Kenosha tribune & telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1856-1859, 1858-04-01
Work on a Sugar Plantation.


y correspondent who spent the last
winter on a sugar plantation in Louisi-
qua, gives the following interesting ac-
count of the planting, cultivation and
manufacture of the sugar crop in that
State:
Last winter, most of my time was
spent on a sugar plantation in Louisi-
ana. | found that upon well cultiva-
ted plantation the product was about
24OO pounds of sugar, and about 1000
pounds, or 100 gallons of molasses per
acre, and upon the plantation that was
visiting, the mill produced 1000 gallons
OF juice per hour, about twenty hours
in day, giving ten hogsheads of sugar,
or 10000 pounds and twenty barrels
of molasses, or 500 gallons, weighing
II pounds per gallons.
In Louisiana the cane never ripens.
and therefore is allowed to grow as long
as it can be done with safety from frost.
In the latter part Of October they COM
mence by saving their seed, that is by
cutting the cane they need for planting,
and securing it byplacing it in mats, so
called on the ground, say twenty feet
by forty, resting it OH an embankment,
with the butts on the ground at an an
gle Of about twenty degrees, and leav-
ing mass Of tops on the surface foot
deep, and forming a perfect protection
against frost.
Next they commence taking off thin
crops. Every negro has at all times III
his possession cane knife, like butch
er's cleaver, and keptvery sharp. With
the back of the knife he knocks off the
dry leaves, and cuts off the stalk as of
no value where The leaves are green
Should frost come while they are max
ing sugar, the work is stopped, and all
hands are employed winnowing the cane
III the fields, as fermentation common
ces Immediately, fit is allowed to stand.
After making the sugar, they COM
mence planting which is done once for
three years. No manure is used. 1t
is planted by burying lines of cane in a
pillow iurr0w, and cultivated like corn in
rows, seven feet apart. The fourth year
the land is put in corn and peas. After
the corn is gathered, the stacks and peas
are plowed in, and the land is ready for
cane agaii.
The cane is as certain as any large
crop we have. The unusual cold for
three winters pasthas diminished the crop
from 100000 hhds in 1853, to 10000
last wear. BIT this year the crop will
be $50 to 300,O 600 hhds. and if we have
a mild winter, may de as large next year
as in l853,when the planters sold their
molasses for four cents a gallon, or three
ponds for cent"
GzT Modern explorations are fast strip
pine this earth of its romantic feature.
Those great Mountains of the Moon
that made such figure on the maps of
Africa few years ago, are proved fc-
fitious; 20, with those awful eorgos peo-
PIE had to cross oH the IsthIaus of Pan
ANA, 50 with the Rocky Mountains and
the VIVID Mountsins OF our western
wiids, now said TO be passable by wagon
ira MS; and the latest delUsion definitely
dispelled is, the Great Altai Mountains
Of Siberia, prominent on all the maps of
that country, now proved mythic. At
kinson, the latest explorer, passed over
the places where the mountains ougAt
to be, according to the maps but the
mountains refused To show themselves.
80 90 the decisions in the lightof science.
Slowly, but surely, both the moral, the
physical and the intellectual world, we
settle down on the ordinary laws of Ma
ture.