Lower coast gazette., 1913-08-30
SATURDAY, AUGUST 80, 1912.
The Rice Harvest in Plaquemines.

swing. The rapid fall in the river cutting OF
the water supply for irrigation purposes LETT a
good deal of the rice undeyeloped and giving a
very poor promise a few weeks ago. The rains,
however, that have been prevailing for a month
past have benefited these inadequately. irrigated
fields and more rice will probably be gathered ;
from them than seemed at all possible a month
or more ago.
AS is usual, the advent of any considerable
rice upon the market has a tendencysto break .
down values and those who will harvest their
rice and sell it on a rglutted market will doubt
less find themselves disappointed in the results.
In Plaquemines Parish, in former days, it was
customary among'all the rice planters to put
their rice in stacks and let it pass through the
sweat incidental to stacking and then later on,
whenever it was convenient, to market the rice
n1the best way possible, but not precipltately,
as i~f.selhng it off at auction. AS our readers
know, the very handsome fortune of the Sovoies
was made largely by the prudence OF Mr..
Bernard Savoie in the matter of harvesting and
selling his rice. Once in a while he may have
found that he could have done better by selling
earlier, but, as a rule, his delayed sales seemed
to realize him more net money than others got
for their rice.
This brings to mind the matter of taking
care of rice after its harvest. MIR. Bernard
Savoie put his threshed rice in bins. just as is
done with wheat. oats, barley and rye in the
western states and in that way saved all the
wastage from rats cutting the bags, and when
the rice was sold it could be qnickly bagged and
sent to market.
This is a matter that is impressing itself
more and more upon all Of our people identified
with4agriculnre; horticulture, truck gardening,
and 80 on, that is, that the marketing of the
crop is about as serious a matter: as is producing
it. To@be engaged an many months. OF hard
work, to produce good crops, and then to have
them mercilessly slaughtered in a glutted mar
ket is a very crushing misfortune andrenoughF
70 discourage anyone. Such encouragement
has. done great harm on the lower coast. 1t
may be that by adequate precautions we can
remove these troubles one by one. On the
East bank for many years one of the great mis-
fortunes was the somewhat frequent inunda-
ton Of the rice fields by the autumnal storms.
The great back levee there constructed is now
doing a great deal of good in the protection of
the country, but at the same time the system of
outlet gates is defective. These were intended
to be automatic and yet are not found to close
automatically and cannot be we'll reached in
times of high back water in any way to make
them tight. We have been inclined to think
that it would be better even now to have a
canal on the inside, or field side of the back
leyee say 30 or 40 feet away from the base Of
the levee and this canal could carry the inside
water to natural outlets, wherein larger fumes,
6. s or 10 feet wide could be placed that would
allow all of the inside water to go out whenever
the outside water was Of a lower level than that
inside. This is an engineering problem that
ought to be very carefully considered and if the
present system has any intrinsic fault it would
be we'll for those interested to endeavor to COR
rect tide faults as rapidly as they could. hoping
in time, to create a system that shall be just as
effective in Louisiana as are the hundreds of
drainage districts in Holland and on the east
coast of England, where such works have been
operating for more than a thousand years. The
water in our canals coming from the leakages
of the irrigation water, could be pumped back
OH the front lands again through narrow ditch
es and usedsoyer again for irrigating the rice
crop. The lift would be so slight, say only 2 or
8 feet, that with a Menge or Titus pump such
water could be awaited Of whenever the river
was low, making river irrigation difficult.
A canal on the field side Of the layee and
used as a g general canal, reaching the necessary
o~utlets:is the custom Of the world wherever
these lowlands are protected by leYees, as is
done with our present back .leyee. If some
such plan was adopted it would necessarily lead
to more careful irrigation and prevent the
wastage Of water which is now so common that
some planters keep their water running through
their rice fields continuously, a feature Of irri-
cation that is not considered necessary any
where else in the rice producing world.
We hesitate about making suggestions to
our rice planters who are so thoroughly inform
ed as to their business, who have been engaged
in it for many years and are familiar with