358 



CULTIVATION BY STEAM. 



• 



Mr. O. E. Lawrence, of Magnolia Plantation, parish of Plaquemine, 

 Louisiana, responds to a request from this Department for a statement 

 of the results of his trial of the steam-plow, as foUows : 



Two linndrcd and twenty acres of my cane crop, one hundred and forty acres of 

 whicli were plant canes, and eighty acres first-year rattoons, were, I believe, as tho- 

 ronghly plowed and cultivated by steam as could bo desired. The plant can&s were 

 grown upon land which, after yielding a crop of com, was again broken- up by the 

 steam-plow 2G inches deep; then, during the winter, laid off in rows fully 8 feet aiiart 

 and 8 inches deep. In the month of February the cane was planted and covered care- 

 fully with a hoe. I avoided carting the seed cane for plants upon the land, carrying it 

 in from each kead-land by hand. The seed was good, and was planted' in the usual 

 way by laying down three canes in each row. It came up well, giving a perfect stand. 

 In the months of Aj)ril and May, when the plant cane was about 18 inches high, I sub- 

 soiled the crop with my five-tiued steam cultivator 26 inches deep, twice between each 

 row, worlting over about ten acres each day. It left the land thoroughly loose and 

 pulverized, and elevated about 6 inches above the level before sub-soiling. This, as the 

 canes began to shade it, was clean and free from grass, and thus was obviated the 

 necessity of giving them at this period of the season any more work, which in ordinary 

 cultivation is always requisite. The cane continued to grow with great rapidity, 

 and on the 10th of June, when it was lai'ge enough, and the ground sufficieillly settled 

 to bear up the mule-teams, I gave it a thorough plowing with our two-mule plows, 

 following with the hoes, hilling and laying it by. Thus the entire crop, with the excep- 

 tion of this last working, was cultivated and made lij steam. 



On the 1st of September these canes were blown down very flat, from which they 

 only partially rose. They cut for the mill, when rolled in December and January, from 

 7 to 12 feet in length, and this after being frosted so that we had to throw away the 

 first two jomts. 



The juice weighed but 6} to 7 degrees Beaum6 ; but under the circumstances the 

 yield was over 3,000 pounds of double-refined sugar to the acre, and had the canes 

 stood up until cut for the mill and been as ripe as our canes usually are, 1 feel satis- 

 fied they would have produced over two tons to the acre, and this upon old heavy clay 

 land. 



The eighty acres of first year rattoons grown from the stubbles of the steam-plowed 

 cane, planted in a similar manner last year, were barred off and well dug in the month 

 of March, then subsoiled and cultivated by steam precisely as the ^ilant-canes. The 

 yield was over 2,500 pounds of sugar to the acre. 



Deep steam-plowing upon well ditched land.s, I have always believed, would result in 

 an average yield of over 2,000 pounds of sugar to the acre, but this was when I only 

 expected to use the steam-plow in the breaking up of the lands. The use of steam for 

 deep siibsoiling in the cultivation of the canes, I confess, has far exceeded my expecta- 

 tions, and I am fully continced that an average yield of even much more will be real- 

 ized, and this too with less than half the labor now employed under the old sy.stem, in 

 which the average yield is not over 1,000 pounds of sugar to the acre. To this may be 

 added the complete preservation of our stubble canes against the cold and winter rains, 

 so often disastrous to our rattoons. 



_ The advantages of deep j)lowing and subsoiling by steam over the ordinary cultiva- 

 tion by horses, and the consequent trampling and packing of the ground, can hardly be 

 overestimated. It enables the land to absorb the heavy rains and prepares it for the 

 free admission of air and heat, and thus changes entirely the character of our soils — 

 rendering the heavy clay lands productive and easily worked in seasons of drought, 

 which we are so often subjected to. The crops grown upon deeply-plowed lands sus- 

 tain no injury. This has been constantly my experience ; in fact the steam-plow seems 

 to command the seasons, enabling the soil at all times to retain and transmit moisture, 

 upon which fertility mainly depends. But I fear the prospect at present is not very 

 bright for the extension of steam cultivation in our State. A long war, with the break- 

 ing up of the most of our largo jjlantations, the entire destruction of our labor system, 

 followed by scarcity, inefficiency, and high price of labor, and this by a succession of 

 bad seasons, together with enormous taxation, has to a great extent disheartened our 

 planters and paralyzed their energies ; and though they have made almost suijerhuman 

 efforts to restore their estates, yet to-day wo have to witness, lamentable as it is, this 

 once great and prosperous interest almost in its last throes of existence. Many of our 

 finest plantation{3 are now abandoned, and offered for sale without purchasers' at less 

 than haJf the cost of the improvements. 



Deep plowing; less land cultivated, and that donemucli better; the introduction of 

 steam-plows and the lands plon-ed by contract, (where the proprietors do not choose 



