THE TEXAS RICE BOOK. 17 



acres should produce 700,000 barrels, and give the rice farmers 0f 

 Texas two million, one hundred thousand dollars for their crop. 

 How does this compare with some of the other important crops of 

 Texas ? One of your leading sugar planters was at College Sta- 

 tion yesterday. He told me the sugar acreage of all Texas was 

 about 15,000, and a successful crop would bring the planters 

 $900,000 gross. 



Don't you think it probable that it may pay you to further in- 

 vestigate an industry in which capital (mostly Northern capital) 

 has been invested to the extent of $800,000 in your own State 

 alone? For we are surely going to equal and later excel the de- 

 velopment already made along these lines in our neighboring 

 State. I do not approach the figures of many of our rice enthusi- 

 asts when I state that we have in the Texas Coast Country not 

 less than two million acres of available rice land. And when I 

 say available, I believe I speak advisedly. And the knowing 

 ones will promptly inform you that "available rice land" means 

 available water, and plenty of it. And he is eminently correct. 



The canal is always built like two parallel railroad embank- 

 ments on the highest ridge of the prairie, the surface of the ridge 

 being the bottom of the canal, so that all water, once in the canal, 

 will flow out and down, upon the surrounding lands. Many 

 smaller laterals are constructed to convey water at the same level 

 to more distant fields. The canal company charges a toll of two 

 sacks (or barrels) per acre for water supply. Sometimes the toll 

 is one-fifth of the crop, and some of the companies give the 

 planter an option to pay either one-fifth or two sacks, proving 

 that they regard ten barrels per acre as a safe average yield. Un- 

 less one sees it, I don't think any words of mine will give a proper 

 conception of the vast amount of water sent surging out of these 

 mammoth pumps, through the canals and on the rice fields. The 

 canals, of course vary in size, length and capacity, watering from 

 4,000 to 22,000 acres. The pumps of the Trinity Rice Land and 

 Irrigating Company (Stowell, Texas) have a capacity of 80,000 

 gallons a minute. A river on which a coasting schooner, or small 

 river steamboat might float, is sent whirling through the flume. 

 And all this water is used up on a little over 7,000 acres, al- 

 though it is estimated the same supply will cover 10.000 acres 

 next season, when the old levees will be thoroughly puddled and 

 water laid, and seepage stopped. Evaporation during the dry 

 season is estimated to be one-half inch in twenty-four hours. This 

 will require a water supply per acre of 13,000 gallons per day, 

 540 gallons per hour, or nine gallons per minute. Loss of water 

 from any cause other than evaporation is so slight as to be hardly 

 appreciable. 



But what of these 2,000,000 acres of available rice lands I 

 mentioned? Is water available? And if not, why do I classify 

 them as rice lands? Canals cannot reach them all. Now we 

 come to a problem that was a problem. But, it is answered, 

 lands "under" canals cannot be bought for less than $15 to $30 



