The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1848-11-30

State which sugar has been grown for than
and the yield good. We have examined samples Of
made upon the different plantations IN tbs pssh and must
any made the coast The great which has at
tended the experiment viii induce many engage in its
culture the next season. and expect in the
OF few years some ten fifteen thousand hogsheads OF
| sugar shipped from our landing.
The above extract, which we copy from the Lou
isiana Chronicle, is fit introduction to few re-
marks which it is our purpose to make to-day, on
the sugar culture Of this State. It shows that we
were not so far wrong, as some supposed, in our
opinion of the present crops and it shows further,
that there is every prospect, we stated, of rapid
yearly increase in the quantity ofsugar be made,
The dscov cry does not require the richest
Landslide heavy alluvons Of the Mississippi or its
bayous-to produce it, has had to struggle against
much prejudice before it would be acknowledged
as a fact nothing short of superiority of the up
land crop in different places and in different years,
could gain for it general credence. Now, how
| ever, rhat 40 doubt remains upon this point, new
objection is started, and in the words of the article
quoted, sit is supposed that the land on the hills
will not yield so abundantly after three or four
| years planting Why not Is the sugar cane
| plant which greatly or quickly ezhausts the soil
| We think that such suTmise will prove great
mistake The analyses which have been made of
the plant show that the very structure of its leaves
and roots would intimate, that its sustenance is
| principally drawn from the air and from wafer.
Sugar itself is a compound of carbon, hydrogen
and oxygen gas. Its carbon is derived principally
from the oarbonic acid of the atmosphere, and 50 is
considerable portion Of its oxygen, and the hydro
gen from water 1t is true that other elements en-
/ a., 10 b,,fb
full chemical analysis they may be ascertained, and
the precise quantity of each consumed by the pro-
duction Of an acre of cane can be accurately COM
puted, and, if need be, annually supplied to the
| soil by artificial means. But when we remember
/ that all these elements remain in the leaves and
tops of the plant and in the begasse after the juices
have been extracted, we will see that the planter
has at hand abundant means from the refuse of his
crop, to manure and improve his land. The earthly
bases that enter into the composition of the cane
form no part of the sugar. they remain to be returned
to the earth from which they extracted, to re-
store its exhaustion and fit it for the production of
new and probably more plentiful crops. Indeed, so
far from the sugar cane exhausting the soil under
judicous cultivation the best piece Of cane which
we have seen in the State, was in garden in st.
| Tammany, where one would think the soil would
bear little or nothing, but which had borne cane
for ten years, mannred eniy by the refuse Of the
plant ITSELF AS knowledge spreads, and the aid Of
science is called in to the work of the agrcultu-
rst, we shall hear but little of exhausted Soils and
nothing at ALL we believe, from soils exhausted by
the cultivation of sugar.
The advantages of the upIands over the Misss-
sippi and bayou bottoms in the same latitude, con-
sst in the fact that less labor is required in the Gull
vation, being free of the vast annual expenditure
for draining, which, on the river, is nearly quite
one-fourth Of the whole labor of cultvating the
crop-in the fact that the soil being lighter is more
easily worked and kept in condition to favor yege
tation, and in the additional fact that the upland
crops, if not universally larger in proportion to the
land titled are from two to three weeks in advance
to-maturity, on account of the superior warmth of
the soil-the waters of the river icing kept cold
| till late in the summer by the ice and SHOWS of
the upper Mississippi and Missouri, and in their
turn chilling the land ON both banks of the stream
| In most of these advantages the lands on the Red
| River and its attendant bayOus, and on the Qua
chita, participate.
There is every reason then to believe thatthe Gull
tvation of sugar will be widely and rapidly extended
throughout this State; that viii take the place of
cotton on many if not all of the old plantations,
and that all the new ones opened within the lati-
tude that cane can be produced, viii be devoted to
it. 1t will thus be spread over nearly all the culti
vable land in louisiana; and two millions of acres
which are now unfit for cultivation, but which may
be reclaimed, and probably will be, for we do not
doubt that the bill now before Congress to attain
that end will pass, are soon destined to contribute
to the production.
The crop of Louisiana for the year 1876 was set
down at 10000 hogsheads, or 1S0,0OO,OO0 pounds,
of brown sugar. During the year ending the Both
of June, 1s47, the exports of domestic brown sugar.
principally to the British American colonies, W as
736 ,O96 pounds, leaving for domestic consumption
over I79,OOO,OC0; during that year there was inn
ported of foreign brown sugars 226,6S3, 26l, Of
which 169, 497, 447 were from the Island of Cuba ;
there was exported of foreign brown sugars during
the same year ,756, 26O pounds, leaving of the i'm
ports to be consumed in the country 22O,927, 600
/ pounds, and thus showing that the crops of Lou
siana alone furnished that year within 90 600 hogs
heads half of all the brown sugar consumed in the
! United States, whether for immediate or for
| refining. But the crop of 1s47 was larger than
that of 1916 by 10000 hogsheads, and al the rate
of increase in which the cultivation has been going
on for the last ten years. before the next ten shall
have elapsed this State will be able fully to supply
all her sister States with sugar.
The soil of Texas on the Trinity, the Brazos, the
Colorado and the Rio Grande. is nearly the same
with our own Red River and Atchafalaya lands,
the very best for cane yet known, and the climate
of that State is better fitted for the culture than our
own. Already have extensive sugar plantations
been opened on the Trinity and BRACES, and when
the surplus slave labor of Maryland, Virginia and
Kentucky is thrown into that region, as it inevita-
bly, will he-when the low price of cotton shall
force the planters of South Alabama, Georgia and