176 



metliods show almost the same primitive conditions which have charac- 

 terized rice cultivation from its first Asiatic beginnings. Louisiana 

 and Texas, on the other hand, whose industry has more than taken the 

 place that was once occupied by South Carolina and Georgia, make use 

 of the most improved methods, with expensive modern machinery for 

 harvesting and threshing, and are now engaged in irrigation works of 

 great magnitude. 



E-ice growing is not by any means a new venture in this country. 

 In 1694 a storm-tossed Spanish vessel put into Charleston harbor, 

 where it lay for some time to undergo necessary repairs During this 

 stay the captain of the vessel gave to one of the citizens of the town 

 a handful of rough rice. From this one handful, through careful 

 seeding and cultivation, developed the notable Carolina rice, now 

 world famous. For a long time Georgia and the Carolinas furnished 

 the principal part of the rice crop of the country, and for a number of 

 years preceding the civil war these states produced 105,000,000 

 pounds of cleaned rice annually. At the present time the annual 

 yield is about 50,000,000 pounds. 



Louisiana now produces more than half of the rice raised in this 

 country, the annual output amounting to some 20(>,0'i0,000 pounds. 

 The history of her rice industry dates back to the exiled Acadians — 

 French settlers from Nova Scotia — who in the last half of the eighteenth 

 century began the raising of "Providence" rice : but providential rain 

 was not to be depended on, and fat years were invariably followed by 

 lean ones, so that irrigation came to be more and more desirable, until 

 now the systems of Louisiana are among the most elaborate and valu- 

 able in the country. 



Irrigation of Rice in the Caeolinas and Georgia. 



The rice industry of the Atlantic coast is confined to tidewater areas 

 from Cape Fear to the Florida boundary of Georgia In this area 

 there are about 80,000 acres on which rice might be grown, but as a 

 matter of fact, only about half of this is cultivated. The water supply 

 is entirely from coastal rivers, and the plantations must lie far enough 

 above salt water to avoid its bad effects on the fields. This limits the 

 cultivation to a strip lying not more than 30 miles fri m the coast, and 

 seldom less than 15. In a few cases where the river water is brackish 

 at certain seasons, storage reservoirs are provided to offset these con- 

 ditions ; and where the water is always too salt or the lands are above 

 tidewater, the planter must depend on water taken from inland 

 streams, lakes or reservoirs. 



Almost all the irrigation in the Carolinas and Georgia is of a simple 

 nature. When reservoirs are required a small stream is dammed, so 

 that the w ater backs up to form a reservoir, while the land below is 

 irrigated by direct flow Irom the dam through suitable ditches or 

 canals. 



In the case of irrigation from ti ie water banks or levees are thrown 

 up, and these are pierced by "trunks," or long boxes made of heavy 

 timber and closed by a sort of gate at each end. 1 hese trunks are 

 placed at hh approximately mean distance between the limits of high 

 and low tides, so that the water of high tide will flow through them 

 on to the fields to be flooded, or so that the flood water may be turned 



