The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-06
By Win T. Sheehan.

Geneva, Feb. 5.-(Special Correspond ence)-The largest cane field in Ala bama Is in Geneva County and within eight miles of the court house.
 The largest syrup producer of the en- tire State is ex-Sheriff George W. Black of this county. Mr. Black is the pro- prietor of the big cane field. It is on his farm at Black. a station on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, nam ed in his honor. Here on this farm. which is a model of its kind. Mir. Black has nearly fifty acres In cane. Fifty acres to the uninitiated does not seem anything big or important, but when fifty acres are devoted to cane growing and syrup making 1t means much more than If that much land was in cotton.
 Moreover, Mir. Black has introduced the idea of having his tenants grow cane on shares as they would cotton.
 Primarily, 1t means more in that the returns from the land will be assuredly larger. And. secondly. 1t means more trouble in harvesting and in marketing than if cotton had been grown.
 The industry of growing cane for sugar or for syrup is yet in its infancy in Alabama. Its real progress has been made in the past two years. It Is only within the past two years that modern machinery has been introduced. and 1t is only within the past two years that syrup has been made to sell in other markets. Heretofore the making and the selling of syrup has been pure ly a local industry. The farmer would plant an acre or a half acre on his bot tom land or in the little valley at the head of some branch. The idea was deep-rooted that sugar cane had to be planted on lowland or 1t would not grow at all. The erroneous idea has been completely dissipated now. It has been proven that the sweetest and the best cane is grown on uplands.
 Growing Upland Cane.
 The fine crop that MT. Black has pro- duced in each of the past two years was upland cane. In this there has been a breaking away from old con- servative opinions.
 The industry of syrup making as an adjunct of farm life had shown some progress, even before the recent re- vival of interest in it. Forty years ago syrup was boiled three times, three separate pots being used in the process Or, probably the farmer, if he was short on pots. pressed into service any vessels that might be on the farms. Now if the farmer really understood the business of making syrup. or if he was luChyp IHe pIOuuCL OI dlt LndL UOlI- ing turned out syrup. Otherwise. he sugary substance, a little too thin for use at candy-pulling.
 But progress is inevitable. MT. Black here uses. for instance, the ever yer satile and the ever useful steam for boiling syrup. It is a modern invcn- tion popular in Louisiana, which he has utilized. There are four vats joining each other and the bottom of these vats are filled with curved and coiled pipes through which the hot steam Is forced. Here again does progress make itself felt in marked and emphatic way.
 The Steam Rollers.
 The old cane mill, with its rollers five feet from the ground. its lever not unlike that of the old-fashioned cot ton gin. and the old mule pIodding around and around all day in a never4 ending circle. Is a familiar memory to the man whose boyhood was spent on the farm. It was a picturesque sight, this old cane mill, when 1t was at work in the short cane season, but, like the old style cotton gin 1t Is destined to disappear from the earth. "Ehiciency," utility" the eternal cry for these things has sounded the doom of the old style mule power cane mill and its day is closing.
 It did not. 1t does not extract a sufl- cient amount of juice. That was what was the matter with 1t. They went to putting up steam rollers for cane mills In Louisiana. These rollers were in three sets and fastened close together Instead of the mule and his tread mill a pufing and noisy but powerful sta tionary engine was used
 The boiler of this stationary engine had three or four objects in life. In the first place 1t operated the close grinding cane rollers. then 1t furnish ed the steam to force the cane juice from it's tank through a pipe Into the boiling vats. the steam then filled the coils of pipe for the cooking of the syrup. This is the sort of machinery that Mir Black has established on his sugar farm.
 old Versus The New.
 The per cent. of juice that the old fashioned Urea" mill rollers squeezed out of the cane was the subject of an discussion at the recent meeting of the Interstate Cane Crow CTS Association at Montgomery Dr. H. w Wiley, of the National Agricul- tural Department was of the opInion that the old style rollers extracted 50 per cent. in juice, of the weight of cane. w. B. Roddenberry. the famous syrup