The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-10-21
DAUGHTERS READY
FOR Bic MEETING
Mrs. Cory Writes of Trip te
Houston
INTEREST IN LOUISIANA
All Sorts of Candidates and Heavy
weights on Train Necessitate
Crossing River in Two
Sections.
BY MRS. cHAPPELL CORY.

Houston, Tex, October 19.-(Special
Correspondence. We were to have
reached here at II o'clock Sunday night,
but instead 1t was 2 o'clock Monday
morning The trip from Birmingham to
Houston is one of real interest. OF course
one misses the familiar sight along the
Louisville and Nashville when the shades
of night and Pullman are endured,
but the early light shows the CLEAN of
water swift-moving canvas of far-on
sailboats and here and there few lone
men in the paraphernalia of the hunter
of ducks; ankle deep they stand In the
messy dells, yet they are not so busy
shooting the feathery tribe that they do
not stop like every other human being
to gaze at the on-rushing train.
1t is from New Orleans to Houston that
we felt the deeper interest, because 1t
was along new and unfamiliar ways.
Another thing which makes the trip not
able is the absence of dust. Strong winds
sweep over the prairies of fresh plowed
land and waving fields of sugar cane, or
swoop down on banks of rice awaiting
the harvesting, but there is no taste or
vouthfui-like, drinking in every drop.
Much of the black rich land was ready for
the fall planting of sugar cane, even to
the last little furrow, and this planting,
mind you, does not ripen until the cane
planted in the spring is ready, too. 1t Is
simply a labor and time saving scheme.
The rice fields are divided off into large
squares, by bitches which 1 was told keep
the water over the ripening grain. But
the cane fields are ditched, too, and for
directly the opposite reasons of drain
age. Passing through a 1o,oO0-acre piece
of marshland, was informed that a rich
and influential Jew would soon trans
form it into as great a plantation of cane
as the one adjoining it, by the process
of drainage. italian labor is very popu-
lar there. The yield of cane seems enor-
nous and one can scarcely imagine why
even Sugar Glen could be so watery. But
IL it be true that sugar is taken from
the boiling three times, it is not to be
wondered at. The cutting of the cane
comes next week.
All this scenery is much the same, yet
never MISUNDERSTANDING cane, and be-
yond a glimpse of some great old house
with seeming thousands of little houses.
dotting like the tents of an Narmy just
back of the cane fields, then a field of
rice, all brown and its golden piles now
ready for the threshing; now marsh of
purple water hyacinths and now vast
swamp of cypress, heavy with the old
gray moss.
There are many sawmills along the
IL. Iaxx ax1
higher in price than our pine. Occasion
ally there is a bayou. and you pass one
town whose bay opening on the gulf is
famous for Its oyster beds. The late
storm did much damage to the water
ways and railroad tracks, and in one
of the great old country seats, whose
grove boasts 100 huge oaks, many of
the most beautiful were razed to the
ground.
But the most interesting thing and the
most unusual thing to me was the way
we "got to the river and couldn't get
across There Is no bridge there across
the Mississippi river, and all the trains
are run upon a huge barge with tracks
on 1t. Then a heavy, big boilered tug
puffs and blows and pulls the barge
across Here with all sorts of hydraulic
something's they make the tracks on the
barge hit the tracks on the trestle and
human freight up the steep incline. 1t
takes a half hour to go over, as the river
is most swift at that point wreck on
the barge delayed us some hours and
necessitated the taking over of our train
In sections. l haven't understood yet
why they don't built a bridge. Some
very wise looking men and women did
seem to understand why, and said some
very curious things about clay and swift
water, but facts and figures to publish
were lacking.
1t was said that the trains don't have
to go over often in sections. and 1t was
intimated by some facetious persons that
the heavy weight of the United Daugh,
ters of the Confederacy might have
something to do with it. Much to the
distress of many of the daughters. no
Pullman seats could be procured at New
Orleans, and all were dumped alike into