The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1905-04-07
James Ellis in Rioe Journal.

LOWING IN tDlS SectlOn is progress
Ing very slowly, and many farms are
yet untouched.
1t looks now as if less rice planting
would be done this season than has
been anticipated. From p to 10 per
cent decrease was predicted in the
acreage, but now it looks in the
well" district as til 'ught the de-
crease in acreage myIt be from 80 to
90 per cent. The continued depreS-
sion of the rice market is fast placing
the optimists in the peSsimist column.
What are we going to do? is the
question propOunded by nearly every
one.
Quite a number of families have
moved away from this neighborhood
to seek homes elsewhere, and if the
present conditions continue another
year it seems as if we should be back
to Providence times, and sweet pOta-
toes and long horned cattle.
However we have learned some
things if the lesson is costly.
We have learned that we must raise
our own feed. The crop that is now
being prepared for will be done on
ground rice for horse and mule feed.
The acreage in corn and other fodder
plants will be very much inceased.
The tin COW will be left on the shelf.
The housewife will dig mess of
potatoes instead of going to town
for them.
a few acres of oats will be planted
One farmer is sowing few acres of
rape, for hog feed. More truck of
every sort is being planted than ever
before. People are preparing to live
on the products of their own farms.
1t is evident however that unless a
more rational methods of handling
the rice crop is devised the industry
is doomed. This is too Iate,a day to
enslave good strait white Americans.
A party in the north writing in one
of the papers says I'VE know how to
prepare rice for food, and to cook it
properly: We do not need your rice
kitchens, We need the price down TO
where we can use it," Now what is
the matter? Rice here is away below
the cost of production but IS soon as
it passes through the manipulator's
hands it is too high, in our own
country, and even in our own state,
to be used as common food. The
Standard Oil company don't know the
first b of finance when compared
with the rice handlers.
If our rice mills cannot devise some
means to put our rice into the con.
sumers' hands SO that the producer
may live, it is now time for them to
quit the business and circumstances
will surely emphasize this PROPOSE
ton.
The mills get the toll and there
their interest ceases, 80 why would
they strive for better market and lay
out their money the meanwhile? A
certain successful miller from the mil
ler's standpoint only declares that
is his policy; and what are you
going to do about it?"
Then the idea that the individual
can market his own rice is mistak-
en- thing. The man who tries it, unless
it is in a neighbOrhood where he has
a "pull," will find himself met with
the statement that though the price
and the goods are all right, "we have
our own jobber and we prefer to buy
of him."
So the producer is fenced off every
where, and the consumer finds the
price too high; and we try to fix the
matter up with rice kitchen.
There are too many people who are
not contributing to the success of the
industry, sort of parasite, who are
getting a good easy living out Of it.
| notice that the flour millers get to
us, but they buy their wheat and do
not resort to the antedeluvian method
of toll milling. l will confess how
ever that the rice industry is not the
only industry that levies big toll on
the people. Take the ice industry for
instance, can we expect to be able to
20 do much in the dairying line with
ice, which is necessity in this
climate, at 7Oc per hundredweight?
That is what we have to pay here.