The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1897-01-09
]. 5. PLANTATION SHOWN
FRANK G. CARPENTERS ACCOUNT
OF A SOUTHERN ESTATE.
The Pride of Louisiana-Its Owner a
haracter-Cutting- Mil
ling-Army of Labor.


RACELAND. La write this letter
on the biggest sugar plantation of the
South. Surrounding me are miles of
sugar cane. / can stand in the fields
and see nothing but sugar, sugar,
sugar, as far as my eyes can reach. l
am on the chief sugar plantation of
/ Leon Godchaux, and Godchaux is the
sugar king of the South. He has
more sugar land than any other man
! in Louisiana. He owns 2,700 acres
here and he has eleven other big plan
tations, aggregating in all more than
10000 acres, of which fully 10000 are
now in cane. 1t takes something like
one thousand men to run this plan
tation, and his army of employees all
told is greater than that of Nenophon
when he made his famous retreat.
Leon Godchaux lives in New Orleans.
He is now worth many millions of dol
lars. He came to Louisiana when he
was boy of seventeen, with ped
dler's pack upon his back, and he sold
which he now owns. This was in the
days before the war, when the plant
ers had their negroes and money was
squandered like water. The madams
and misses bought of the French ped
der, never dreaming that the day
would come when he could buy them
out. 1t did come, however. He saved
his money, made good investments, lin
ally established big dry goods house
in New Orleans, and he now has the
largest establishment of this kind
south of Mason and Dixon's line. He
has interests of many kinds. He owns
stocks, bonds and gold galore. His in
come from sugar alone has in the past
been enormous. During a single year
half million dollars from the Govern
ment in bounties alone, and in the
year of 1S94-95, last year, he produced
more than 27,000,000 pounds of white
sugar and turned out enough molasses
| venture, to float an ocean steamer.
Today Mr. GodchauX is man over
seventy, but he shows the same care
in his business that he did when he
was a peddler, and his plantations are
as well managed as any in the world
They have the most costly machinery
There are twelve miles of railroad uD-
on this plantation where am writing,
and a little steam engine hauls the
cane from the fields to the great rein
cry, which squeezes out the juice and
turns it into sugar. Mr.. Godchaux
has refineries connected with nearly
all of his plantations, and, as his son
told me, he can make his product as
cheaply as any one in the world.
He bought his land for song, but
it cost him, am told, something like
$27 an acre to clear it. He had first
to get out the trees and then to drain
the land by running great canals
through it. Some of these canals are
thirty feet wide and almost a river of
water passes through them. The
canals have high banks or levees to
keep back the water during the trop-
ical rains. After draining the stumps
were blown out with dynamite and
then the land was plowed and re-
drained.
1t takes great deal of work to pro-
duce a spoonful of sugar. l had this
forced upon me during my trip over
the plantation. An intelligent creole
was sent with me, and we drove be-
hind one of Mr.. Godchaux's fast
horses. We rode for miles between
fields of cane which was ready for cut
ting, and stopped for time where the
land was being planted for the next
years crop. Sugar cane is not grown
from seed, the stalks themselves are
planted, and out of every joint of the
cane sprouts up new stalk. The land
must first be carefully plowed, and
great burrows are run at distance OF
seven feet apart from one side of the
fresh sugar cane with their tops cut
off are laid horizontally-thr side by
side--in the burrows, the pieces over.
tapping each other, until each furrow
has, at it were, three long pipes OF
cane running from one end of it to the
other. Then the soil is thrown oven
these pieces with the DlOw This is
done in the fall. In the spring all but
one inch of the earth is scraped off
and under the warm sun the little
green sprouts shoot out of the ground
making long ribbons of green, as il
were, against the black field. They
grow rapidly, and from time to time
the dirt is thrown up to them. BY
August the plants are six feet in
height. They grow on until the middle
of October, when they are ready to be