Climate, Health, Physical Resources 

Chapter IV

Claiborne is one of the old parishes of the State, having been organized as a parish in 1828. Previous to that time it formed a part of Natchitoches parish. When organized, Claiborne contained, in addition to its present area, all of what is now known as Bienville and Webster Parishes, and a part of what is now Lincoln. It now extends from Union Parish on the east, along the southern boundary of the State of Arkansas, to Webster Parish on the west, and is bounded on the south by Bienville and Webster Parishes, and on the southeast by Lincoln Parish. It will thus be seen that Claiborne occupies abut a central position in the northern tier of parishes, and is beyond question the highest as well as the healthiest portion of the State of Louisiana.

The average altitude of Louisiana, as set forth in Toner's Dictionary of Elevations of the United States, is 75 feet above the level of the sea. This is a somewhat lower average level than that of any of the other States, except Florida, which is put down at 60 feet above the sea in its average. Claiborne Parish has the highest average elevation of any parish in the State, being about 200 feet above sea level. Still this is a rather low average as compared with the country north and west. There is an impression with some that high places are the most healthy, but this does not always follow, and is not the testimony of experience here in Louisiana. Sometimes the lowest places in the same neighborhood have had quite the advantage in point of health. In the Old World some healthful and fertile localities are below the level of the ocean as the valley of the Jordan, more than 1,000 feet below the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, the shores of the Caspian Sea, and portions of Holland, reclaimed from the ocean by its dykes. Settlers here from Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and other States, say they find Claiborne Parish as healthy as the countries from which they came.
It is never visited by the severe epidemics of yellow fever and smallpox which are so fatal in the parishes bordering on the rivers especially in the cities and towns on their banks; nor is it subject to those dangerous malarial diseases, such as swamp fever, typhoid fever, etc., which are such a scourge to the lower country; in fact, it is singularly free from epidemics and malarial disorders of all kinds, and will compare favorably with any portion of the United States in point of health. The only epidemics ever known in the parish is measles, and that of a very mild type, very rarely causing death. Area in square miles 778; in acres, 4,477,920; amount of land vacant, 537,660 acres; population in 1880, 18,857 Whites and Blacks equally divided; amount of taxable property, as per assessment roll for last year, $1,479,060; rate of taxation, 11 mills on the dollar; area in cultivation, 126,000 acres; valuation of land subject to taxation, $743,317; value of stock, $293,835. The conditions of the atmosphere in its degrees of temperature and moisture are items which affect organized life, animal and vegetable. Since the temperature of the atmosphere falls, as distance from the equator increases, one degree of depression for every added degree of latitude; and since, moreover, the thermometer falls one degree for every 300 feet of altitude, Louisiana being comparatively near the equator and so little above the sea level, might be thought, by residents of Northern States, to be very warm; but there are other influences which disturb this natural order of things which must be taken into account before the truth is reached.

There are dozens of rivers and hundreds of smaller streams coursing over the surface there, too, lakes and other bodies of water are numerous. The evaporations from these streams and lakes, and from the Gulf of Mexico on the south, rapidly consume or absorb the heat of the sun, just as water sprinkled on the floor absorbs the heat of a room, and this process is more rapid because, as the vapor rises, taking with it all the heat it can render insensible, breezes from the Gulf, as from the plains of the northwest, take it away and supply other air to be filled with other vapor performing the same office in the cooling process, so that, as a matter of fact, the thermometer rises higher in summer in New York, Boston and Philadelphia than in any portion of Louisiana. Sunstroke, so frequent and fatal in the cities, and, indeed in the country, north, is never known in Louisiana.

There is, also, another item not to be overlooked in seeking the causes of a higher temperature in summer in countries north of Louisiana it is, that the days are longer in summer as we proceed northward, and the nights shorter. There is, therefore, less time for throwing off or radiating the heat received from the sun, until his return with other supplies. I regret that there are no tables of mean relative humidity and temperature from which I can quote, for the information of the possible northern reader, on this important subject. But an experience of thirty years in this part of Louisiana enables the writer to say that the thermometer very rarely rises as high as 100 degrees in summer, and as rarely falls am low as 25 degrees in winter. As already noticed, the thermometer does not rise quite so high in Louisiana as in countries further north, but this is not the whole advantage. The temperature of the animal system is ordinarily above that of the atmosphere. The breezes are constantly removing from contact with the body the partially heated particles of air and supplying cooler particles, which absorb the heat, and the cooling sensation is in proportion to the rapidity of the process. Such breezes are a constant and enduring feature of Louisiana's summer climate, occurring with almost daily unvarying regularity. It is this feature that enables a man or beast to exist during a long summer day under our semitropical sun, without distress or danger; and it is this too, perhaps, which accounts for the total absence of sun strokes among men, and hydrophobia among dogs. It would, perhaps, not be well to omit mention in this connection, of the fact that we have some cold weather in Louisiana.

This country is subject to occasional cold waves brought down upon it by the northwest winds, but they are of short duration; lasting not generally longer than three or four days, as the wind quickly veers round, our Gulf breezes come, and our normal winter weather resumes sway, which is never cold enough to require shelter for stock, or to make fuel for heating purposes a matter of consideration. The surface of the country is undulating, hills and valleys running in every direction; or, perhaps, it might more properly be described as rolling, as the hills are only gentle elevations, never precipitous and high as in the States north and east. This rolling or undulating surface gives rise to numerous water courses, creeks, bayous, etc., which drain the country in every direction, and whose currents are generally sufficiently swift to carry off the greatest, rainfall, so that we have very little of what is known as swamp and overflowed land, with their ponds and lagoons stagnant water, breeding miasma, malaria, mosquitos, buffalo gnats and other ills and pests to man and beast. In this respect, Claiborne Parish is blessed above almost any other part of the State, the greater part of which, as is well known, is not sufficiently rolling to drain well, and in consequence the slow, tortuous water courses failing to carry off the water fast enough, it spreads out over the adjacent low-lying country, where a great part of it is left in ponds, lake, and lagoons, which, under the influence of our warm summer sun, doubtless gives rise to the various malarial diseases and insect pests for which Louisiana has acquired quite a reputation.

The writer has often been surprised at the opinion held by residents of other States, particularly the Northern States, in regard to Louisiana. They seem, in many cases, to regard the whole of Louisiana as one vast frog pond, interspersed with occasional dry patches or spots of land on which the inhabitants eke out a miserable, chill shaken existence; indeed, they would be surprised to find a resident of the South, outside the cities and larger towns where, as they think, man has improved natural conditions, who was at all robust or in ways like a man. They seem to think he should conform very nearly, both in his physical development and habits of life, to his most intimate friend, the frog. In fact, nothing could be more erroneous, or further from the truth, than the idea entertained of Louisiana generally by residents of other States, and this idea has originated and been fostered by the inaccurate descriptions of geographers and by the written accounts of travelers along our water courses, which, until late years, have been our only highways of trade, and these travelers, added to their lack of means of observation, have been, to say the least, very casual observers, and seem in most eases to have taken a jaundiced view of everything. It is true, and very proper to be noted here, that we have what is called malaria in Louisiana, but we have very little of it in the rolling woodlands of Claiborne.

Through about the center of this parish runs the ridge, or water divide, which separates the waters of the Red and Ouachita Rivers the water courses on the right, or west, emptying into Red River, and those on the left, or east, into Ouachita. We have no streams which are navigable within the boundaries of the parish, though there are several having their rise here which are navigable in their lower courses. Our natural scenery, though not perhaps as picturesque as that of mountainous Countries, is sufficiently varied and interesting to impart a sense of pleasure to any one not entirely blind to nature's beauties. We have winding streams, babbling brooks, gushing springs, many-hued forest scenes, birds with brilliant plumage, and merry songsters; we have rocks here, too, and minerals; strange as it may seem to those who only know Louisiana from hearsay.

No poets fancy has ever delineated in measured song the beauties of our fields and forests; no artists pencil or brush has transferred to canvass the beauties, of our landscapes; but they are here, and will abide their time. In this respect, as in many others, this part of the State is verily a terra incognito. As to the soil of Claiborne, it would be impossible within the limits of this book, or within the limits prescribed to this part of it, to do full justice to this important feature, important because the soil is as yet our country's only stock in trade, its only resource. We are emphatically an agricultural people. Everything is dependent directly and exclusively upon the productions of the soil when this fails everything else fails when the cultivation of the soil becomes unprofitable, everything else becomes unprofitable, Hence, the importance which attaches in a work of this kind to the nature and quality of the soil, Liebig, the celebrated German Agricultural Chemist, says that the poorest soils, even the Limeburg heath of his country, contains enough of mineral plant food for centuries of profitable tillage, but that it is locked in such chemical combination as to render it inaccessible to plants, except in a very slight degree.

If this be so, and it doubtless is so, for Liebig knew whereof he spoke in matters of this kind, it would seem that the quality of the soil is not a matter of such very great importance had we but the key to this chest, the means of unlocking this chemical combination, and surrendering this inexhaustible supply accessible to plants, but here is the rub, we have it not, nor are we likely to have it soon, if ever. The farmer in North Louisiana is obliged in the main to take his soil just as he finds it to accept the return it makes for his patient toil, of its own free will, without the aid which scientific discoveries have rendered possible in more favored cases; for he is, in most cases, ignorant of the elements with which his soil is supplied or in which it is deficient he knows nothing of the chemical combinations necessary to the growth of the plants he wishes to cultivate; and even if he possessed this scientific knowledge, he has not the means at hand to render it practicably useful. So the best he can do, is to make use of such fertilizers as he may have at hand which observation and experience tell him will be beneficial to his plants.

He is an experimenter, groping in the dark even the little way which his circumstances will admit of his going in this direction. The supply of fertilizers on an average farm in Claiborne parish, known to be of value, is so limited that a large part of the area in cultivation must necessarily go from year to year without fertilization; so that the quality of the soil is an item of the first importance. When I tell the practical geologist that the soil of Claiborne Parish is not alluvial in its character, he says at once, then it belongs to the tertiary formation, or to the tertiary geological epoch, and is formed in the main from the disintegration of sandstone. Your soil, says he, must be largely composed of sand. Quite true, sand seems to be a predominant constituent of our soil, but I say to him, we have red lands in Claiborne--lands in which sand is not at all conspicuous, as an element. They are, says he, somewhat sandy in their character, and are formed from the disintegration of red sandstone to which iron has given the coloring matter; such soils ought to be rich in the phosphates of iron and profitable to cultivate, as these elements are valuable as a plant food. Right again; our red lands are profitably cultivated on them crops do well, to which the phosphates of lime and iron are a vital necessity.

The practical farmer, or plant grower, knowing little of chemistry or geology judges of land by the natural growth upon it the trees which nature has planted there, and which have flourished and taken possession of the soil in its wild state. He sees the oak, the ash, the hickory, the walnut, the blackjack he knows that from their ashes good soap is made; he may not know that these ashes are rich in the phosphates of lime, so valuable as plant food, but he does know that where these trees grow, corn, cotton and potatoes will grow, and may be profitably grown. He knows, too, when he sees the character of the soil, that it is porous, loose and mellow, that it will readily yield up what elements of plant food it possesses, that it is generous in its nature and easy of cultivation. The practical farmer of Claiborne knows these things and makes practical and profitable use of such knowledge, but he does not know often, how, by several successive years of profitable tillage, he has robbed his generous soil of the greater part of its available plant food, and that he has to replace what he has recklessly, taken away to reinvigorate his exhausted soil.

In fact, he does not seem to be aware that these years of constant cultivation are making fearful in­roads upon his bank account his stock in trade the available plant food in his soil; does not seem to know, or acts as though he did not know, that these elements of plant food are his only resource, the sole reason why his lands are worth anything whatever to himself or others. If he thinks about these things at all, he thinks that lands are cheap, and so goes ahead, year after year, without counting the cost, even to himself in the end, leaving out of consideration altogether the heritage of his children, the needs of the generation which is to come after him. In this case, the "sins of the fathers are indeed visited upon the children to the third and fourth generations."

The rule generally followed is, as fast as one field is exhausted it is turned out, the forest cut away and another enclosed to go through the same process of treatment; so that our domain will soon be largely composed of old fields turned out to grow up in pines, for it is a peculiarity of our soil that the natural growth does not return to it after it has been treated in this way, that natural growth which eventually enriches it and brings it back to its original state of available fertility, but young pines take possession of it, and they, as is well known, add little to the fertility of soil by the decay of their foliage, as is the case with numerous other plants. It might be well to enter a little more into detail as to the average farmers' methods and the success which attend them.

When he decides upon the precise plot of eminent domain which he will next lay waste, his first step is to seek out all the timber growing upon it which can be converted into rails, such trees are felled and converted into rails, next he cuts off the undergrowth, which is made into brush heaps to be burned when dry; then cuts down the saplings and smaller trees, whose bodies are cut into convenient lengths for hauling home and whose laps go to the brush heaps; he next chops around all trees left standing, thus "deadening them' as it is called. as this circular chopping through the sap part of the tree prevents the free circulation of the sap, thus killing the tree which is left standing to take its chances against decay and the prevailing winds, its falling is only a question of time. He hauls out everything available for fuel, thus frequently getting enough fuel for a year or two from a small plot of ground next he puts all logs left on the ground into convenient lengths which, with the help of his neighbors, he makes into heaps on the ground, and into these heaps go all refuse from the fuel selected. The brush with log heaps often cover almost the entire surface of the ground.

His clearing is now done and is ready for the grand burning as soon as the brush and logs are sufficiently dry. If the clearing is done in the summer or fall, the burning may be done in winter, but if the clearing is done in winter the burning is not generally done until in the spring, just before planting time. After this new field is burned off, he proceeds to surround it with a cross-fence of rails, when it is ready for the plow. The farmer frequently realizes enough corn or cotton from this new field the first year to pay for its clearing, though it generally happens that very little is obtained for the first year's cultivation, but the second year's cultivation generally yields excellent crops bale of cotton or thirty bushels of corn per acre being frequently realized on uplands the second year, but its maximum is not generally reached till the third year. This field is then kept in constant cultivation in crops which take all from the soil and return very little, or nothing, to it until by a constantly diminishing yield, it is found no longer profitable for cultivation; then it too, is laid aside, and another inroad made upon the forest.

Nowhere in the United States, perhaps, can more generous soil be found than the rolling woodlands of Claiborne Parish; nowhere a soil which more readily yields up its elements of plant food, or is easier of cultivation. There are richer and more durable lands elsewhere, but taking into consideration certainty of yield and ease of cultivation, there are none, I venture to say, which will better repay careful tillage and proper management than they, or more worthy of the attention of the intelligent agriculturist. These lands are almost all adapted to the highest fertilizing; they can, by proper management and very little cost, be kept at their maximum yield indeed, they can be made better every year instead of being made poorer, as is now too often the case.

I have heretofore spoken of the better class of uplands in Claiborne, these, as I said before, often yield, with careful tillage and with­out fertilizers, as much as a bale of cotton or 30 or 40 bushels of corn per acre. Corn and cotton being the leading productions of the country the value of land is generally estimated by its production of these two staples; but there are other lands not so productive; others in cultivation on which half of the above yield is considered a good one; others there are, too, which seem comparatively worthless, except for the timber on them. But this last class of lands form but a small part of Claiborne's area. There is very little land within the limits of the parish which may not be profitably cultivated, and upon all of it fertilizers may be profitably used.

This fact has been demonstrated again and again, in numerous instances. The surface soil, though unusually light and porous, has underlying it a firm and compact subsoil which is within easy reach of plant roots, and which serves the double purpose of giving the plant a firm hold on the earth, and of preventing the leaking through of fertilizers applied to the surface soil. This subsoil is not entirely of clay or aluminum, as the chemists call it, which is not food for plants, but is found to contain, in many cases, a fair amount of plant food. The staple commodities of this part of the country for markets outside the State, it is expected, will soon enlarge in number, but at present they are extremely few, and might perhaps be summed up in one word Cotton. Cotton is almost our only crop for sale. It is, as we say here, our only money crop.

The history of agriculture in the United States, and perhaps in other parts of the civilized world, has always taught one important lesson which impoverished farms and empty purses are slowly urging the present generation to heed. It is this that no exclusively agricultural community can ever be prosperous while it confines itself to the production of a single commodity. No matter how well the soil may be adapted to its production, the climate and natural conditions suited to its growth, that country or community which links its fortunes to that of a single plant, that stakes its all upon its successful culture, will be and must needs be always poor and often finds itself in sad straits. Experience proves this lesson wherever such a course has been pursued. The most unobservant traveler through a country where cotton is cultivated to the exclusion of other crops suited to the soil and climate, or where tobacco, hemp, or any other single plant reigns supreme, has had this truth forced upon him by the worn out lands, the deserted homesteads, the dilapidated fences and farm houses, the utter absence of progress and enterprise, and the scenes of thriftlessness and want which meet his eyes on every side.

While cotton is now almost the only thing produced for market, the soil of Claiborne Parish is admirably adapted to the production of a variety of other crops, which might profitably take the place of cotton in part. The sweet potato is, for house use, a universal crop in this part of the State, and seems to be in its natural home. It is easily propagated from the roots, sprouts or vines, and with a little care in the preparation of the ground and subsequent cultivation; returns an immense yield, often as much as 300 bushels per acre. From its easy propagation and cultivation, its large yield and the variety and excellence of the dishes prepared from it, it is one of the indispensable crops for home use, but has not hitherto, been raised for markets outside the State. This is due, doubtless, to lack of transportation, but now that we have a railroad within easy reach and are likely to have another soon, this impediment will be removed and we may expect to see the sweet potato take its place among the products of the country and with great profit to the farmer. The Irish potato or "white potato," is accredited as a native of Chili and Peru, and was introduced into North America by the Spaniards, from whence it was, in 1586, carried by Sir Waiter Raleigh to England, and perhaps acquired its name of Irish potato from the extent to which it was grown in Ireland.

This tuber ought soon to take a prominent place among the very profitable crops of North Louisiana. There is probably nothing that the soil produces which can be more profitably grown than the Irish potato. Field peas of many varieties grow to perfection here and are often a valuable adjunct to the farmer's corn crop, as they furnish excellent food for all kinds of domestic animals, including man himself. Their cultivation is receiving a large share of attention now, which is a sign of better times, as besides its valuable qualities as a food, its culture is very beneficial to the land on which it is grown. The pea is largely an air feeder and hence may be grown on very poor land and be made to return much more to the soil than it takes from it, and thus increase fertility. It is found very advantageous to land to sow it in peas and plow under while the vines are green. Wheat does not seem to do well anywhere in Louisiana, though it has been tried at various times on the uplands of Claiborne; its culture has never been attended with marked success. Sometimes its yield has been satisfactory, more frequently however it fails.

Oats are a staple production of the country. If sown in the fall they rarely fail to amply repay the farmer for all the care and attention bestowed upon them. Barley and rye also do well here but are not at present largely planted, not as much as formerly. Sorghum has been at various times experimentally grown, and is at present grown in small quantities. It grows very luxuriantly, and is of certain yield if properly cultivated, but has been regarded as of doubtful profit. Its tops or seed are known to be excellent food for stock. Garden products are an essential feature of every household in the parish; no home is complete without its vegetable garden, the products of which go far toward furnishing the family with wholesome food throughout the entire year. Every variety of garden vegetable found in this latitude does well here, beans, English peas, cabbage, tomatoes, turnips, onions, beets, lettuce and numerous others grow very luxuriantly, and nothing pays better or is more pleasing to the eye than the well kept gardens in Claiborne Parish. The timber supply is sufficient to meet the demands of the population, as it naturally increases, for many generations. Pine, several kinds of oak, sweet and black gum, hickory, walnut, ash, maple, iron wood, persimmon and many other varieties are found in easy reach of nine-tenths of the farms.

There are thousands of acres once in cultivation worn out and now left to grow up or wash away, that are covered with young pines, etc. Here and on parts of farms too wet to cultivate, grow delicious blackberries, bushels of which may be seen at a glance; dewberries in luxuriant plenty are found in these old fields. These, together with various other berries, such as the different kinds of haws, huckleberries, paw paws, the banana of the temperate zones etc., may be had in plenty for the mere trouble of gathering; chinkapin, walnuts and hickory nuts are equally as numerous. Fruits of all kinds peculiar to this latitude grow to perfection, and a failure of the crop is rare. Flowers, native and exotic, are reared with little trouble, grow luxuriantly, and frost, except with the most tender varieties, seldom requires that they be housed or protected. Game of the smaller species, such as squirrels, birds, hare, etc. are numerous, but deer and turkey, though once very numerous, are now rare, having sought more thinly settled parts of the country. Melons of every variety, from the classic pumpkin to the primitive gourd, abound in Claiborne and of the very finest quality, among which the watermelon deserves special mention. It is probable that nowhere in the world can this fruit be grown more successfully than here on the sandy lands of Claiborne. It is extremely prolific, fully flavored and often grows to immense size. The writer has often seen them weighing fifty pounds, sometimes sixty. They might be very profitably grown here for northern markets.

Claiborne Parish History | AHGP Louisiana