Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1911-02-22
CT aMERCEO 'MANYLANDS
ROGERS WITNESSES EXCHANGE OF
COMMODITIES OF THE WORLD
New Orleans Unique in Antiquity Cos.
mopoli;An City-Road Building-Ex-
else control-Northern Settlers

FRIEND MUNsoN: Standing on the
wharf at New Orleans, | saw the Miss
issippi river far from its source and
near the delta, flowing past in dark
muddy solution, mixture of the soils
between the Rocky mountains and the
Alleghenies. | saw steamer from
Pittsburg with many barges in tow,
loaded with $50, 900 tons of coal; at the
station long trains of cars are unload
ing many thousand tons of Birmingham
coal. saw stevedores actively un-
loading mahogany square timber, and |
inquired from whence and viii her, and
was informed from French EastAfrica,
where breech- clouted natives felled and
squared the logs, shipped to the coast
and reshipped by sail to Liverpool, the
worlds mahogany mart, there sold by
the foot, roshipped by sail to New Or
leans, then by rail to Chicago where it
is sawed into lumber l-32 of an inch,
kiln dried and sold by the pound. 1t is
veneered on Eastwood or poplar, over
which is glued linen cloth, then sub
| jected to a hydraulic pressure of II, 500
pounds, and sold largely to the Pullman
company and piano manufactures. The
decreasing of this country of black
walnut has compelled furniture makers
to search the forests of the far away
regions beyond the Black Sea, to find
supply in the Caucasus mountains,
which is hauled to the railway, then to
the Bla tx sea, then by tramp steamer
to Baltimore, the American walnut
market. A forester told me that in the
disappearance of the American oak,
they had found fair substitute in the
cyprus for flooring and casing, and in
the gum tree good material to make
school furniture, Office desks, sounding
boards and flooring. The shipment Of
lumber and square timber from two
gulf ports is of a volume most incom-
prehensible. | note the clearing of
lumber cargoes from Mobile in one
week for Cuba, Porto Rico and twenty
three European ports amounted to one
billion feet, while there cleared from
Gulf Port the same week one and
quarter billion feet of lumber and tim
Der for the east coast of South Ameri-
ca, one quarter billion to the Argentine
and half billion to Cape Town, South
Africa, while many trains were loaded
to points north of the Ohio river. A
shipper told me he COP feel the pulse
of the worlds boom : activities in
building by the custom house books of
clearances. A large part Of the money
received from sales of lumber goes to
northern capitalists who financed the
lumber business.
saw cargo of $50, 900 bushels of
corn consigned by a Kansas City firm,
being loaded and billed to Stockholm.
Before shipment the corn is run through
a machine TO remove the germ and thus
prevent heating. the germ being by
product of some value; and nearby
steamer from Cuba with a cargo Of
Gaze molasses in tank, was being pump
ed into barrels. Again | note a cargo
of Cuba cane being transferred from
boat to cars and shipped to Madison,
Wisconsin, experimental station to test
the sugar quality and TO use the fiber
for making pulp.
We stroll to the old French quarters
built by emigrants to the new world
from France, when Louis XIV was
ruler. The old buildings with galleries
land narrow streets show the antiquity
of the old town. French-speaking peo-
pie still control the old quarters in LAM
guage, schools, press and religion the
Jesuit established here when they came
in galleons and bateaux. The French
theatre is well maintained and the
French opera patroniZed by the ultra
exclusive society. We saw boxes filled
with fair women in evening toilets, as
to taste seldom seen elsewhere. A
morning walk led to the French mar
ket, place of great interest. We saw
the food supply from tl.o rivers, bay
GUS, sounds, bays and gulf, from the
marshes, swamps, forests and fields,
and truly how plentifully the laws Of
Nature have provided. | saw frog
Of large size in tank waiting the exc
cutioner. The frog dealer told me they
were farmed and held in tanks ready to
dress Remarking on the frogs habits
said they sang in great oratorlo in the
native waters, but their voices were
never heard in captivity. Remarking
| further he said the great composers
were influenced in the key to 1.-THE
Creation and Messiah" from frog or
atorio on a spring evening volume
| from nature.
A ride west from New Orleans takes
us into a salt district of much import
ance, discovered time Of the Civil war
when the south was destitute save the
| invisible saline in the air Not far from
the salt mines an exploring party pros
peeting for oil, sunk a tube 900 feet
and found mine of sulphur covered by
| the wash of the Mississippi's overflow.
| The question was how to commercialize
| the sulphur hidden under the salt deposit
of ages and ages. The engineer seldom
fails to find the way. Two tubes were
sunk; down one was forced a volume of
steam which yapOrized the sulphur,
when it came out of the second tube,
was conducted to vat and returned to
sulphur, same as it lay 1900 feet be-
| low.
Riding further through swamps of
cyprus and gum, and live oak forest
heavily trellaced with moss and mistle-
toe that slowly sap the life of the giant
trees, along the shores of bayous and
sluggish streams where fish and aquatic
fowls are plentiful in the forest trees
nightingales and mocking birds make
merry all the day and night, the win
| ter home of our own summer bird ylsi-
tors-and into the land Of the Acadlans,
those lovers of the French folk lore,
the language, the priest and religion
they taught people refusing to obey
English laws, were exiled from bleak
| Grand Pre- TO the bayous Of Louisiana,
where the French was spoken, where
! they could worship, receive absolution
and the last JUNCTION beneath the cross
/ and before the Christ erucified. The
story so beautifully told in Evangellne
/ has been read in every language that
/ has uoetry. How they fioated down
| the Ohio drifted by the current of
the Mississippi, they turned into the
/ new land of Acadia and under the wide
| 81 reading branches of live oak, knelt