Agriculture in Southwest Louisiana

AGRICULTURE in SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA

Address by

HENRY G. CHALKLEY JR.

Chairman, Board of Directors
New Orleans Branch
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
New Orleans, La.
at a joint session of the
Boards of Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
and the
New Orleans Branch on
Friday Morning, November 10, 1939

This morning it is both my privilege and my pleasure to make a short resumé of my favorite subject…..agriculture…..as it is observed and understood in that section of Louisiana, west of New Orleans, served by this Bank.

Besides two major crops and cattle, there is oil in abundance that cannot go without mentioning if the fundamental industries of this section are to be covered, even briefly.

With your indulgence, I would like to outline these commodities and tell you some of their history and their extent so that you may estimate for yourselves the influence they have on the people and the financial status of this area.

Cotton cannot be evaded in any summary of Louisiana agriculture because it mingles with all crops in all parts of the state. It is not, however, a leader in this District as in North Louisiana, and can be disposed of without elaboration in this paper.

The subjects of out interest to-day are namely: rice, cattle, sugar cane and oil.

These Big Four constitute the greatest activity of the locality and since the locality is not primarily a manufacturing one, I would assume that they are the foundation of its very existence.

Entering the Sixth District at its western border on the Sabine River, one sees broad acres of flat land and marshes that widen as they near the Gulf of Mexico a few miles south. These are left to the trappers. A fairly straight line from the Texas-Louisiana bridge bears the traveler into the rice lands soon after he crosses the river. All of the country from the Sabine eastward to Lafayette and lying south of the Gulf Coast Railroad...a matter of one hundred miles in breadth...is given over to rice for its major production crop. Here one finds almost 500,000 acres of rice under cultivation and 12,000 farmers engaged in its growing. An additional 10,000 men labor in field and irrigation work not to speak of the millers and their employees. Along the Mississippi River, south of Baton Rouge, another 10,000 acres flourish. This is designated by the term “river rice.” It is safe to estimate that 65,000 people live by this intrinsic crop alone.

Rice in the United States has a unique history in that it is really indigenous to the Orient and is a natural food for Orientals while Americans have never learned to use it correctly and enjoy its benefits. We raise it, yes….and our long grain rices match and excel their ancestor types of Asia, but for some reason, our people do not prefer it for a main starch vegetable, excepting, of course our Porto Ricans. We of the rice sections do eat rice, in fact, it is our basic food and we even believe that our rugged children can thank rice for a measure of their fine resistance to general infection. Here it is interesting to note that the Chinese in this country are the most fastidious customers for American rice. They buy the finest on the market and declare that American rice is excellent. No Chinese longs for his native rices when he can secure Patna, Nira, Fortuna or Blue Rose and that is saying the ultimate for the quality of our grain.

At the time of the Louisiana Purchase, rice was grown in this state. Then however, South Carolina had the greater growing area. Both territories raised what was called “providence rice,” which means rice dependent upon the elements for growth. While the southern climate and soil were satisfactory and there was plenty of rainfall, the farmers of that time realized that rice would never fully develop without irrigation. The Louisiana farmers, rather than abandon a crop because it was uncertain, decided to go to much expense to make use of the great quantities of fresh water at hand (and in the cases of remote streams sink wells) for flooding purposes. Thereon hung the progress of rice culture in the Gulf States of Louisiana and Texas… and later, sections of Arkansas and California. South Carolina gradually eased out of the culture of rice, until now only the merest few fields still function, “providence” style in the neighborhood of Charleston.

This new development began about fifty years ago, with its nucleus near Lake Charles where the center grew and remained and where the second largest rice mill in the world stands to-day. From a negligible origin, the Sixth District now produces about half of all the rice grown in this country. A normal yield of ten barrels to the acre or five million barrels the total crop, brings on a normal market a cash value of fifteen million dollars to the farmers.

Irrigation, though the water supply was plentiful and conveniently situated to most of the land, was not a slight risk for the men who farmed rice in the early nineties. The flat fields had to be surveyed and contour levees set up throughout to establish depth variations, also drainage systems had to be constructed. The rivers and bayous in this part of the country move very slowly to the nearby Gulf, so any water taken from the streams had to be pumped. That meant machinery and machinery meant venturing capital of which there was but little. The pioneers in irrigation proved their experiment, however, though they went about it most cautiously. The principals employed in those days are still in use with the result that today’s rice area is a network of major and minor canals having pumping plants or wells at intervals all along the main systems. These are valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars and are almost an industry within themselves. The volume of water they handle is tremendous….the average pump being designed to deliver 8 gallon of water per acre per minute, while a larger pumping plant might raise as much as 90,000 gallons the minute upwards to serve an 11,000 acre tract.

Irrigation is on a share basis in this District…it is paid for with one fifth of the acreage production.

Essentially, rice culture is like that of wheat; except that the harvest is accomplished by binders and separators. They differ only in the factors pertaining to irrigation. Rice requires a soil with a hard clay pan bottom which retains moisture. In the soil under discussion this is found from 18 inches to four feet beneath a loamy top soil. Planting begins in late March and continues into May. When the new shoots are seven to eight inches high they are flooded to a depth of two to four inches. All during the growing season this water level is maintained. When the rice heads during late August and September the water is cut out of the fields and allowed to flow off via drainage ditches which return the water to their native streams. Then curing takes place. Because rice makes stouter plant than wheat and is consequently heavier to handle all harvest machinery is specially adjusted to meet the need.

Before passing on to marketing and milling a few words might be said about farmers. The average rice farm contains forty acres. While there are several large operators, there are likewise many small ones…but almost half of the total production is grown by tenants. These must not be confused with share croppers. While the tenant farmer occupies another’s land, lives in a house furnished by his landlord and looks to him for his water supply, he brings to his interests his own machinery, furnishes half of the seed and fertilizer, pays his rent in shares and supplies all of the labor for which he collects one half of the entire proceeds. The tenant farmer is well situated when conditions are normal; when they are not…he is not concerned with overhead.

Most people are amused to learn that rice is reported by the government by the bushel, harvested by the sack, sold to the miller by the barrel, sold from the mill by the pocket and purchased retail by the pound....... confusing as well as amusing when it is not a part of one’s daily contact. The producers sell directly to the millers who are located in the towns and cities of the vicinities; thus it is seen that rice completes all of its processes in its own territory, so to speak. Since there is no futures market in rice, as in other commodities, the price which the farmer receives from the miller (taking into account pertinent statistical information) establishes virtually a man to man trade.

Sixty percent of the world’s population exists chiefly on rice. Less then one half of one percent of the total production is raised in the United States, yet twenty percent more rice is grown here than domestically consumed. This creates no small marketing problem. Before the Smoot-Hawley tariff act brought on retaliatory tariffs, Great Britain and Continental Europe took the surplus. They preferred our sturdy long grains to Oriental rices but that market in gone now. Temporary tariff preferentials between Cuba and the United States provide the major market for local surplus. With Cuban consumption a hundred pounds per capita per annum that would be an excellent market if permanent tariffs could be brought about.

Since rice lands produce but two years and must lie fallow three or four years before restoring themselves, it can be readily understood that vast untilled fields spot the rice section. Why rice makes heavy soil demands and irrigation sours it cannot be explained, but no restorative has been found to speed Nature’s way of reviving her rice fields. This would seem like idle waste, yet it is really a boon. These one million fallow acres combined with huge prairie tracts of the nine rice parishes furnish the grazing grounds for 60 percent of the cattle raised in this State. Again, the center of the industry is located in this District and that brings me to my next topic….Cattle.

Cattle raising is probably the oldest agricultural pursuit in Louisiana. The range cattle we have now are remotely descended from stock brought to this country by the early French and Spanish settlers who came to occupy land grants from their kings. From these seventeenth and eighteenth century herds, cattle spread all over the state, but cattle…as an industry, seemed to prosper in the southern part, due to all year grazing and plentiful fresh water.

Cattle growing made successful history until the turn of the last century when it received an almost overwhelming setback. The Mexican fever tick, which first infested Texas, entered Louisiana. Besides killing off thousands of animals, many became sickly and unfit for industry. This did not come in the form of an epidemic but rather as a long, depleting illness among the stock. The cattlemen were beside themselves with anxiety…. they knew something had to be done and quickly.

Upon investigation, they learned that Brahma cattle had built immunity to tick fever, they therefore, decided to import bulls from the Orient to strengthen their herds and establish resistance as far as possible. Importing the bulls was costly indeed, so cows were also imported a little later for the purpose of producing bulls in this country. The Brahma cross breeding worked wonders for the herds and in a few years they improved marvelously. The harassed men relaxed.

In the meantime, the Federal Government entered into a tireless search for some means to rid the country of the dangerous intruder. A dip was made in the early twenties which controlled the tick to great extent and by 1930 it was so perfected that, with systematic dippings, the tick was banished. Along with that tremendous stride came state investigation and compulsory dipping measures. Now, I am happy to say, we are remarkably free of the pest and feel secure because the cattle law quarantines all cattle coming from infested areas into Louisiana.

Other diseases, common to cattle, crop up in various parts of the District from time to time, but with veterinary service, these are soon stamped out. Tuberculosis and Bangs disease are not rampant among range cattle, they seem to infect, for the most part, dairy herds. Anthrax or charbon, a hot weather invader, is completely controlled by vaccine.

Something must be said about how the quality of local stock was brought up to high grade meat that speaks for itself on any retail counter.

With the coming of Brahma cattle the resultant cross produced a larger and heavier animal. This opened up the feeder markets of the Middle West and was an excellent thing for the cattlemen….but, as the herds grew closer and closer to their Brahma ancestry they grew wilder and fiercer and took less and less to feeding. This made the meat tough and stringy, consequently, the animals had to be sold while calves on the veal market, which defeated the cattlemen in his efforts to enlarge his herds and produce quality beef.

Now that tick fever is no longer a hazard, Aberdeen, Angus, Hereford, and Short Horn bulls of the highest breeding are replacing the Brahmas and the herds are rapidly taking on the aspects of their influence and growing into beautiful, fleshy stock.

With so much in favor of the cattle industry at hand, the Swift Packing Company built a splendid plant at Lake Charles in 1937. Besides creating a daily market for beef, the Plant is conducting, in connection with the Louisiana State University, continuous local feed experiments. Many cattle growers now feed their stock extra rations during the winter months and before delivering them at the Swift market, pen and feed them until they reach a standard, according to the Mid-western practice. Thus is can be seen that the cattlemen of this part of the District are enabled to follow their industry through and receive Kansas City prices.

I have spoken of approximately one million head of cattle. These have an annual turnover of three to four hundred thousand head with a cash value of around thirty dollars per head.

It must be said that there has been little increase in the numbers of cattle grown in Southwest Louisiana for many a year, but it is extremely notable that the cattle have survived the ravages of their times, and have been lifted from uncertain quality, to stock that commands attention…and indicates that it is steadily improving.

The first two commodities in this discourse are a part of my daily contact. The following topic…sugar cane…has come to my attention through certain advantages I have enjoyed while working with all agriculture in this state.

I have brought the traveler along the Old Spanish Trail from the Sabine River to Lafayette where he saw, for the most part, rice and cattle. At Lafayette the picture changes abruptly. As he moves, still eastward toward the Mississippi River, he plunges into the cane country and there remains all the way. Small alien plantings may dot the broad fertile fields as in all parts of the State, but cane, as he sees it, eclipses everything else that grows in this vast area.

A more magnificent verdure cannot be imagined under cultivation. From the new, tender green blades of early spring to the lush, tropical, taller than man…and massed plants of late autumn, sugar cane has no rival. It must be, without doubt, Nature’s most lavish food crop.

Since the cane belt falls in one of the very oldest parts of Louisiana…. that glamorous and romantic section made famous by Longfellow’s “Evangeline;” where lazy, lovely bayous wind their quiet ways among the plantations; where Negroes descended from slaves still croon their ancient melodies as they tend the cane, and where Southern hospitality prevails in spite of the reverses which came to these acres; it is one of the most picturesque and wholly satisfying parts of this state….it is Louisiana in her glorious and best tradition!

Two states in this country produce sugar cane, four-fifths of the total crop is raised in this section; the other fifth in Florida. Early records show that cane was introduced into Louisiana by the Jesuit Fathers who brought it here from the East Indies in the eighteenth century.

They called it sweet grass and were pleased to find that it took happily to its new environment. The French, who still predominate the cane area, learned from the Fathers how to foster the cane. From this meager beginning, almost two hundred years past, cane flourished and became one of the greatest money crops in the South. It earned more cash per acre and built more plantation fortunes than any other crop in Louisiana….even cotton, as it was known, in colonial days. A wealth developed through cane that withstood the Civil War.

Later came two mighty blows! Along about the time of the Spanish American War, Cuba entered the cane industry. With new soil and a peon type of labor, she produced cane more cheaply than the States could, also she could undersell this market. Correction was attempted by means of tariff but without success. One Congress increased tariffs, the next practically abolished them…since sugar is a thirteen to fourteen month crop; the producer never knew what to anticipate in the way of price and competition. Between the Spanish American and World Wars sugar remained a political “football.” The cane country suffered bitterly and, except for the integrity of its French population, might have gone to ruin.

The World War created a sugar shortage which brought to the attention of Washington the necessity for sugar stability…. This was established immediately; so the early Twenties brought promise of returning profits to the industry and the planters took fresh hope.

For four years everything went along nicely… then a devastating plague sneaked into the cane and within three years reduced the production from 250,000 tons of raw sugar annually to a scant 40,000… and the plague, called Mosaic disease, (because of a form it took on the blade), was on the wing! The planters were frantic. They were bankrupt.

Federal and State agencies wasted no time getting behind the invader. They did not find a cure for the diseased cane, but other types of cane, which resisted infection, were bred and brought to the area. What prudent men they were! As the result of their research, the new varieties not only grew luxuriantly in the section but contained a much higher sucrose content. Now 400,000 tons of raw sugar are produced annually against the former 250,000 tons. The cash value of this excellent sugar cane is fifteen million dollars to the planters and the former well-being is returning to the bowl.

The cash value of a crop is a very definite thing to tie to….it makes a clear statement that catches the ear, but one important fact about sugar cane which must not be overlooked is its value to the laborers who live in the territories and depend upon it. So many crops have become mechanical processes, but not so sugar! While much is done for cane by machinery, according to the era, sugar is still grown and harvested by hand labor. What the industry means to the field man can best be illustrated by the volume he can handle alone during the harvest. In a single day, one man can cut, strip and load two and one half tons of cane. With more than 5,000,000 tons of sugar cane grown in our country, one can see that 2,000,000 man days of employment are supplied during the harvest alone.

Sugar, like rice, is largely made ready for the retail market in its growing area, the mills being situated convenient to the fields.

The sugar produced in the United States and its possessions creates no surplus. Their aggregate tonnage is but slightly in excess of half the consumption in this country. The sugar act, by means of production quotas, limits the sugar acreage of the United States and possessions to this amount; therefore, it is necessary to import vast quantities of sugar to meet the retail market demand.

Now for my concluding subject ……. Oil.

It has always been said that the strength of any structure depends upon its foundation. We are very fortunate in Louisiana to find that underlying the rice and cane areas is an oil foundation.

For about thirty-nine years this District has been oil-conscious, the first well having been brought in near Vinton, in Southwest Louisiana, around the turn of the century. Most of the earliest discoveries occurred in Calcasieu Parish in the neighborhoods of Vinton, Welsh and Jennings, and were shallow wells compared with depths sought now. From that time on, much prospecting was done, but it was not until the late twenties, which brought the advent of deep drilling, that this section came into its own production. The average Gulf Coast well is more than 8,000 feet deep and costs $75,000 upwards. Today there is practically a continuous series of oil fields running from the Sabine to the Mississippi River with hardly more than twenty miles distance between fields.

The oil fields in South Louisiana are generally in conjunction with salt dome uplifts… the oil being found along the flanks of the domes. Many of these fields’ production is comparatively small due to the fact that outlining of structures and development are still in the process of completion. For these reasons much wildcatting still goes on … though many reliable fields have been proved.

Under the proration laws of Louisiana the State is allowed to produce only 250,000 barrels of oil daily and of this total, South Louisiana yields 190,000 barrels. It might be well to mention that this allowable could be increased three or four times and still maintain a stable production.

Looking at the value of the oil industry from three angles; we find First…….the State collects through severance taxes approximately ten cents the barrel or 19,000 dollars daily from South Louisiana’s production alone.

Second…..The land and royalty holders receive one-eighth of the total production after the severance taxes are paid. Using one dollar per barrel as the average unit of value you can see that this group collects about 24,000 dollars per day.

Third …..The balance of the revenue belongs to the oil companies who ship most of their commodity to other areas for processing. All of this money is not lost to the oil sections, however, as the lease monies, prospecting and producing costs, which probably absorb at least fifty percent of the operators’ total revenue, stays in the oil districts.

The potentialities of oil developments in South Louisiana are tremendous. All facilities to handle an enormous business are nearby. We have the oil….the largest refinery in the entire world at Baton Rouge…three ports, namely New Orleans, Lake Charles and Baton Rouge, where ships of all drafts may dock the year round, and plenty of labor. With increased production other refineries will follow and added payrolls will brighten the outlook beyond the telling.

Binding the facts of this paper into a few closing words, let me say that the strip of land 150 miles wide and 250 miles long, just discussed, provides homes for 700,000 people who rely upon it entirely. Agriculture produces 39,000,000 dollars annually in the section and an oil revenue of some fifty to sixty million makes an additional 25,000,000 dollars available to the area.

I thank you kindly!!!

(Ed. Note: The following article was compiled from a talk given by Mr. H. G. Chalkley, Jr., delivered at a special meeting of the Lake Charles Kiwanis Club conducted by the Agricultural committee.)

Southwest Louisiana agriculture climbed to the 90 million dollar mark in 1948.

Last year the rice crop was valued at 70 million dollars, while the other side of Southwest Louisiana’s agricultural coin, cattle, produced a calf crop valued at 20 mullion dollars.

In 1948, $90 million of agricultural money, “new money” was available in this area. The production of this “new money’ does not deplete any of the natural resources and repeats itself year after year.

The 70 million dollar rice crop includes six million five hundred thousand barrels valued at $51 million; $14 million for conversion processes to mill the crop; and $5 million worth of rice used by farmers for food and feed.

To the money produced directly from the cattle and rice industries, we must add the handling charges on rice exported from the Port of Lake Charles. Of the six million, five hundred thousand barrels of rough rice, approximately two million 100-pound sacks of clean rice are handled over the docks of the Port. From this the truck lines and the railroads receive freight, stevedores receive wages and the steamships receive freight. When those figures are added to the figure of $90 million, it is easily seen that an additional amount of money is available in the community.

With the exception of the amount that goes directly to Lafayette and Abbeville, practically all this money, directly or indirectly comes to Lake Charles.

In addition to the money available from the yearly crops of rice and cattle, consider the tremendous investment involved in producing those crops.

In the production of the rice crop alone: the government estimate of rice acreage in Louisiana in 1948 was 5 hundred and 60 thousand acres. That means there has to be at least three times as much acreage available because rice can only be grown on a piece of land for two years and then it must lay fallow for four years. Placing a very conservative value of $40 an acre on the land gives one an idea of the investment in land alone. To that must be added the "equipment" necessary to produce and process the crop; and that includes building and irrigation systems, farming equipment (which is mechanical, as rice is the mostly highly mechanized crop in the United States), mills, dryers, and warehousing.

To see the beginnings of these two multi-million dollar agricultural industries, rice and cattle, we have to go back before the turn of the century.

Although the two, rice and cattle, have been the sources of our agricultural income for many years, neither is native to North America. The introduction of rice growing to the United States came about by accident. In 1650 a British ship loaded with a cargo of rice and bound for the West Indies ran into a storm in the vicinity of Cape Hatteras. Badly damaged the ship put into Charleston for repairs. When it was discovered that the ship was too damaged to repair, the rice was unloaded and sold to settlers in and around Charleston. It was suggested that they try to grow the rice in lowland areas around the Ashley and Cooper rivers. The settlers attempted it. Water for the rice fields was furnished by the natural rise and fall of tides in the two rivers.

At that time the entrance to the Charleston harbor was only eight feet deep. As the shipping increased the harbor was dredged to a greater depth and large amounts of salt water came into the Ashley and Cooper rivers. The salt, of course, killed the rice plants and the planters gradually went out of the rice farming business, without ever attempting to furnish fresh water by artificial means from other sources.

Rice was being grown in Louisiana in “providence” fashion when Louisiana was purchased from the French. By the “providence method” rice was planted in a low area and a lake was built above, on higher land. During the dry season the rice plants were kept alive by letting the lake water out. This haphazard method did not insure the size or even the existence of a crop.

In 1885 in southwest Louisiana, the first attempt was made to raise rice under a controlled method. A reclamation project was set up on the Calcasieu Lake. Four thousand acres were levied and canals one-half mile apart were dug in the marsh. The “marsh” was plowed by “winding engines.”

Pumps were put in to pump water off, but it was planned to irrigate the fields by the normal water level of the lake. This project was not successful because when the water rose, it rose too high and flooded the fields. There was also some salt in the water.

In 1898 the plan was turned around. Rice was to be grown on high land and the water to irrigate was to be pumped up to it. So the first canal in operation in this area was dug at Chloe in 1898, taking its water from English Bayou. (It is still in use as the Farmer’s Canal.) The next year another canal, now know as the Louisiana Canal, was built and took its water from Bayou Serpent. That was the origin of the rice industry as a commercial enterprise in this part of Louisiana.

The first cattle were brought to Mexico by the Spaniards and from there into Texas and Louisiana. The cattle were the normal Spanish type. They developed into the longhorns, which had more horns than hide. And with the advent of cattle something else developed … tick fever. The cattle did not have any resistance to the fever and died in great number. No information on how to combat it.

Cattlemen searching for a method of preventing the disease, hit upon the idea of cross breeding the cattle with the Brahma cattle of India. Over a period of centuries the Brahma had developed immunity to the fever. About 1900, Perry McFadden of Beaumont, Texas imported the first Brahma bulls into Texas.

The Brahma crosses proved successful and immunized the resulting stock from the fever. The federal government stepped in and began a systematic and scientific effort to wipe out the disease. In the 1930’s an effective dip was developed, dipping and quarantines enforced. By 1934 nearly all of Southwest Louisiana was tick free and has been tick free since.

Once the fever was wiped out, cattleman began to breed better stock. The cattle types then and the cattle types today in this area don’t even look related. But the cattle today are bred from the same stock, with only the addition of imported beef type bulls. Today the cattle industry in 13 southwest Louisiana parishes is conservatively estimated at $150 million with more than a million head of cattle in these parishes.

In the development of any community or nation, a balance between agriculture and industry is necessary. Two nations in the world today are striking examples of the lack of such a balanced economy. Argentina, strictly agrarian, with enough food to feed a large portion of the world has to import all the things we classify as the necessities of life. England, on the other hand, has almost every manufactured product known to man. But if the ships stopped sailing for a week, England would begin to starve. She has no food.

In Southwest Louisiana we have both industry and agriculture. Let neither take advantage of the other, let both work together, and we’ll have a prosperity we need never worry about.