342 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



July 



Courtesy Department of Agriculture. 



UNLOADING FUEL WOOD, ABBOTT-DUSON PLANT, BAYOU DBS CANNES, LOUISIANA. 

 PICTURE SHOWS A BATTKRY OF PUMPS ON TYPICAL BAYOU BANKS. 



THIS 



flumes, and is held at different levels in 

 the sloping field by means of low levees, 

 over which the water may flow until all 

 the levels are flooded. Planters are now 

 making these levees in the fields very 

 flat and with gradual slopes, so that 

 they interfere but little with the culti- 

 vable surface of the ground and allow the 

 passage of the reaper and binder for 

 harvesting. Since the water rises to 

 the tops of these field levees, almost an 

 average crop of rice is raised on them, 

 and the fact that they can be cultivated 

 and harvested makes it possible to keep 

 out the weeds and red rice. 



The application of water to the crop 

 differs in some particulars from irriga- 

 tion on the Atlantic coast. In the first 

 place, the Louisiana farmers depend on 

 early rains to start the crop, and need 

 no flooding to protect the grain from 

 birds, since the reed-bird or bob-o-link 



is not the pest in Louisiana and Texas 

 that it is in the Carolinas and Georgia. 

 The first growth of the crop, or until 

 the plants are from six to ten inches 

 high, is made without artificial applica- 

 tion of water, but after that the fields 

 are kept flooded until within ten days 

 of harvest time, when the levees are 

 cut, and the water drains off rapidly by 

 means of ditches provided for that pur- 

 pose, leaving the ground dry enough to 

 permit the use of the reaper and binder. 

 As the harvesting machinery is similar 

 to that used elsewhere for wheat, so 

 also is the threshing outfit. Mills are 

 large and form an industry by them- 

 selves, not being in any way connected 

 with the separate plantations, as is the 

 case in the Carolinas. 



Several things will have to be done 

 before the rice industry of Louisiana 

 and Texas will be placed on as good a 



