The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1913-01-04
The CockreIl Cane Harvester.

~S~'Ns
II. Goekreil. Jf.s as We have pre-
lousy reported. IS again IN Loulsl-
| ana aud peTs5sGlns IN his efforts TO
solve the cane harvester problem. It
has been ten years since Mr.. CockreH,
/ a man of wonderful resource and te-
nacity of purpose, began his expert
ments in this direction, and during
all this time he has progressed little
| by little, utilizing each successive sea-
| son the dearly bought experience of
| the previous one, and overcoming Ut
| tie by little various difficulties at
tendant on the undertaking, many OF
which have been regarded by most
people as insurmountable.
as insurmountable.
| During the past several weeks Mr..
| Cockrell has had his latest machine
at the Reserve plantation Of the Leon
| Godchaux Company, Ltd, in ST. John
parish. He recently invited some OF
] the members of the Louisiana Sugar
Planters Association, as well as sew
eral gentlemen from Louisville, Kan
sas City and elsewhere, who are fl
nancially interested in his device, to
| witness a trial of it, and he was kind
enough to include in his invitation a
representative of the Planter. The
demonstration occurred on Thursday
of this week Our practical sugar
planting readers ought to have a high
opinion of what Mr.. Cockrell has
done. His machine, as it now stands
at Reserve, goes into a. row of cane,
cuts it off at the ground line clean
i1t DIN
canes through revolving brushes,
which strip them without difficulty.
! These brushes thrust the leafy ends
of the canes against rigid BATTLE
plate, and a revolving knife tops the
canes automatically at a specific dis
lance from this plate. AS the first
good joint of all canes is approx
mately the same distance from its
leafy top, the correct place for top
ping can be gagged within two or
three inches.
Mr.. Cockrell's machine, operated by
a very powerful gasoline motor, did
all this without the least trouble, but
| the canes as they were drawn
through by the brushes and topped
by the knives occasionally struck a
brace or guy-rod On the machine, this
rod deviating an occasional cane from
its proper course, and the result was
the same as in a log jam, one log go
ing awry being sufficient to pile up
hundred of those behind in a
jiffy. In order to obyiate this minor
difficulty, Mr. Cockrell has had pre-
pared a sheet-metal protector to pre-
vent the canes from striking the OBJ
struction referred to, but this plate
had only just been received, and there
had been no time to put it in posi-
ton before the gentlemen who came
to witness the test arrived, Mr.. Cock
rell coming UP on the train with
them. It seems reasonable to believe
that with this plate properly affixed
where it is designed to go, the canes
will be DETECTED into their proper
course whenever they are inclined to
get out of it, and Mr.. Cockrell in
tends to operate the machine. again
in a day or two with the plate on.
At Reserve on Thursday it moved
some ten feet down the cane row be-
fore the outcoming canes at the rear
end struck the troublesome guy rod,
and this ten-foot progress was made
at a rapid rate with an encouraging
hum and Whirr, cutters, shippers and
toppers all working with smoothness.
Every cane planter in the world
should give encouragement to Mr.
Cockrell. He deserves it.-Louisiana
Planter, Dec: al.