The advocate., 1894-01-31
The Sugar Industry.
Especial Los Angeles (CaL) Letter. |

come in duty free the sugar cane was
looked upon as one of the growing
industries" There were cane fields in
the marsh lands and bottoms, where
the climate is moist and the land not
too rich. The weather being hot, and
frost an unknown quantity, the low
lands were uniformly utilized. Each
sugar ranch had it's primitive mill,
something like those used by the
ancients. The industry" was at its
height just before the completion OF
the first transcontinental railroad.
This somewhat depressed the industry
by bringing in cheaper eastern sugar.
Some of these cane-growers were from
the south, who had emigrated dur
ing the late rebellion, and had
brought along their negro slaves.
Understanding the raising Of cane
and cotton, they located on the
marsh lands and sought to raise
their familiar southern product.
Cotton not thriving well was aban-
doned, and their undivided atten-
ton was turned to the sugar-cane.
These southern refugees actually kept
these negroes at work for five and six
years after the close of the war as
slaves. They were made to believe
that the subsection Of the rebellion
had nothing to do with their freedom.
The negroes who had been held in
bondage so long after the war had
ended were somewhat surprised on be-
ing told that they had been free for
some time.
The majority of them, by suits, and
threatened suits, recovered payment
for this sharp practice. A planter had
a small farm" down in the marsh
lands of the Aqua Mansa settlement,
In San Bernardino county, where he
worked" five or six "slaves" and had
built very primitive sugar mill, SINH
lar to those used in the poor settle
ments of Louisiana and Arkansas.
After these slaves were again freed,
the southerners, who were more ac-
customed to slave labor, impressed" q
number of Indians, after the early
California fashion, but the Indians, too,
were told that they were free, and In
dian slavery also became thing Of the
past. So the refugees, in their remote
settlements, almost beyond civilization,
now reduced their sugar farms TO
patches" and gradually the grow
ing industry" became a lost art, for
with sugar duty free from the Hawai-
ian islands, these refugees found it
cheaper to buy it ION credit) than to
work, more especially as they no
longer had slaves,
Next came some wise men from the
east who began to make sorghum from
the amber cane, which grows pro-
fusely and is richly laden with the
sweet gravelly substance Of which
sugar is made. They employ cheap
Chinese labor, and are more successful
than were their predecessors with
negro and Indian slave labor. The
Chinese understand this cane in all its
gradations. They claim that it was
the original 'plant" or substance from
which sugar was made, and that the
Sugar-cane, now so universally grown,
Is an off-shoot from the sorghum cane,
and that China grated it upon her
neighbors, when it found its way west
TO the new world.
Certain it is that they are the best
sugar makers, and can get more sac
charine from a cane than any other
people. They cut it lengthwise, in
stead of running it through crusher,
and crush it lengthwise, like driving
pile-driver on the top of a post. The
Bugar-cane Is lazy mans plant, in
that it will grow for half century
from the sama rnnts rannirinn hn..,