Rice is grown from around Houma all the way to Lake Charles. Thousands of acres, large farms can be as big as 3 or 4 thousand acres and small farms more in the 200 to 400 acre size. It is grown inland from the real bayou area but where it is still quite wet. Rice looks like a wheat or a barley except that is shorter and grown in water. It is harvested with a combine just like wheat and barley.
The fields tend to be long and narrow and maybe from 25 acres up to 50 or 75 acres. The fields are drained in the winter and when they are dry enough they are worked with tractors and a disk. In the spring they are flooded and planted . Rice farming on a small scale is a difficult business just like any cash cropping because of the huge investment into large equipment. They are flooded 2 more times through out the growing season until they are harvested in September.
A second industry has developed where the smaller farmers raise crawfish in their rice fields. The crawfish live in the rice fields and when the fields are drained they burrow into the mud and the machinery doesn't bother them. When the fields are flooded they come back up out of the mud and live in the water. Since the water is only about a foot deep they need special boats to harvest the crawfish. This industry works well on a small scale because they are harvested and sold fresh, unlike the large processors that have to freeze them. Fresh crawfish are in great demand around all of the festive seasons, and especially Mardi Gras when families gather and a huge pot of crawfish is put on to boil. They are served with potatoes boiled in the same pot. All of the stores sell large jars of the Louisiana spices that are added to the pot. There is nothing bland about this dish, or any other Louisiana dish for that matter.
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| The fisherman drives his boat along the line of traps and lifts the trap, empties it and sets it down in the water with out stopping. |
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| The traps are set about 25 to 30 feet apart in rows about 50 feet apart |
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