67 



bring profitable returns. lu southern Mississippi there are large tracts 

 that could be purchased at nominal figures and devoted to rice. 



EASTERN LOUISIANA. 



For many years small fields of rice were planted in this State to 

 add to the food supply, but commercially rice was scarcely considered 

 by the planters until 1865, when they were confronted by the problem 

 of how to utilize large uud desolated sugar plantations without available 

 resources. What was at first planted for a food supply proved to be a 

 profitable crop and the rice industry made rapid strides. In 1864 the 

 total rice crop of Louisiana was 1,580,790 pounds ; in 1866 it was 

 4,706,720 pounds ; in 1868, 9,509,910 pounds ; in 1874, 22,338,980 

 pounds ; and in 1877, 41,630,000 pounds. /^t first plantations were 

 leased, in many instances, and planted a few years while they produced 

 a maximum crop, when they were abandoned for other lands which had 

 not hitherto been planted in rice. This change of lands was due to the 

 rapid increase of harmful grasses, many of which were conveyed to the 

 fields by the irrigating water, and appeared to find such congenial con- 

 ditions for growth that in about three years they were practically in 

 full possession. In a short time it became evident that the practical 

 su{)piy of plantations for such pui poses was limited, and that the plan- 

 ters must learn both to keep their fields clean from grass and maintain 

 their fertility. 



EICE GROWING ON THE LOW LANDS. 



The following letter from Hon. John Dymond,a prominent planter, 

 and for many years president of the Louisiana State Agricultural 

 Society, gives a succinct statement of the low-land cultivation south of 

 New Orleans : 



System of levees. — Rice on the Mississippi River has generally been raised 

 on old sugar plantations, where the ditches run down the line of descent of 

 the land, which was excellent so far as the drainage was concerned, but the 

 ditch banks were of no service in flooding the lands. (Along the Mississippi 

 River the banks are highest next the stream and generally descend toward 

 the drainage in the rear.) For flooding the lands the so-called check levees 

 were thrown across the line of fall of the land sufficiently near to each other 

 so that any small levee not exceeding 2 feet in height could hold back water 

 enough to reach up the incline until another check levee intervened. Where 

 the lands had but little fall but few check levees were necessary, and where 

 the fall was great there had to be many of them. I should say that ordinarily 

 a check levee was required every 400 feet. As the sugar plantation ditches 

 were hardly ever more than 200 feet apart and the check levees but from 200 

 to 400 feet apart, the result was very small fields of from 1 to 2 acres, in 

 which machines could not be worked to advantage. Therefore the harvest- 

 ing machines have never been used with much success on the river. 



These check levees cross the old ditches with either plank or earthen 

 dams, and the size of the plats of the land would vary from 1 to 2 acres up 

 to 10 to 20 acres, if the water could be held on such a large space. I should 

 say, however, that fields of this size were very rare in the river rice districts, 

 little fields of 5 to 10 acres being far more numerous. 



T looking. — On the lower coast the fields are flooded before any work is 

 done ; they are ploughed in the water ; the rice is then sowed upon the fields 

 and harrowed in the wet. The water is then taken off and the rice germin- 

 ates at once. It has to be nursed very carefully with water for fear the 



