton gin.
1t is no wonder that the observant
japanese are represented here among
the investigators of what the railroads
call the rice proposition" Their con-
sui general at New York secured some
time ago from an expert of our De-
partment OF Agriculture at Washing
ton an estimate of the preliminary in
vestment. the running expenses and
the annual profits of a plantation in the
coast country. The figures are very
striking. They show preliminary
outlay of 1000 acres, including purchase
price. of 49,, 500; an annual outlay OF
sl3,650, and gross annual income of
s34,425, or more than $4,000 net. DR..
Knapp of the Government Experiment
Station at Lakes Charles, La, allowing
twice as much per acre for the cost OF
land, figures out a net return of only
twenty per cent. on the permanent in
vestment. / have seen a number of
similar estimates and the signed re-
ports which a number of planters have
made Of their own expenditures and
profits. They fully explain the rapidity
of this development. f
OF course, one hears less of the
risks. But the facts about the indus
try seem so simple that one feels COM
petent to consider them without much
special study. There is. for example.
the rate of consumption, which in this
country is still considerably ahead OF
the horne production and which Is UNI
doubtedly increasing. One natural
device Of the promoters Is the wide
distribution OF literature about rice as
a food, and Of recipes for preparing
and serving it. There is plan also
ITO establish rice stores in American
cities which shall be given over like
tobacco shops to the display and sale
of a single commodity in all its mar
ketable forms. Not without a lively
recollection of the watery paste which
occasionally makes its appearance as