146 ANNUAL REPOET. 



cents; and that sugar, at two cents a pound; so you may know 

 how much money there is in the manufacture of sugar in Lou- 

 isiana. 



At Gen. Diamond's they work up 1,300 acres of cane, and 

 he told me the result of the work for three years, which will 

 afford an idea of the profits of the business. That three years 

 ago they cleared $57,000 from that plantation, over and above 

 all of the expenses. Last year they lost about $7,000, and this 

 year they are going to just about meet the expenses on the plan- 

 tation. Large numbers of the ^plantations are bankrupt, or 

 largely in debt, many of them having been bankrupt for three 

 years past, and the sugar industry is entirely i)rostrated in Lou- 

 isiana. If the Spanish treaty is passed by Congress the industry 

 will be totally destroyed. 



In regard to the amber cane industry and the reason why they 

 feel down there that we have "scooped" them, is this: In the 

 first place we have millions of acres of sugar land in Minnesota. 

 In Louisiana, as you leave New Orleans and go down the river, 

 towards the gulf, you can see from the deck of the steamboat 

 about all the fine sugar land they have. All their famous old 

 sugar plantations are in sight from the deck of the steamer, and 

 the lands generally extend not more than a mile and a half from 

 the edge of the stream, either to the right or to the left. As you 

 are well aware the Mississippi Eiver is elevated from four to seven 

 and in some places ten feet above the general surface of the land. 

 The country recedes on either side, and there are levees, or em- 

 bankments, on both sides of the river, to guard against the dan- 

 ger of the overflowing of the water of the Mississippi. The 

 drainage is all to the rear of the plantations. They have cleared 

 the land just as far as possible; but if you want to drain and tile 

 it, it is the heaviest, muckiest and worst kind of land for a per- 

 son to attempt to cultivate that you ever saw. These are the 

 sugar lands of Louisiana. Then, again, not onl;v is it bad land 

 .to work, but there is a constant dread of an overflow. The over- 

 flow of last season destroyed all the plantations along the west 

 bank of the river, with the exception of Governor Warmouth's 

 and one or two others, for a distance of over twenty miles south 

 of ISTew Orleans towards the gulf. It was the overflow of last 

 June, which was the tail end of the overflow in the Upper Mis- 

 sissippi in May. A crevasse which occurred at that time over- 

 flowed a large portion of the country and destroyed all the plan- 

 tations, with the exceptions mentioned. With most of them 



