Lower coast gazette., 1913-04-26
Tractor Flowing and Tractor Culti-
yatiOn,

The conditions that now environ us lead us
as practical men with long experience in the
sugar industry to conclude that we are upon
the eve OF a radical change in some OF our
methods of planting and cultivating our staple
crops. With the most fertile lands in the world,
stretching out into hundreds OF thousands Of
acres, most of it we'll drained, it seems sur
sprising that traction Or motor ploWs have not
already taken full possession Of our fields. We
must recognize the fact that motor blowing has
COM to stay and that motor agriculture will
be the kind that will be carried ON all through
every process, from blowing the land, planting
the crops, harvesting and marketing them, cut
ting up feed and, in fact, doing ali OF those
things for which so much human labor and
horse and mule labor have been required in
the past.
1t is frequently stated that no matter how
we'll our cane fields may be drained, they are
not adapted to traction blowing. There is a
quick and ready answer to this, and that is
that they can readily be SO modified as to be
very available for traction blowing. The stand
ard Louisiana cane rows are from 3 to 5 acres
long, or say 600 to 1000 feet long. Traction
blowing is done, as it's name indicates, by gaso-
line tractors drawing a gang Of plows behind
them. AS the ground is rough and as the mat
ter of traction is rather a serious one, and the
traction on flat grounds is much better than it
is on ploWed ground, these traction engines are
expected to pillow and to harrow the ground all
at one movement. the disk or mold board ploWs
working up the ground and dragging as close
as may be behind them disk harrows to thor
oughly commute the ground preparatory to
it's use in planting. In this way the tractor
engines stand on ground that is not plowed and
are there able to exercise their full capacity.
The whole outfit, however, is of very consid-
cradle length, say from 30 to 60 feet, and for
such an outfit to turn around in a small field is
a matter Of considerable moment.
In great wheat fields of the West these trac-
tor plows and harroWs re'used by the thou
sands. There, however, even the prairie land
is somewhat rolling and many a plow moves in
one direction a mile without turning around. In
this country we can afford to specially arrange
lands for tractor, blowing and this can be
done by doing ava with cross bitches and hav-
ing our ordinary leading or water bitches run
from the front to the rear without any or with
cane squares are generally from 100 to 200
feet wide and if they would average 800 feet
long, or as we would ordinarily say, four acres
long, the squares in area would average about
two acres each. These squares can readily be
arranged so that one could enter on the road
at the front end and emerge at the back end,
turning on the rear headland, coming out again
making travel down the burrows and back of
say 800 feet. By crossing the rear road and
going into a similar cut of land beyond the
travel would then become 1900 feet back and
1900 feet forward, which would make a round
trip of about two-thirds OF a mile. This, in
ordinary p~arlance, would be some blowing"
but in our alluvial lands we can very readily
arrange to pillow the land in double cuts in this
way. Any field manager, familiar with the
work, could easily arrange Tor this.
On the Lower Coast at the present time Mr..
Warren Buckley has a tractor plow at work on
the Harlem plantation which has been doing
excellent work. Our enterprising builders Of
tractor ploWs have seemed somewhat reluctant
about entering this particular field, because OF
the smallness of the cane fields, but they will
find that the planters of Louisiana will adapt
themselves quickly to the necessities of the case
if they are assured that the blowing can be
we'll done.
In Cuba, in the central and western parts of
the island and to some extent in the east, the
land is coraline in its character and compare
lively we'll drained and the fields are large.
There tractor blowing is sure to be availed Of
just as Cuba quickly came to realize that the
three-roller mills had to be changed to six and
the six-roller mills to nine, and now the twelve
roller mills are beginning to attract attention,
while all the world there has gone over to the
multiple use of steam in evaporation. Triple
effects are common and quadruple effects are
coming into use quite considerably. The ten
dency in manufacture is largely to the utiliza-
ton of big units and to thus reduce the cost of
manufacture, and this idea prevails in every
phase of the sugar industry.
In Louisiana it is found that the best results
in cane culture are brought about by two crops
of sugar cane, followed by one of corn and COW
peas. This three-year rotation includes three
heavy plowings. Land that goes into corn
should be well plowed, in order to get good
.1m~ W:4b +Lo3 Gown ~ o~J ruocrnoo,;r.