Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/467

Rh Once secure against overflow, the value of these rich bottom lands can hardly be imagined. So easy are they of culture that before the war the allowance upon well-stocked plantations in the Yazoo district was two able-bodied negroes and one mule to thirty acres of cotton land; and this, too, when the negroes were so lightly worked that they rarely, except in flood emergencies, were required to labor upon the levees—this being regarded as too severe for their strength. Irish labor was chiefly used for this purpose.

In applying the levee system to the Mississippi, a very false principle has been heretofore adopted; and, in consequence, an amount of money has been squandered probably sufficient to securely protect the valley, if rightly invested.

Below Red River, and especially below Plaquemine, the land rapidly slopes from the immediate bank of the river often to low cypress swamps and lakes, which do not admit of drainage. For this reason the levees have been placed upon the edge of the bank, as near the river as possible, both to reduce their height and to secure as large an area as practicable for cultivation. In this section a location based upon this principle is advisable, especially as the caving of the banks is so gradual that with proper care in allowing space in the bends no rapid destruction of the levee need occur.

Above Red River, especially along the Yazoo and St. Francis fronts, the problem is quite different. Here there is an extensive back country, well-provided with natural drains for rain-water. Moreover, the caving of the immediate banks is rapid and highly destructive to the levees. The injuries to the works during the war chiefly arose from this cause; and they were so serious that many bends, especially of the St. Francis front, are now without levees; and the whole region is liable to annual inundation in consequence. The rapid rate of this caving is illustrated in Council Bend, where the river has encroached a mile and a half in forty years. The vicious system of closely following the banks of the river with the levees was inaugurated in this district, partly because it was the time-honored custom in the lower and settled part of the valley, but chiefly because the first-comers occupied and planted the immediate banks to secure the advantages of water transportation for their crops and supplies. The levees being built by a tax upon land under cultivation, they were very naturally located so as to secure the property of the resident tax-payers. This was often carried to the absurd length of enclosing by an extensive loop some paltry cotton-shed, while the location endangered the crops of the entire neighborhood for many miles around.

To reclaim this portion of the valley, this system of location should be radically changed. A grand guard levee of ample height, and as nearly straight as possible, should be constructed so