Vol. LXXI. No. 4155. 
NEW YORK, JUNE 15, 1912. 
WEEKLY $1.00 PER YEAR 
FARMING IN THE FLOOD WATERS. 
A Plantation Under Water. 
Almost every school child in America who has 
studied geography knows of the great extent of the 
Mississippi River and the mighty stream that it con¬ 
stantly pours into the Gulf of Mexico. Its waters 
are gathered from an 
area of wonderful ex¬ 
tent of country, reaching 
from the crest of the 
Appalachian Mountains 
on the east to the Rock¬ 
ies on the west, or from 
western New York to 
Yellowstone Park. Even 
some of the waters of 
Lake Michigan reach the 
Mississippi through the 
Chicago drainage canal. 
Lor untold ages past 
these myriad little 
streamlets have been 
adding their mites of 
mud, little by little, to 
the deposits in the delta 
regions below, until 
there is a vast territory 
that lies but little higher 
than the lower stretches 
of the mighty stream 
making these deposits. 
This land is rich in all 
the elements that make 
a fertile soil. It varies 
little in its general char¬ 
acter but is decidedly 
sticky when wet, as all 
naturally rich soils. It 
is silty clay and not 
sand or even sandy, as 
many might suppose. 
On these delta lands 
are some of the largest 
of American farms (al¬ 
ways called plantations 
there) and covering mil¬ 
lions of acres. From 
Arkansas and Kentucky 
to the Gulf of Mexico 
they stretch out on both 
sides of the Mississippi 
and its lower tributar¬ 
ies. Here have long 
been grown cotton and 
sugar cane more than 
any other crops, even to 
the frequent exclusion 
of the grains and forage 
crops that were needed 
by the animals that have 
been used in their cul¬ 
ture. The delta planters 
have been blind to their own real needs in this respect 
in far too many cases, and covering a long period of 
years. They might have grown corn, oats and hay 
enough for their own use at least, but they thought 
it better to produce cotton and sugar and buy every¬ 
thing else they needed, even to the meat and butter 
they should have made at home, to save expense of 
costly shipments from the North. 
Thus the Mississippi delta planters have been fol¬ 
lowing a narrow and costly method of farming, for 
both cotton and sugar require a considerable outlay 
of cash before any returns can come in, and they 
often are held fast by the merchants who supplied 
them. The river had its annual periods of over¬ 
flowing its banks in the early days, and as this was 
expected and seldom failed to occur, they fixed for it. 
They made little levees or dykes to protect their crops 
in many cases, and thus they kept the water from 
the higher parts, which are generally found on the 
banks of the river and bayous. The bayous are 
water channels that are found all over the delta 
region, and may be active streams, although sluggish 
ones, or merely lakelets or long ponds that only flow 
in times of high water. Each flood left a new deposit 
of silt or mud, and thus was the cream of .the lands 
all over the North added to the already fertile farms 
of the delta. 
Here grew the pecan, the best of all American nut¬ 
bearing trees, or of the world. Jt flourished and sent 
its roots deep enough to fear no drought, for . they 
touched constant moisture in abundance, and the 
floods only made their luxuriant leaves glow in the 
warm sunlight of the long growing season. It has 
been thought that the heavy crops of pecans were 
better the years that the 
water covered the land 
than when it did not. 
And as time went on 
and more land was 
needed there came to be 
a State and national 
system of levees that 
barred the river from; 
overflowing its banks. 
At least this was and is 
The theory of the levee 
system. The crops of 
every delta farm are 
taxed specially to pay 
for the tremendous out¬ 
lay that was incurred. 
These levees are not al¬ 
ways built on the river 
banks, but may be back 
from them many rods or 
several miles. Of course 
all the land on their 
river sides are subject 
to inundations, but the 
river does not get high 
enough every year to 
cover these portions or 
the islands that lie along 
.he river. Planters often 
take chances of growing 
crops on these “outside" 
lands, but they often 
lose them by floods. 
It is not generally un¬ 
derstood how and of 
what these levees are 
made. They are plain 
banks of the same soil 
that forms the land. 
Every tree, shrub, 
stump, root and stick is 
cleared off and out of 
the ground. A trench is 
dug several feet wide 
and deep in the center 
of the cleared right-of- 
way and into this trench 
earth is put, and so the 
levee built on up to the 
height determined by the 
engineers. It is then 
sodded over with Ber¬ 
muda grass, which is 
easily done by the plac¬ 
ing of scraps of sods 
every few feet, for they soon grow into a solid mat. 
Nothing else is allowed to grow on the embankment, 
for fear of the water from outside following along 
the roots and causing the start of a crevasse or 
break. Muskrats are closely watched from making 
burrows and even crawfish are killed in case they make 
holes. In some very dangerous places, where there 
are currents that may wash the levees, stone is laid 
loosely along the outer slope. '‘Mats” are made of 
willow saplings and brush woven together with cables 
THE LEVEE HOLDING BACK THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 
A SOUTHERN PLANTATION HOUSE IN THE FLOOD. 
Fig. 267. 
Fig. 268. 
