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of this journal began feeding molasses to mules on his Belair plantation 

 ■ Hi the lower coast, and has continued' this practice ever since. While 

 he was the pioneer in the use of molasses for mule feed on the sugai 

 plantations of Louisiana, we find even twenty years later the inquiry 

 was made in a public meeting of the Louisiana sugar planters in New 

 Orleans of the planters there present, " Who among us is using molas- 

 ses ?" and it was found that even then, Dr. Stubbs at the Experiment 

 Station and Mr. Dymond at Belair were the only two there present 

 who were then regularly and methodically using molasses. 



It is the adverse conditions that have surrounded the Louisiana 

 sugar industry during the last ten years, beginning with the adverse 

 legislation in 1894, the great snow and freeze of 1895, the low density 

 of the juice and the unprofitable results of the cane crop of 1898, the 

 unprecedented freeze of 1899 and our slow recovery from all of these 

 closely connected disasters, that has really brought our planters face 

 to face with the necessity tor every possible economy, and among these 

 stood prominently the value of molasses as a food stuff on our planta- 

 tions and its extraordinary neglect until the misfortunes of the plan- 

 ters drove them into an appreciation of its full value. Hundreds of 

 thousands of dollars are now annually saved to the sugar planters of 

 Louisiana by their using their molasses on their plantations for stock 

 feed and every year this use is becoming better and better adjusted 

 along scientific lines and the condition of the Louisiana stock on the 

 plantations verifies the judicious use that is made of this great staple. 



We find that the distillers of spirits are extremely careful of their 

 by-product, utilizing it in feeding live stock. We find that the beet 

 sugar factories of Europe consider beet pulp as one of the very valu- 

 able factors connected with their industry and beet pulp is sought 

 now in the vicinity of all the sugar factories as a staple stock food. 

 We generally have more molasses than we can use successfully on our 

 plantations. Pound for pound, it has as great a feeding value as corn, 

 and yet, it cannot be sold in our markets at prices commensurate with 

 such value and the only way that such prices can be obtained, so far 

 as we can now judge, will be in the fattening of live stock. This, of 

 course, leads to a consideration of the whole live stock question and 

 as to whether our great sugar factories should become breeders and 

 growers of cattle, or simply cattle feeders, as our great cotton seed 

 oil factories utilize a considerable amount of cotton seed meal in fat- 

 tening cattle for short terms and until they are brought into the besl 

 possible conditions that can be had with such food. We have the 

 molasses and can probably -row sufficient crops of alfalfa on our lands 

 as a supplementary nitrogenous food and we know that we can grow 

 an unlimited amount of cow pease, the vines of which are nitrogenous, 

 and these foods, with our native grasses, would seem to give us an 

 ideal stock feeding country. As to whether or not our semi-tropical 

 climate is a good country for the cattle feeding industry, or cattle 

 growing industry, our sugar planters, as a class, are probably unable 

 to say, as for generations their efforts have all been concentrated upon 

 the production of sugar cane and its manufacture into sugar. How- 

 ever, the time has come when it will be essential for us to utilize all 

 of our by-products to the besl advantage, ami the one wherein we are 

 now realizing to the least advantage is that of molasses. — Louisiana 

 Planter. 



