The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1898-01-26

A Visit TO L,lisi;an:,'~ biggest Plantation
and its Immense Sugar Refinery.


ar4 mile, oi -lrar ,ane. can stand
IN the icld nni ~eo notlinn but SUI
rar. sugar -ren aS far Is NY eyes
can reach au on The chief sugar
plantation of Icnn Go!cllaux, and
'iodrhnn< the sugar king OF the
south ic has more sugar land than
Any n,llcr man in Louisiana. He owns
> 700 acres here. and has II other hi"
plantations. ar4rcgating in all more
than 10000 acres. Of which fully TO-,
otiO acres are now in cane. II takes
something ike 600 men TO run this
plantation, and his army Of employees
All told is greater than that Of Memo
.,hon whc. he made bis famous re-
treat. I.cou G;odchaux lives in New
Orleans lie is now worth many mil
lions nf dollars. He came to 4ouisi-
ana when h. was boy Of II, with a
l,cddlcrS : PACK upon li- back, and he
odd goods on many Of the rich plan
,ationS he now owns. This was in
the days before the war, when the
nlantcrs had their negroes and money
was s,uandcrcd ike water. The
madamcS and misses bought Of the
French rcddlcr, never dreaming that
the day would come when he could
buy them out. 1t did come, however.
lie saved his money. made good in
vcstmcnts, finally established big
dry goods store in New Orleans, and
he now has the largest establishment
of this kind south of Mason's and
Dixon line. He has interests Of
many kinds. lie owns stocks, bonds,
and has gold galore. His income
from sugar alone has in the past been
enormous. During single year he
received, am told, more than half
nillion dollars from the government
in bountics alone, and in the year
lS!4-?3. last year, he produced more
than - 900 900 pounds of white sugar
and turncd out enough molasscs,
venture, to float an ocean steamer.
day Mr.. Ho,lrhaux is Il man Of over
seventy. but he shows the same care
in his business that he did when he
was peddcr. and his plantations arc
as well managed rs any in the world.
They have the most costly machinery
There are twelve miles Of railroad up
on this plantation where am writing,
and little steam engine hauls the
cane from the fields to the great re-
tincry. which suucczcs out the juice
and turns it into sugar. Mr.. God
chaux has rctincrics connected with
nearly all of his plantations, and, as
his son told me, he can make his pro
duet as chearly as any one in the
world
Louisiana could easily supply the
sugar for the United States. 1t has
vast areas Of sugar land which arc not
yet titled. | rode through half
dozen plaataticns in coming here
from New Orleans, and am told that
the plantations extend for hundreds
Of miles to the westward. 1t is hard.
without seeing it, to appreciate the
beauties Of big field Of sugar cane.
The stalks arc of the grccncst green.
They grow 10 feet and upward in
height, and as you look at Them from
the car windows they arc IL solid mass
of green. You may have seen fields
of Indian corn. A sugar plantation
IS not unlike them, save that the crop
is grecncr and moro luxurant. You
ride for long distance through fields
of this kind, the cur track being
walled. as it were, with green, save
where here and there wide roads cut
their way through the fields. Now
and then you sec the smoke of
great sugar factory streaming out
against the blue sky, and between the
plantations you pass woods loaded
N'"H Nitu Cl'uuISu IuOSS. OUtilc VI
the forests carry such masses of this
moss that the trees have died by the
weight. The moss hangs from the
branches, it wraps itself about the
limbs, it covers the trunks and
clothes the dead trees. rs it were, in
shrouds Of cxidizcd silver
1t was from forest like this that
Leon Godchaux made his big sugar
plantation. The trees were hundreds
OF years old. and they stood in
swamp. lie bought the land for
song, but it cost him, am told. some
thing like $27 IN acre to clear it. He
had first to get off the trees and then
to drain the land by running great
canals through it. Some of these
canals are 30 feet wide and almost
river of water passes through them.
The canals have hirh hanks or lcvcos