Lower coast gazette., 1910-07-30
SATURDAY, JULY 80, 1910.
Some of Our Neglected Resources.


In these tough times when We of the Loulsl-
ana sugar region may look longlngly but with a
'k, gardez mails ne les tOuchez pas sort or
MI. itOry sense on most of the meats ana
cereals, and other family supplies and grocery
products which We import from other states and
can i'll afford to pay the famine prices charged
therefor, we should cast an observant eye about
US and see what we neglect within our reach IN
idle dreamings for the unattalnable.
For instance: There are fresh water shr'mps.
When the Lord made the Mississippi river he
filed its lower waters in unstinted abundance
with the most delicious little crustacean in all
the world. We of the riparian plantations and
farms of our river parishes from the Arkansas
line to the Gulf sometimes enjoy boiled river
shrimp s~prinkled about equally with ice and red
pepper in our famous New Orleans restaurants.
But how many of US take advantage of this un-
limited abundance and facility to capture them
along about 800 miles of our river and bayou
banks, counting them both ways, through all of
our three summer months, and use him to help
out and elevate our home living. All that is
needed to take river shrimp in out of the wet
by the basketful is an empty Oat sack, with its
mouth held open by a barrel hoop, a string and
a stake to hold it to the bank, a brickbat to sink
it, and a bit Of kitchen garbage to bait it.
When caught they are delicious and nOurishing
in any style in which they may be cooked.
Boiled and seasoned with pepper, stewed with
tomatoes and rice a la Creole, converted into
shrimp balls a la Goldfish BoStonaise, fricasseed,
fried, or made into a salad with mayonnaise
dressing, they are so delicious that those who
eat each dish declare it the best until they try
the next.
Yet with all of those billions of bushels Of
succulent shrimp that turddle their whiskers
before our rural doors and asked to be taken in
that they might philanthropicaRy reduce the
cost Of daily living and help to do battle against
the iniquitous e~xaetiOns of the Beef Trust, and
the Bacon Trust, and the Goldfish Trust, and the
Salmon Trust, we do not seek their assistance
in reducing our household expenses and improv-
Ing our daily bills of fare to the extent of a frac-
ton of one per cent. We leave the most pro-
hfc food supply furnished by the greatest
American river to the few Chinese and Malays
in our midst who furnish the urban markets, or
to the reflective negro OF the river bank who Is
familiar with the resOurcefulness of the shrimp
bag in filling the stomach to the exclusion of all
the customary incidental toll demanded in such
r~epletion.
1t would take the most studious German sta
~tistician to calculate the countless millions of
money annually wasted by the riparian popula-
ton of Louisiana in neglecting this wonderful
unlimited food supply furnished them by a boun-
tiful Providence free of all cost save that of the
faeile catching and the cheap and efficient cook
ing. This is one of our greatest natural re-
sources which we sadly and w~antonly neglect.
But there are others.
There is the ubiquitous and nutritious catfish,
the fat and s~caleless scavenger of the Missis-
sippi river. Since New Orleans and other great
cities of the Mississippi valley have gone into
the business of dumping their unqualified and