Lower coast gazette., 1914-02-07
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY z, 1914.
Better Times Are Coming.

HE dlC plCoO VI GNS SSH |
~recounts increased confidence everywhere IN
commercial and financial circles and the TACT
that money is more plentiful and apparently less
actively sought for all of which would indicate
that the panic of 1907 has finally expended Its
force and that in this, the seventh year, the tide
is beginning to turn.
The enormous crop production in the western
states of the federal union last year gave assur-
ances that the country as a whole was unques-
tionably very prosperous. The bank clearings
throughout the North and West indicated quite
a material increase in business and the gradual
expansion Of credits. The currency bill, which
gave SO much trouble to the leading financlers
of the country, seems now to be considered a
comparatively harmless law, so far as high
finance is concerned and a really beneficial law
insofar as the easy distribution of the funds OF
the country are concerned. All these are IN
huences that are prevailing north OF us and are
leading TO what we may soon realize as a nnai
relief from the close conditions that have en-
vironed US for some years.
So far as Louisiana is concerned it has had
great causes for distress, owing to the fact that
the boil Weevil reduced our cotton crop OF some
$500 0 bales down to 25O,0 900 from which point
we have been gradually recovering until now
our cotton crop production stands at about
400, 900 bales.
Our sugar industry has been very severely
hurt during the past three years by unusual
freezes and the great overflow of 1912, from
which 1918 showed only a partial recovery.
The devastating effects of the great rains
that fell in the autumn Of 1913 almost annihil-
ated the rice crop in western Louisiana and did
harm to the rice crop everywhere.
In our own parish there are evidences OF con-
fdence in the future of our staple crops. We
understand that the Messrs. Gravolet are going
to plant Monsecour in rice and the great Scars
dale plantation is being actively prepared for
the coming cane crop. On the West bank Of the
! river earnest efforts will be made to produce
large crops of sugar cane for the great Myrtle
Grove sugar factory and altogether we are led
to believe that the situation, while not very at
t~ractive ,agriculturally, is not nearly as bad as it
might be and shows signs Of early recovery.
The truck garden crops look beautiful in
Plaquemines Parish and it is to be hoped that
the delightful winter weather that we have been
having will continue on into the spring and that
our truck gardeners will be able to get their
crops out early and to reach satisfactory mar
kets.
The great problem Of distributing truck gar
dening products presents itself throughout all
the Gulf states and the truck gardeners are call
ing meeting after meeting with a view of at
tempting to find some solution of this problem.
If we wait for the buyers Of St. Louis and
Chicago and elsewhere to come down to our
parish to buy our products, we may wait in
vain. If we send our products up to those
great cities of the west to be sold for our &C
count. we shall almost surely" suffer, as the
chances are that they would arrive in these
cities on a bad market and with a hasty distri-
button losses would unquestionably occur.
The remedy for this would seem to be in
certain communities organizing together and
selecting an agent and sending him to these To-
4 calities to make these desired distributions. An
agent fer instance for the Lower Coast located
in Chicago could by telegraph control carload
shipments, bringing them into Chicago, or di-
yerting them to st. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville
or Detroit, any Of which could be reached by
him in a nights travel and in this way he could
keep in touch with all the markets. In would
Of course REQUIRE quite a large business to just
ify the keeping of an agent in Chicagoto attend
to this work. His time there would not need tt
be over five or six months of the year, but
something of that sort would have to be devised
and in some such way these matters are ordin
arily satisfactorily settled. We should advis.
our truck gardening friends to think the situa
ton over. Any way, all of the evidences tina
we have indicate that we have passed the Sc
yerest part of the panicky conditions that hav
prevailed with us for so long and we may thinl
without undue optimism that we may expec
better times from now on.
Cuba Stops Voodooism.
The Cuban government is adopting drasti