16 THE TEXAS RICE BOOK. 



eight inches, levees are made to hold the water. These are sim- 

 ply constructed by plowing along the levee line a'bout twelve fur- 

 rows wide, the earth is thrown up to the middle by a scraper 

 about one foot above level of field. Over a mile of such levee 

 can be built in a day by one man and a four-horse team. The 

 levee lines are always carefully staked out by an engineer, and 

 must be so placed that there is no more than three inches of fall 

 from levee to levee so that if water is three inches deep at the 

 upper edge of the field it will not be more than six inches at 

 the lower edge. When rice is six inches high or more, and lev- 

 ees all properly constructed, water is turned on at the highest 

 point on the land, and by temporary cuts through the levees is 

 delivered from level to level till the lowest is standing in three 

 inches of water, and so it is kept flooded for sixty or seventy 

 days. When rice is ready to harvest, the water is drained off, 

 and one can't very well drain water off a marsh or swamp; we 

 never use a marsh for rice growing. Harvesting is done with the 

 latest improved self-binders; grain is shocked and stacked like 

 wheat or oats, and threshed with a steam threshing machine. All 

 this, you see, is quite an improvement on the Filipino method. 



We do not suffer from malaria. I am a native of Canada, 

 and lived nineteen years in Minnesota, but never have I enjoyed 

 such continuous good health as I have in the past five years in 

 Southeast Texas. Besides, our farmers have all the usual social 

 advantages of farm life. Schools and churches are not every- 

 where as conveniently situated as we feel sure they will be later 

 on. We are as near a railroad station as you, and far nearer mar- 

 ket than are most of you. Our rail travel is therefore much less 

 and we pay less for freight. A majority of our rice farmers can 

 afford to send their growing boys and girls to the near-by schools 

 and colleges at Galveston, Houston or New Orleans. Oh, the 

 poor rice farmer is not so badly off after all. 



You may have a notion that Southwest Louisiana is the only 

 rice country ; you have good reason to think so, for this year they 

 have over 250,000 acres in rice. No, sir; I can't take a single 

 naught from those figures; and that means they will raise this 

 season about 2,500,000 barrels, or nearly 8,000,000 bushels of 

 Tice. I know that up to November 23rd, 1899, there were mar- 

 keted at the little city of Crowley alone 628,000 barrels of rice 

 for that season. This was about two and a half million bushels. 

 T admit Louisiana has 300 miles of main canals and 500 miles of 

 lateral, and thef canal companies have invested over two and a half 

 million dollars. I admit that' Louisiana has more than 160 irriga- 

 tion wells with pumps and engines costing an aggregate of $260,- 

 ooo, and irrigating probably 30,000 acres. But I wish to remind 

 you that Louisiana has had fifteen years start of us, and, anyway 

 we're "not so few." Listen, for I know I am going to surprise 

 some of you. Texas South Texas has in rice crop this season 

 approximately seventy thousand acres, and has eighty-six miles 

 of irrigating canals and twenty irrigating wells. These 70,000 



