Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1893-11-03
SUGAR RAISING.
THE BEST PAYING INDUSTRY N
THE UNITED STATES.
Daronial Estates of the Big Sugar
PIantcrs-Their Picturesque
Surroundings Growth of
Small Plantations.

sugar planting, anu eAlstS cHlehg III
Louisiana The profit in sugar raising
in this State in the past few years,
SAYS New Orleans letter to the New
York Times, has caused a wonderful
increase in the area devoted to sugar
In 1866 the crop was 145, 1858 hogs
heads of about 1900 pounds each. In
1887 it was 2S5, ljS hogsheads, and in
1890. 420, 42G hogsheads were made,
while last year the State of Louisiana
made 43O, 622 hogsheads of sugar
The largest crop ever made in the State
was in the year the war begun 1880
61), 459, 40 hogsheads, so it will be
seen that Louisiana has nearly at
tained the largest yield of sugar under
the best conditions of slavery. Be-
sides the great crop of sugar of last
year, there were made II, 430, 800 gal
Ions of molasses.
They may talk of the great wheat
farms Of the Rel River of the North.
They do not begin to make such crops
as the big sugar planters of Louisiana
produce year by year. Take, for ex
ample, the Belle Alliance plantation,
in the Parish Of Assumption, which
made, in lS5l-5, 100000 pounds of
white sugar, and has increased its crop
from 2,5OO,O 900 then to 4,747, 552
pounds in 1891 and 4, ,SSl, 72S in 1892.
This year that place will make 5000,
600 pounds, worth, with the molasses,
$3.50, 600. What wheat crop on single
place can equal that?
the LOUISIANA planter on big
estate, one, say, like the Belle Al
lance is great baron. He owns the
store, (which sometimes does a bust
ness of 100000 per year, the post
Office, the schoolhouse, and the church.
He has a good physician hard by,
frequently on yearly salary. He has
a Justice Of the Peace on the place,
and all offenders Of minor sort are
dealt with then and there, which means,
where the offense was committed. The
church is for all the hands on the place.
The Methodists may have it one Sun
day and the Baptists the next, only
the service must be conducted in an
orderly way and adjourn at a proper
hour At night. At ten o'clock the
lights must go out in the church, and
out they go, no matter how feryid the
services may be. The great sugar
estates are too large to permit the
small children to 20 SO far to school,
so the planter builds a schoolhouse
near to tine "quarters' for the chill
dreA Of his hands, and pays in many
cases the teachers. His own children
have a goyerness until they are big
enough to go away.
SO much for the manege Of sugar
estate. 1t would be difficult to find
anything i'll America of such pictur-
esque beauty as the house and grounds
of fine sugar plantation, such place
as YOU will see along the Mississippi
River from Baton Rouge down, or on
La Fourche or the Teche. If the resi-
dence is back from the river-for our
sugar plantations are on a stream OF
some sort-there will be a fine drive a
quarter or half a mile long from the
ublic highway to the "big house"
shaded on each side with splendid live
oaks. Theresidence will be surrounded
with orange, lemon, lime, shaddock,
oleander, and magnolia trees, and
roses of every kind run riot, blooming
each month Of the year in the open air.
Sugar cane is planted either in the
autumn or in the spring. If the
planter has the time, he prefers to
plant in the autumn. Ii the cane is
not planted until spring, it is either
piled in great mats and covered over
lightly, or three or four rows are laid
together and covered up with cane
blades aud light layer Of earth on
top until time to plant it in the
spring. There is no seed on sugar
cane such as sorghum has The stalk
is laid down in the furrow and COW
cred up. From each joint there will
come up a single slender shoot, and
around this shoot after while will ap-
pear thirty or forty stalks OF cane.
Sugar cane in Louisiana lasts three
years for one planting. The hrst year
it is called plant cane. Then 1t comes
up from the old roots two more years,
and is called first and second years
stubble. or rattoons. In Cuba it lasts
ten years after it is planted
One cause for the great increase in
the area Of sugar culture is the growth
Of cane by small planters. Before the
war this was not common. But all this
has been changed. Now colored man
may rent thirty or forty acres Of land
and put ten of it in sugar cane. This
cane he sells in the fall 10 the near
est planter. Last year it brought
1925 per ton. An acre will yield from
twenty to twenty-cight tons Of cane,
and a ton will make from ninety to
100 pounds OF sugar Ill ordinary time.
Last year the crop was wonderfully
large, in some instances as much as