Auditor's Report on Audit and Examination of Accounts Old River Rice Irrigation Company January 31st 1913

[Houston, 1913. Very good plus.. [3],44pp., mimeographed text, including some folding charts, printed on rectos only. Folio. Original limp maroon leather folder, string tied with leather tie. A couple of manuscript additions. A rare surviving business report for the Old River Rice Irrigation Company in Texas in the early-20th century. The audit covers the two years between January 1, 1911 and January 31, 1913, in particular the production of rice crops for 1911 and 1912. The report was submitted to the officials, directors, and shareholders of the company. The auditor, Stuart A. Giraud concluded that "we are of the opinion after having made as exhaustive (truncated) investigation of each asset as possible, that in the aggregate they did not truly represent the available capital assets of the company." According to Giraud, the company's real estate, land leases, and buildings were undervalued.

The Old River Rice Irrigation Company (ORRIC) operated in Winfree, Texas, some thirty-five miles east of Houston, serving farmers in the area in the early 1900s. For a time the rice industry, which required a plentiful water source, thrived in this area, though did not survive long past the time represented by the current report. The ORRIC dug and maintained irrigation canals to channel water to the rice fields, building the first canal in Harris County in 1902. According to an issue of the journal Rice Industry, published in Houston on May 31, 1902, "the condition of rice at this date is uniformly good throughout the prairie rice belt of the two states. Reports from every quarter give news of abundance of water for irrigation, and timely rains have everywhere benefitted sowings not yet ready for flooding.... There never was a time more propitious, and there is not anywhere in the world a region susceptible of greater development than the gulf coast country of Texas and Louisiana." OCLC is silent on any works produced by the Old River Rice Irrigation Company. (Inventory #: 3109)