The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1908-10-11
Sugar Cane Culture in Florida
Thomas Porter Ridge. planter

We read with interest the reports
from your several correspondents re-
garJipg Che crop prospects, and fear
that you are going TO have a heavy
Yield of immature cane and a low
yield of sugar, with comparatively
low prices. Il is doubtless known to
most of your readers that there is no
sugar now made in Florida and the
growing of cane and the making of
syrup is on small scale. compared
with louisiana; but it has a steady
growth, and greatly improved prices.
The Cohassett Syrup Company of
this place has been running for FIVE
years, aud gfinds one. hundred TO one
hundred and fifty acres each season,
and has yielded a Usual and uniform
net profit on the investment of thirty
per cent. 1t Is a fact that the finest
syrup on the market is made from our
West Florida cane, without any ~clari-
flying agent, and the crop now brings
nearly thirty cents per gallon in bar
rels to our small farmers. The Cohas-
sett Company expects 90 to 26 gallons
good syrup from a ton of cane and
sold last year at 80 cents per gallon
net. exclusive of cans and crates; and
their crop is contracted for by regu-
lar customers at that price.
This figures, thus, a minimum yield
-n Sdiioa5 at 90 CCntos CQudl 9r.UO.
Louisiana cane yields 120 to 100
pounds prime yellow sugar per ton.
Allowing a high average, say $50
pounds at SIS cents per pound, equals
S6.92, which shows a balance in favor
of syrup of fifty-seven cents per ton
of cane, and expense of operating and
cost of plant makes il largely in our
favor.
This is a realization wtfch we had
net expected a few years ago, from
the fact that our cane has but small
amount above one per cent of glucose,
and so rich in sucrose. we longed for
money and men TO put up central fac
tories for us. For the present, at
least. this necessity is removed, and il
allows the putting in of small mills
Oh most any plantation, and thus in
crease the growth of cane, and III bye
and bye the syrup trade Is overdone,
we will then have sufficient cane for
the sugar factory of larger proportions
and the small syrup mills can go fur
Their back into the interior, and pos
sihly still be remunerative.
We have none of the expense OF
ditchisg and draining, and no COM
plants from excessive rains and but
little loss from excessive drouths. We
have never sen the fields Doggy in
the harvesting season Our subsoil
Is mixture of clay and sand of about
20 per cent Clay to so per cent of
sand, which in excessive rains. late
or early, becomes soft, and allows the
excess to pass away rapidly, but IN
dry weather becomes hard enough,
and is close enough to the surface TO
Arrest the summer showers. and allow
the quick return of the moisture to the
rootlets, and in time of greatest
drought, this subsoil is SO porous that
the moisture is drawn from the Geep
bowels OF the earth, and hence this
soil stands the extreme of wet or dry
the best of any we have ever known,
Our soil never becomes 50 hard that
II cannot be broken up with a good
two-horSe or mule team at the rate
of two acres per day. We plant toll
ersbly deep, and cover lightly, and as
the canes begin to sprout We cultivate
1engthwise and crosswise with the
"Halleck Weeder." and continue this
process a half dozen times or until
the cane is 90 to "a inches high, which
puts the ground in the best of filth,
absolutely free from grass between
rows or stalks. and in best condition
for the two-horse cultivators, and OBJ
viates the necessity of the man with
the hoe"
Expert cane growers of your state
have freely admitted that two acres
of cane can be cultivated here with
the labor OF one in Louisiana.
The Item of water for personal and
family use is sometimes important 10
white farmers. Everywhere over this
section fne, pure, soft well water is
found at a usual depth of thirty feet
below the surface, and tnat below
this perfect SUbsoil, natures perfect
filter: but another important fact is
that artesian water as pure and soft
as the surface. and free from all min
erals. is found at a usual depth of one
hundred and fifty feet, aud under so
20 leo feet of solid rock.