West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1906-04-19

your space.
While farmers in West Virginia
are just beginning to make their
gardens, we here are enjoying all
the gustatory delights Of early
spring vegetables, onions, lettuce,
beans, peas, potatoes, radishes, and,
in fact, all that is grown in garden.
Then strawberries are in their prime
and blackberries bid fair soon to
be ripe, and the beauty of it is these
things are grown right here and not
shipped in.
That the raising of "garden
truck" is a paying proposition is
evidenced by the number Of large
truck farms one sees between here
and New Orleans, fairly green with
good things to be shipped to the
Northern cities. One man, who
has a small farm near this city,
cleared over a thousand dollars
cash last season, and he has but
one small delivery wagon. So you
see LOUISIANA can produce more
than merely rice and sugar cane.
The Long Bell Lumber Company
is trying an experiment on some
1900 acres of cut over pine land
forty'miles north of here. They are
trying various fruits and other farm
products and their experiment bids
fair to be a success and if it is,
Louisiana will become a power in
the Agricultural line; for over half
the State is covered with these pine
forests.
The small Northern farmer could
sell his farm for fifty or sixty dollars
an acre, come down here, buy a
large farm for song and become
rich. How many of our West
Virginia farmers clear a thousand
dollars year2 The South needs
the extensive cultivation of the
Moth.
To return TO what / had at first
intended TO write about. Twelve
miles to the west of here are
Louisiana's famous sulphur mines.
When the French first came here
they discovered these deposits of
sulphur and tried various methods
of mining it.
The sulphur seems to be in a
plate-shaped deposit of pure sui
phur, covering some four acres and
down some FIVE hundred feet being
about two hundred feet thick in the
center and thinning out on the edges.
The French brought immense
machinery overland and tried to
sink shaft, but found layer of
quicksand that checked their pro-
gress. They then surrounded the
shaft with a steel casing and even
reached the rock layer just over
the sulphur, but the gaseous fumes
overpowered the workmen and they
were forced to abandon their efforts.
1t remained for an American to
solve the problem. Knowing that
sulphur melts ready to a mobile
yellow liquid, he sank hole as if
boring for oil, cased 1t, and then
placed a smaller pipe inside the
larger. Then, by forcing super
heated steam down the outside pipe,
the sulphur was easily pumped up
through the inner. And this is the
method used today. The liquid
sulphur is PUMPED into large wooden
reservoirs to solidity, where it is
dug out by pick and shovel, loaded
onto wheelbarrows and run into
the cars for shipment. The product
IS 90 to 90 per cent pure and needs
no refining.
There arc fifteen or twenty pro-
ducing wells, and, though each one
is pumping out a continuous stream
of sulphur four inches across, there
seems to be no aPprecisble dimuni-
ton in the supply. OF course an
individual well gives out and has to
be moved or dug anew ten or
twelve feet away.
They are now building canal
across to the Sabine river, in order
to avoid the excessive freight rates.
Even with this deposit alone, the
United States bids fair to surpass
Sicily in the worlds production Of
sulphur and become first. MANY
people visit the mines out Of
curiosity and carry away souvenirs
dipped in the melted sulphur. The
mines are certainly a wonderful and
interesting sight
II / find time ] shall write you
letter on the rice-farming and mill
ing. wish could send you some
Of the beautiful roses I see in the
yards. Do not fail to send me The
Argus. ] appreciate it very much.
Hoping 70 be in West Virginia