The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1915-01-09
STORY OF GROWING
RICE IN ARKANSAS
How a Grand Prairie Farmers
Faith Resulted in a
Great Industry.

aAAA AACcAAtS0 IA .
Great Industry.
Martin Kane, who it will be rerhem-
bered lost his personal effects in the
Leech building fire, returned home at
1890 that night on the last electric
train. Mr.. Kane is interested in a
$40 acre rice farm in Arkansas and
was returning from an inspection of
the farm. His ~son-in-law, Gus Fulk,
a prominent at oorney-at-law, is the
owner and personally manages it. 1t
is known as the Fulk farm and ad-
joins the Fuller farm described in the
following interesting article from the
Arkansas Gazette of Little Rock:
The fact that rice is one of the
most important crops being raised in
Arkansas is shown by statistics, and
also that it is becoming more extern
sively raised.
The history of the rice development
in Arkansas is an interesting chapter
in the states farming record.
In 1902 w. H. Fuller, a farmer liv-
ing in the northern part of the Grand
Prairie, near the main line of the
Rock Island railroad, conceived the
idea of. raising rice by irrigation from
deep wells. He had sufficient faith in
the venture to make a proposition to
some farmers living near him that,
if they would put in 40 acres of rice
he would drill the we'll, and should
they not produce 40 bushels of rice
per acre, he would not charge them
for the well. They asked him if he
had such faith in it, why not make
the experiment himself. . He said that
he would gladly do So, but was not
able to buy the machinery.
These neighbors agreed that. if he
would make the experiment, they
would assist him in buying the neces-
sary machinery.
Mr.. Fuller drilled his we'll and
planted the field of rice, and, instead
of producing 40 bushels per acre, as
he had predicted, he raised rs bush
els per acre.
The following year Mr.. Fuller again
sowed a field to rice and had equally
good success.
This encouraged a larger number
of farmers to begin the cultivation of
rice, which they did the following
year. .
Surpassed by No Section.
In 1905 the government established
an experiment station and demonstra-
ted that rice could be profitably Guilt
waited in Arkansas, and that this sec
ton of Arkansas is a rice country
surpassed by no other section in the
United States.
The government experiment station
that year first tried the cultivation
of what is known as Japan rice, and
so successful was this particular
brand that the actual test showed
96k bushels produced per acre.
In 1906 5000 acres in Arkansas
were planted in rice and, notwith-
standing the fact that it was planted
late and the storm which did much
damage all over America, on Septem-
Der %, the yield on the government
experimental station was 77.76 bush
els per acre.
In 1908 the acreage of rice pro-
duced in Arkansas had grown to
$4,000, and S. Locke Breaux, chair
man of the Rice Committee of the
New Orleans Board of Trade, after
a careful inquiry and personal inves-
tigation of Arkansas conditions and
prospects, made a prediction that
"within five or six years Arkansas
would probably develop up to an
acreage of $4,000 or 10000 acres"
$4,000 Acres Last Year.
In 1914 Arkansas rice acreage a.
mounted to $4,000 acres, and the av-
ailable rice lands in this state are
not yet nearly all in cultivation.
In the spring of 1907 a few SUIT
CART men, believing in the possibility
of rice cultivation in the Grand Prai-
RE, organized a stock company for
the erection of the first rice mill in
Arkansas, $4,000 being subscribed;
the company was Incorporated and
preparations were made to build a
mill and install the necessary machin-
cry.
A 500-barrel mill was completed in
October of that year and at once be-
gan buying and milling rice.
In spite of the panic of 1907, this
company bought and milled 10000
bushels of rice, and the finished prod
uct was found to be as fine as the old
mills of New Orleans could turn out.
At the close of the season, the com
pany increased it's capital stock to
100000, with 100000 paid in, and
new machinery was added, and the ca
pacity increased to 600 barrels, 2,160
bushels per day.
In 1909 another rice mill with a
capacity of 800 barrels per day was
built in Stuttgart and rice mills also
were erected that year in Dewitt,
Carlisle and Wheatley, and later mills
were built at Lonoke and Weiner, Ark.
In 1905 the great daily papers of
the country began to take notice of
the rice industry in Arkansas. A
writer from the Commercial Appeal
of Memphis, after a trip through the
rice fields, prophesied that in time
rice culture would be the leading occu-
patton of the state.
That he was right was shown by
the gradual increase each year, until
the enormous crop of $4,000 acres was
produced this year.