The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1917-11-17
II Hope
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Letter
LA. SUGAR INDUSTRY REEVES
CONTINUED from page one.)

The old open-kettle sugar houses,
where fashioned brown sugar and
open-train strip and naolasses are yet
made, are fast disappearing. There
are only about ten left, and every year
one or two of them undergo recon-
struction and are made over into
modern sugar plants. The entire out
put of these old places is now sold on
contract to the greatest cake manu-
featuring concern in the United
States. It will be long time before
these old houses are all given up,
though it is impossible for them to
get the maximum sugar content out
of the cane.
There is an increase in the manu-
facture Of strip, but the scarcity OF
cane is a discouraging factor.
Not long ago the planters used to
throw their blackstrap molasses away.
Now it is worth twenty-one cents a
gallon and furnishes a considerable
part of the alcohol manufactured IN
this country for our own war mum
lions and for the war materials OF
our allies. Cuban and other tropical
molasses is also imported for this
| purpose and from it potash Is re-
claimed. Mixed-feed manufacturers
from the live stock states are eager
buyers Of blackstrap.
valuable Meal from Waste.
| Cane bagasse, which is the cane
with the sugar squeezed out Of it,
forms the basis of molasses meal,
which will soon be manufactured on
| a large scale. Bagasse has been
burned. As molasses meal the 1,OOO,-
900 tons of bagasse made every year
in Louisiana will be worth s7,50O,00O.
Though the war has brought about
better sugar prices there have also
come big increases in the prices OF
| farming and manufacturing equip
ment, which have increased the cost
of production.
Labor troubles are anticipated, but
| the planters do not think the shortage
in the fall and winter when the sugar
crop is harvested will be Of calamity
proportions. They are much interest.
ed now in the work Of tractors on the
/ numerous plantations that are using
, them. Wherever the tractors have
| been used they have seemed to satisfy
| the users. They have been pronounc.
| ed more efficient and cheaper thar
mule-power cultivating implements
An all-the-year-round tractor is what
the Louisiana planter wants.
Wage increases and bonuses Were
/ declared. last year after the success
/ full 1915 grinding, and they have
helped to keep the common negro Ia
| Dor on the plantations more than any
thing else, but the tractor is needed
anyhow.
No serious food troubles have beer
experienced since 1912. With thu
| federal governments assistance i
| would appear that the Mississippi
river crevasse problem has been solv
ed so far as the southern sugar end Ii
concerned.
The discovery that charred ric'
bulls is an excellent decolorizing sub
stitute for bone black in the refining
Of sugar has been Of great help. Il
another year rice char will be manu-
featured on a large scale and ever,
Louisiana sugar house can be equip
ped to make standard graduated su
gar with it.
Machinery improvements made il
the Louisiana sugar district this sea
son have been large, though not s.
great as they would have been if de
) liveries had been easy and the cost 0
machinery not SO high. In the in
stallations made this summer efficl
ency machinery is most prominent
The sugar producers have spent mil
lions of dollars in the work of re
juvenation. They are going to spen
many millions more next summer t
further their plans for complete re
Mobilization.