Hay on DeSiard Street.

Back on December 31, 2018, I posted this postcard:

At the time, I dated it to circa 1910. Well, I was close.

I found this exact same image (although very grainy) printed in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 19, 1906, Page 27. It had the following article with it:

Monroe, La., Aug. 18. – The above is a scene on De Siard Street, showing hay from Colonel F.P. Stubbs’ Magenta Plantation. Colonel Stubbs is one of the biggest planters in this section, owning several large places. There are other planters in the parish who raise more cotton than Colonel Stubbs, but none who are more successful. He makes it a rule to raise all the feedstuff for stock and all the meat for his hands, usually having enough surplus to sell corn and hay to other planters who are buying those articles instead of raising them on their places.

Colonel Stubbs attributes much of his success in the planting business to this diversity of crops. He prides himself on the corn he raises, and this year’s crop is especially fine. One season a few years ago the planters formed an organization to encourage the raising of corn. Three prizes were offered, and Colonel Stubs took all of them on his different plantations. In each instance he turned the prize money over to the overseer making the crop.

The hay pictured above is a surplus from last year’s crop, and was sold to a local wholesale house at a good price. Colonel Stubbs had to make room for his new crop of hay, which is extra good this year.