French-Speaking Farmers of Southern Louisiana

Abstract

touching has been popular and perhaps worth while with respect to the Acadians as well as the Puritans, Indians, and other groups-research workers must seek to provide a more realistic picture of folks they deal with because their contributions frequently serve as a basis for action programs involving group welfare. Aside from Acadian traditions, there are numerous interesting facets to the lives and folkways of the French-speaking people of Louisiana. Prominent among these are the line form of settlements, a nonpuritan agrarian tradition, a rather intimate, stable community life, Creole cooking, and in some places survival of the horse-and-buggy mode of travel. Less well publicized are acute economic problems which beset the people. They center largely in the sugar-cane economy and may be listed as follows: (1) maintaining satisfactory cane and sugar prices, (2) low farm income for small producers, (3) numerous small, inefficient farm units, (4) high rates of tenancy in places, (5) inability of small farmers to make use of largescale power equipment, and (6) introduction of profitable supplementary