Art. IV. PRODUCTION OF RICE IN LOUISIANA.

SIR, It was with much pleasure that I perused an article upon the subject of Rice,* in one of your numbers; a product that has latterly been diminishing, I think, in this state, the lands being bought up for the perhaps more lucrative crop of sugar. Though not quite so heavy in its gross amount as our two great staples, yet not an inconsiderable portion of our large parish, (Plaquemines,) and other parts of the state, are devoted to its production. This crop is more to be valued, as it is within the reach of the middling and poorer classes, giving to them a neat and comfortable support, and to many, a handsome revenue. But little capital is required in its cultivation, and it constitutes a particularly healthy food in damp southern latitudes. The consumption of it is immense; and from having been used a short time past in this county as a luxury, it is now to be found on all well-arranged tables in the Union.

In regarding the expensive and laborious works of a South Carolina rice plantation, one accustomed to the manner of its cultivation here, cannot but be struck with the very small difference in the yield, and the vast difference in labor. The quality, however, is different. South Carolina rice commands from one-half to three-fourths of a cent here more than Louisiana. This arises from two causes—the Louisiana rice not being as white, and the grains being more broken than the Carolina. Both of these faults, I believe, can be remedied by cultivation and improvements of machinery. I hoped to have seen in your article on the subject, the reason that some rice breaks more in cleaning than others. The difference in whiteness, I am aware, proceeds from the inferior manner of preparing it for market. Can you not point out the means of remedying the former defect, which must proceed from the culture? These are the two objectionable things against Creole or Louisiana rice. It is, however, much sweeter, and not so apt to get musty as the imported. I have heard exactly opposite reasons given by the planters here for the first of these faults. Certainly the improvement of a crop so important to a large number of the inhabitants of our state, tending to the division of our farming labors, a result most anxiously to be desired, from the low prices of both sugar and cotton, should occupy most particular attention.

The rice crop, from the great care with which it is made here, the extreme richness of the land, the adaptation of the climate to it, and perhaps it may be, the enervated habits of the people generally, has never been fostered or reduced to a science, as in other countries, where the soils are poorer and climate worse. I have conversed with many intelligent South Carolina planters and managers of planta

We have published several valuable papers upon Rice in our back volumes, and beg to call attention to them. The one in Vol. I.. is the most elaborate yet published in the United States, and is from the pen of Mr. Allston, of South Carolína, a practical man, and an extensive planter. We invite information upon this subject from the rice planters.-[EDITOR.

tions, and they all agree, that the land is suitable and climate proper, to vie here with Carolina, in both quantity and quality. There is this difference in favor of the cultivation of rice in Louisiana, on the borders of our rivers and tributaries:-It is well known that in Carolina, on the rice plantations, the water used is tide water, with little or no current, and the swamps large; that the water lies on large districts, sometimes drawn off, at others let on, leaving great fields, subject to the influence of a burning sun, creating malaria, and engendering the worst kind of disease, insomuch, that the planters yearly leave the country for the cities, where smoke and fires, or some other causes, seem to dispel the evil.

Such is not the case here. It is a well-known fact, that the rice plantations, both as regards whites and blacks, are more healthy than the sugar and cotton. From what cause does this arise, has been often asked by many? With the same hot sun and climate, and occupying a district of thirty to forty miles on both sides of the river, with but two or three sugar plantations, at long distances, there exists almost one undivided rice-field, making on an average about thirty thousand barrels of clean rice yearly, and overflowing the whole country around them, except a few front acres, generally appropriated to corn and potatoes. There can be but one cause for its health. The fall of the land is abrupt to the bayous and lakes behind, and the sea being near, at the time the Mississippi is high the rice is at the watering stage, and the water here not being taken off at all, is kept constantly running from the river back, preventing the back water from ever becoming stagnant, and carrying off, with the rapidity of its current, the vegetable matter that in decomposing causes malaria. The water, too, being drawn off at so late a date, the land does not dry sufficiently early to cause decomposition, before the cooler and stormy months come on and disperse it. Most certain it is, that no country so thickly settled in southern latitudes as the rice planting part of the Parish of Plaquemines, has a greater amount of healthy people and fine children. Why is not more attention paid to the improvement of the cultivation and manufacture of this valuable and lucrative staple?

The rice planters, as a body, generally consist of those who have but small farms, not wealthy, and hitherto almost entirely uneducated, and unable, from the smallness of their means, to vary their crops from their general routine; and not having the capital to put up sufficiently valuable machinery, and to properly prepare their crops for market, nor yet to get out more than ten to twelve barrels a day, they have never progressed since their commencement. This, too, while our other staples have advanced beyond the most sanguine expectations; having, at this present moment, we may say, stocked the whole world.

The common system of rice-planting here, is to begin in February to dig out the ditches, which, in a farm of four acres front on the river, consists of one ditch, four feet wide or more, four to five feet deep, running from the river to the swamp, with a dam or gate behind, at right angles, to this main ditch. At every half-acre is a

two-foot cross ditch, with a bank behind it to confine the water about a foot high, or more. At the back of the field is a four-foot ditch running parallel with the river, with a high bank on the outside to completely dam in the field, with a flood-gate opening behind to gauge the height of water. When March arrives, all the ditches having been opened, they commence ploughing, mud or not, rain or sunshine, if the oxen can go through it. There are generally six oxen, two drivers, and one to guide the plough. The work is, generally, where the land is dry, well and neatly done, with the old Roman plough, by us called the French sock plough, the best in the world for stiff land. I have tried such land successively with the centre draft of Jacob's, Cary, and others, none of which could equal this with the same team.

The planters sow and harrow in the rice in succession, as they can generally water the back cuts first, being lower than the front; and in the early part of the season, the river is not high enough to water any but the back, which covers up first, and is ready sooner for the water. The rice is sown broad-cast, about three-fourths of a barrel to an acre. I have often seen the planters harrow it in with oxen, knee-deep in mud. As soon as the back rice comes up, they put on a little water, just leaving the heads out, to check the weeds and grass; and from this time out it is kept in water, always leaving the heads out until ripe for cutting, at which time all the water is drawn off, or a little before. When the rice comes up, the weeds and grass also appear; the grass is kept under by water, but not so the weeds, and a kind of grass having a thousand seeds, that sometimes takes almost entire possession of the fields. These have to be carefully eradicated with the hand, pulling them up frequently, knee-deep in water. The process produces disagreeable effects on the legs, but is avoided by greasing them before going in, in the morning. The hands weed about one quarter to one-third of an acre per day, and sometimes one-half or more, as the weeds are more or less bad, thick pulling them up by the roots, which readily yield. So quick is the vegetation of rice, that one weeding is enough; but from the slowless of the operation, the last part of the crop is very full of weeds before they can get to it, and sometimes should the water fall too soon, it is much injured by being choked by them. Here is, I think, one of the faults of the cultivation by the present mode. I will presently point out the mode of avoiding this disaster. The crop being finished, and the weeds taken out from the rice, they spend a short time preparing latania strips from the woods, to tie up the bundles, which they do in the field as it is dried. This is generally in July or August, when a man or two is hired to assist, and then, with the cycle, the rice is cut down very neatly, about one-half to three-quarters of an acre a day, as it may be, better or worse, standing or blown down. It dries one day in the sun. It is then tied in bundles, and put in small stacks in the field convenient to the cutters, without stack-poles. The grain is turned inside and the stem outside. When all is cut down and stacked in three small stacks, they arrange their

grain-yards and begin hauling in; the first cut being hauled first, and so on, until all is stacked at the house. The blocks are about three feet from the ground, and the stacks are made regular to hold about twenty barrels clean rice. They are well pointed, without poles, and topped with latania. By stacking first in the field in small stacks, the first sweat is passed through, and when it is opened and hauled, it is stacked a second time; it then becomes aired, and dries perfectly, and keeps for years without mould or mildew.

When rice is wanted for the mill, eight or ten tackeys, or small horses, are tied one to another to a post; the rice is placed on the ground about three feet deep, the heads up, and the animals are made to trot around, occasionally shaking up the rice. In this way about twenty barrels per day are usually trodden out. It is then turned in a small hand-mill of wood, like a common corn-mill, and partially hulled; then placed in a mortar, or four mortars in a row, where the like number of pestles pound it till the balance of the hull, and a skin that has a yellow appearance, is taken off. When it is fanned and freed from the chaff by this process, about seven to eight barrels a day is cleaned and prepared for market. This is, as yet, the largest amount averaged, I believe, in a day, except by a small steam-mill once started here by an engineer, which got out about twenty barrels a day; but the prejudice was so strong against that mode of cleaning, that the mill could at last neither buy, nor get rice upon toll, and was abandoned.

It is by preventing the weeds in the rice that its more extensive cultivation can be conducted, a better article produced, and the worst part of the labor avoided, allowing the worker to make more to the hand by a considerable quantity. It is here, generally, the rice planter fails; the weeds and grass catch him, and he loses much of his yields. He has also a worse quality of rice. I have recommended the following cultivation to several planters, but have been told that enough is made by the present process, and why should our alteration be adopted? The reason the weeds are so bad and the grass so troublesome, preventing the cultivation of so many acres properly, is that the ground is broken up in the spring after all the grass begins to grow, and the rice being planted immediately in succession, the roots of the grass and weeds never lose their life, but go on growing immediately, and gets ahead of the rice, which has to sprout, and is at first delicate and slow in starting. These roots can be killed by starting the ox plough in October and November, and ploughing all the land deeply during those months, the roots of the grass being turned up and exposed to the frosts of winter. Ditch in December and February, and then, with three horse ploughs in March, the already pulverized ground can be turned up and knocked to pieces, and harrowed over with a light horse harrow; then sow the rice and harrow it in lightly, keeping the ground as dry as you can; now you may moisten it with water slightly, and the rice will all come up and require little or no weeding. The quality will be better, and the quantity certainly considerably increased. By this process also, the old residuum on the ground will, being ploughed in early, be well rotted, and assist the

vegetation of the crop. The consequence of this fall and winter ploughing would save the like amount of work in the water at our most unhealthy season, and in the most valuable time to the planter. The weeding being light and early over, the preparations for cutting can be sooner made, the crop gathered in in good time, and I have no doubt, that instead of seven and eight barrels, ten and twelve can be made to the acre, and a much easier crop.

If the Carolina mode of working by drill were tried properly, I have no doubt it would be found advantageous here as it has been there. I have tried fifteen or twenty acres many years ago in that manner, and found it do well, yield well, and the rice was of good quality. I had no difficulty, with a good canal, in taking the water off and on when wanted. I hoed it the same as corn, and then let on water again. It is said that water had better be kept on until the rice is nearly ready to be cut, as it makes the stalk tender, and prevents it from breaking. In case of blowing down, many say if they make very heavy crops they cannot take them off. This is applicable to all southern crops; more hands have always to be hired in harvest, and it is a poor excuse.

There is no reason why Louisiana rice should not be as good as any other, and yield as much, except bad cultivation and worse manufacture. There is an immense amount of valuable rice land in the lower part of this parish, near the sea shore, on the river, very cheap, and far more valuable in proportion to their quantity than any other lands in the state. They have the advantage of climate for sugar, rice, or cotton. The net product of a common acre of land in rice, ready for sale, is eight to ten barrels. The common price is seven to eight dollars, sometimes five and ten dollars per barrel. The acres planted per hand are eight to ten, and as many as fifteen, sometimes, by the inhabitants of this neighborhood.

Trusting that these hasty lines will be followed by more elaborate contributions from experienced pens, and that an interest will be given in Louisiana to the important subject of rice,

I am, your ob't serv't,

Parish of Plaquemines, La.

R. A. WILKINSON.

AMERICAN STATISTICS.

OLD AND NEW STATES, REVOLUTIONARY STATISTICS, &C.

We have gathered, in a form for preservation, several items which may prove interesting to our readers.

1. The number of soldiers furnished by the American States during the Revolution, and the population of each in 1790 and in 1847.

2. Principal battles of the Revolution, their several dates, commanders-in-chief, and losses on each side.

3. Amount of continental money issued to support the war, and the estimated cost in specie.

4. States admitted in the Union since the organization of the Federal Govern