The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-06-16
AGRICULTURE.
AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS.
ours Compared-Harvesting implements
for Cane
BY +. ARMAET.


every industry, and especially that Of farm
ing.
The incentive towards such progress, as
found In Northern and Western farming in
dustries, was the necessity for large produc-
tions, and the greater assurance OF profits
thereon, by an economy on the costs OF pro-
duction, among which labor was the main
one.
There was also the desire, on the part of
individuals, to procure greater income from
their personal Industrial capacities by the as
ISOLATION OF greater dynamic agent than
their own natural forces, to propel, to move
and to raise those carriers, motors, or levers
of production Crops that formerly required
the arms of whole colonies were soon raised
by single Individuals; machinery, whose
pieces were made with strenuous work of
thousands, was soon produced by q single
hammer-stroke, the rolling of disk, the
pressure of O matrix; and, besides the
economy realized, the greater precision of all
mechanical works impaired greater intrin-
sic value and stronger powers OF duration to
oil works produced or executed by ma
chinery
The steam pillow, the sower and planter, the
cultivator, the mower and reaper, the thresh-
er, and an endless list OF improved imple-
ments we're the revolutionizing agencies that
made our husbandry foremost as compared
to that Of other countries, and it was to those
agencies of unsupported magnitude that we
ascribe the magic rising Of prosperous cities
from the bosom Of our then naked Western
plains, and the spanning of ceaseless iron
girdle from every section Of the Union to our
great centres.
The influence of this progress was scarcely
felt in Louisiana, where the people were sys-
tematically adj icted to an exceptional indus
try and where slave labor and confident capt.
ia had precluded the peoples consideration
being turned to the computation of their in
vested capital and to the calculation of the in
terests derived therefrom as compared nth in
Uestments otherwise and elsewhere made.
bounteOuS Providence, q prolific virgin
soil and quiet protection against COMPETE
tion, contributed likewise to sever the people
of our State from the attention elsewhere dis
played in the observation and adaptation of
progressive inventions, while their absolute
Indifference for manufactures relieved them
from the trying necessity OF solving the prob
lens imposed on outside industries.
Times have changed with the war, and al
though our realization OF the radical revolu-
have gradually come to the conclusion that
from this worst condition Of affairs there
might be some attainable relief, and we have
accordingly adopted new methods, or EN-
ployed better implements in our agricultural
system.
But we have not yet gone so far as we can
reach; the poets Excelsior" should be writ
ten in letters Of gold above the doorway of
every home, so that we do not forget chat
truest of all truths, that there is better to all
nf q a CIrG tor I'm a that 10
II a want Of improved labor-saving imple-
ments is felt it Is nowhere so much felt as in
our cane culture.
And so far we will admit to the tolerable
advantages of actually introduced imple-
ments in the tillage and cultivation of our
sugar lands, but the main desideratum has
not yet received its solution, and that is the
prompt and cheaper harvesting of our great
sugar crop.
CAN WE HARVEST CANE WITH MACHINERY
or with labor-saving implements
There Is no possible doubt as to the practi-
cability of doing it, since the objections
or obstacles against the method are no longer
correct. Then the continuance of
the implement itself is the sole drawback, and
that is no impeachment at all, when we look
machinery and implements in general.
The main objections to the Introduction Of
labOr-saving implements In the harvesting Of
cane were, or are
/. That no device can be so contrived as to
cut the heads of cane at a proper height
which might differ for every cane in q field.
2. That it would cost as much labor to stack
up the cane when once cut and to load it as to
leave the hands cut 1t with their knives, &C
cordng to the old methods.
To the first objection, amounting to the
query,
CAN CANE BE HEADED?
we can boldly assert, Yes! At the time when
agriculture had not entered in the province Of
science the belief that the whole stock Of
cane, from its roots to it's green top, produced
sugar, was pardonable error.
Recent Investigations of the most precise
character have, however, demonstrated be-
yond controversy that the sweet juice con-
tanned in the top of cane Is H1sCrystGLLiSnbIe
matter, and that its loss, although lessening
the yield in m GLASSES, would not i'm pair in the
least the yield in crystallizable matter, or
sugar.
Before the war some Of our old planters.
(ValcOur Anne, J. B. ArmaLt and others),
whenever they considered that there We're
threatening signs of frost, have had their
whole fields headed so as to precipitate the
ripening Of their cane, and the computation
OF yield on the area cultivated being com pared
with previous yield on a like area and In the
old harvesting method, 1t was every time
found that the yield had not been lessened
at all.
If science teaches US that cane can be head
ed without damage to its YIELD and practice
demonstrate the same fact, what Is there to
deter us from converting the experiment into
actual practice2 Nothing, evidently. Now,
the second objection or proposition could be
reduced to this question:
GAN MACHINERY CUT AND STACK CANE?
To this again we may safely respond it can,
and more promptly, more regularly than any
number or selection of skilled field hands.
The reaper that mows down wheat, coll
lects it into uniform bundles, finds its own
bundlng tuft, which it binds the bundle with.
and then the perfect bundle in symmetrical
rows and intervals, that machine or one based
upon similar ingenious process could Ger
tainly do the same for our cane.
The advantages that would accrue to us
from the adaptation of such an implement In
the harvest are amazingly enormous.
We would save at least four-fifths of our
actual harvesting expenditures.
We would harvest faster, and therefore be
less exposed to the dangers Of frosts on long
standing cane.
And we would supply our mills with any
bulk of cane that their capacity demands
in one twenty-tifth of the time otherwise
required.
Instead Of windrowing cane as we do, we
oOuld stack IT. nm in the field and tharn lznpr If