Berieir of Krneics, IjSIOS. 



Leading Articles. 



177 



THE NEW RICE POWER. 



In the American Review of Reviews R. S. Lanier 

 describfs the revolution in rice farming. Rice hav- 

 ing been raised successfullv in Louisiana, a Texas 

 man, A. P. Borden by name, resolved to grow rice 

 along the lower Colorado River. In 1900 he put 

 160 acres into rice in Matagorda County, bordering 

 on the Gulf of Mexico. It was Kiushiu seed from 

 Japan, which weathered storm and inexperience, and 

 yielded eighty-five dollars an acre as against an ex- 

 penditure of fifteen dollars an acre. The acreage 

 suitable for rice is said to be enormous : — 



lu level river lowlands from Illinois to Louisiana, from 

 Xew York State to Florida, there are 21.000.000 acres pos- 

 sessing: clay-bottomed soil and fresh-water flooding facili- 

 ties, which make them better suited to rice than to any other 

 crop. The Gulf coast prairie strip alone, running about 

 540 miles from St. .Marys Parish, in Louisiana, to Brown?- 

 ville, on t"lie Rio Grande, and about sixty miles wide, offers 

 3.000,000 available acres— enough to grow six times our 

 national consumption. 



The Louisiana experiment was begun in 1884. 

 <,ireat changes were rapidly in progress: — 



Before the Civil War, South -Carolina produced about 

 three-fourths of our home rice; Norfli Carolina and 

 Georgia most of the rest-' To-day, it is Louisiana and 

 Texas that i)roduce three-fourths of the whole. 



However, the greatest result is that, for the first time in 

 liistory, a labour-saving method of rice-production has 

 been demonstrated. The American farmer, althoueh he 

 pays a higher price for labour than any rice-grower in tlie 

 world, may eventually find himself in control of the 

 world's markets. The patient Chinaman wi:h his mud-rake 

 and his twenty-five-dollars-a-year profit, the Punjab ryot's 

 women wielding their slow hand-sickles, the toiling fellah 

 of the Nile Delta, the Japanese mattockiug his plot, too 

 tiny for a plough to turn— all will be undersold by the 

 progressive American driving his four mtile twine-binder 

 to his power-cultivated fields, past the steam plant where 

 a battery of clanking pumps, impelled by eight hundred 

 horse-power, has sucked up to his growing crop its seventy- 

 day bath of vital, fresh river water. 



In 1899 the rice acreage- of Louisiana and Texas 

 was 290.000. In 1904 it was 610,000. What a mine 

 iif wealth there is under existing conditions for the 

 landowner may be inferred from this statement: — 



Down on the Gulf coast, one farmer, one helper, and good 

 teams can prepare and plant to rice two hundred or three 

 hundred acres! 



THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE OLD ACTORS. 



The latter i)art of " Musings Without Method " in 

 D I ackic find's is devoted to remark's upon Sir Theo- 

 dore Martin's monographs on Garrick, Macready, 

 and Rachel, the former part being a somewhat 

 savage attack upon the Liberal Government and its 

 methods. tsi)eciallv the Labour Partv, which con- 

 siders itself fit to rule the country but not to pay 

 taxes. 



(iarrirk " saw no one on the davs he pe'rformed, 

 spending them in meditation on the play of the even- 

 ing ; and during the performance he kept himself 

 aloof from the other actors, still intent on the medi- 

 tation of his part." The studied praise of his con- 

 . temporaries amounts to this: that he preferred a 

 simple and natural effect to the " tired artifice of 

 the comedian, and that he did his best to make his 

 performance harmonious in tone and gesture.' 



Lichtenberg, the critic, dete;cted in his figure, move- 

 ments, bearing, " something of the demeanour of a 

 well-bred Frenchman, middle-aged, and in good so- 

 cietv," '■ And, ' sav.s the writer, " it is this de- 

 meanour which explains Garrick's success both on 

 and off the stage,'' But, he continues: — 



As we read Sir Theodore Martin's excellent monographs, 

 one thing becomes clear to us. We cannot but recognise 

 how far Ijetter was the opportunit.,v of the oltl actors. 

 When they came upon the stage they were not asked to 

 play the same part without change or respite, or to grin 

 hideously in musical comedy. It was theirs to interpret 

 real literature in accordance with the laws of a still living 

 art. In six months Garrick had gained such an exi)erience 

 as to-day few^ actors gain in their whole careers. Be 

 played tragedy and comedy with equal zest. He studied 

 a new part as'though it were but a single line, and a quick 

 fanc.v permitted him to grasp the meaning of Shakespeare's 

 heroes as if by intuition. 



There was no monotony in Garrick or Macready's 

 work, and no drudgery : — 



When a shift was made every night, an actor couTd only 

 approach his work with a living intelligence and a quick 

 imagination. If such an actor as Garrick came again, he 

 would l>e powerless to reform the taste of the town. No 

 manager would employ him. if he did not consent to go 

 through the same performance night after night and month 

 after month. 



As for Rachel, she was in.spired rather than in- 

 telligent : she saw the dramatic possibilities rather 

 than the literan' beauties of a piece. Both she and 

 Macreadv were in many ways " little." Rachel in 

 reading a play omitted all but her own part and the 

 answers, like the great actress who played Ophelia 

 for many years without discovering what happened 

 to Hamlet in the last act. This leads Sir Theodore 

 Martin to ask once more what is the histrionic tem- 

 perament ? It is not the faculty of projecting one's 

 self into a character ; it is not mere mimicry ; in- 

 deed, it is best defined by a series of negatives, and 

 bv one positive — that Garrick, Macready and Rachel 

 ail possessed it to the full. 



THE HOROSCOPES OF POLITICIANS. 



The summer number of the Fi'iccasl, a magazine 

 edited bv '■ Sepharial," devotes some space to the 

 horoscopes of Mr. Balfour and Mr. Win.ston 

 Churchill. According to this authority the plane- 

 tary posirions threaten Mr. Balfour next year with 



danger of ill-health, loss of influential friends. But in 1908 

 the Sun will have reached a position where it will form 

 benefit aspects to the dominant positions of the horoscope, 

 and after the transit of Saturn again over the Sun s place 

 of direction in March. 1908^ there will be a stationary posi 

 tion of Jupiter on the Sun's place at birth. This is calcu- 

 lated to lift Mr. Balfour once more to a position of 

 highest responsibility in the politftal world. But in the 

 meantime considerable care should be bestowed upon his 

 health. 



Of Mr. Winston Churchill we are told that — 

 he has a i?ood configuration of the Sun to both Uranus and 

 Saturn, and may look upon Time as a friend and mode- 

 rator and perhaps his liest counsellor. The conjunction of 

 Mars and Jupiter in opposition to Neptune at his birth 

 tends to produce an over-zealous nature, to the greater 

 distress of his friends and the amazement of his col- 

 leagues. The ffood aspects of Uranus and Venus to these 

 planet* however, will act as moderators, and it is to these 

 bcnefic aspects at his birtii rather than to the discovery 

 of any conspicuous faculty or strength of character that I 

 should look for such success as may attend bis efforts. 

 But I am dispo.sed to think be has drawn pretty heavily 

 on his credit and that the future will provide him with 

 many salutary experiences. 



