The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-04-15

three-quarters crop, the farmers threshed
out 10000 600 barrels Of rice, As they real
lied on it an average price of quite So so
a barrel it doesn't require an expert to figure
up that they did middling well, as even at
81 a barrel the farmer makes a profit.
The rice belt extends from Crowley, La,
in the country of Eyangeline, far to the
west along the Texas coast, Crowley,
Orange, Beaumont, Houston, Pay City,
Galveston and Eagle Lake being great
rice centres. There are still thousands up
on thousands ofaores in the rich prairie lands
open for development and as the consump-
ton Of rice in the United States is twice
the production settlers from the North
who see profitable room for reaching out
and filling some OF that demand are rapidly
taking up the land. They are chiefly IRON
Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin.
These lands at one time could have been
b%ought-in fact, went begging-for from
$3.50 to So an acre. From $40 to $50 an acre
is what they are worth to-day, according
to location.
Great systems of irrigating canals ramify
the rice belt to supply the land with water,
for rice is a water plant, and must be flooded
in the early stages Of its growth to inspire
a crop. Artesian, wells are another source
OF irrigation, and millions of dollars are
invested in the irrigating plants.
Japanese have colonized as rice planters
in several places IN the Texas rice belt,
one at Webster, near Houston, being a
particularly notable settlement Of these
wonderful people. One Japanese farmer
at Webster cleared $4,000 on his rice crop
, last season.
Rice has brought about a remarkable
coast country within the last FIVE years,
and fortunes have been made on small in
vestment. The Texas rice belt lies largely
in the cotton belt of the State, also; a COM
bination of rich staple commodities in
cultivation to be found nowhere else on
earth.
And as to hat cotton, which the North
erner thinks his folks ave perhaps heard
about as being somewhat of a factor In
the commercial affairs Of the country,
right down here Is where one-third Of the
cotton crop OF the United States is getting
ready at this moment to whiten the fields
by and by. Yes. They raise some cotton
down here in Texas. Only something more
than 5000, 900 bales last season. Worth $50
q bale, at least.
The Northerner noticed in q recent issue
of one Of the local papers from his old home
up North an item Of news with a black type
heading, big Timber Deall' The deal
involved a consideration OF something
like 81 900, there being more h 1000 acres
OF timber land in It.
The Northerner had to smile, although
it was news from home, for he had just been
reading in a Texas paper about a triHe Of
a timber deal recently closed by a lumber
company In the yellow pine belt Of Texas.
This dicker wac for a bit of timber land that
cost the purchaser only three million and
odd dollars, there being but 90, 900 acres
in il.
There have bean several such lumber
transactions here and near here within the
past month or 30, The Texas and Louisiana
yellow pine belt has about 200 sawmills.
feet, crashing away at its timber, and eat
ing up, at a conservative estimate, an aver
age Of 10000, 600 feet Of it every working day
in the year; yet the calculation Is that II will
take fifty years to exhaust the supply, So
stretching it a BIT when he tells his folks up
home that there is quite a spread Of woods
still lying along this coast country.
The Northerner has been eating home
grown stra wberries here since about Feb
ruary fine, large, full favored berries,
grown on fruit farms that lie between
Houston and Galveston, He has been pay
ing is cents a box for them, but they will
be cheaper by and by.
He finds. also, that green peas and new
potatoes seem TO be green and new all the
year round-not imported, but brought in
by local truck farmers. In fact, he says
he can tell his folks that green garden sass
is on tap from January to January, end
that IL there Is all the virtue IN a vegetable
diet that v~egetarans say, then this coast
country Of Texas and Louisiana ought
surely to be the vegeta RAMS paradise.
A citizen informed the Northerner the
other day that he planted beans in his
garden last spring and had been picking
beans from the vines every month since