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steam cable outfit, consisting of two engines operating on parallel plan- 

 tation roads and drawing the gang of plows, harrows, and other imple- 

 ments across the intervening land by means of cables wound on hori- 

 zontal drums underneath the boilers. These engines are manufactured 

 principally in England and can be operated either as traction or cable 

 plows. The gear from the engine shaft may be connected with the 

 driving gear of the traction wheels or with that of the cable drum, either 

 of which may be operated at pleasure. The machines are run alternately 

 for drawing the plows toward the engine in operation; when the plow 

 arrives at one engine the gears are released from the cable drum and 

 engaged with the driving wheels so that the engine propels itself forward 

 the width of the swath cut by the plows. Some of the disadvantages of 

 this class of machines are that they are expensive, difficujt to transport 

 by water or over poor bridges, necessitate the construction of roads on the 

 plantation, and are difficult to move across fields where there are such 

 obstructions as trees, large rocks, and canons. 



Heavy gang plows. — Special heavy gangs of plows should be purchased 

 for use with all traction and cable plows. The "balance plow," sold by 

 English dealers with their cable plowing engines, generally gives good 

 results in quality of work and is about the only form of gang that will 

 stand the heavy duty demanded. The "Jumbo," an American gang plow, 

 with the frame made of angle steel 20 centimeters in width and the 

 other parts correspondingly strong, would no doubt prove a valuable 

 implement, especially for breaking new land filled with the roots of 

 scrub brush or where dhobie stone is near the surface. The Bureau of 

 Agriculture devised a form of disk gang plow having six disks turning 

 to the right and six to the left with a middle breaker in the center. 

 It was made for use with a steam traction engine for breaking heavy 

 black land. It works well but has the disadvantage of putting the land 

 up into high ridges which are hard to work down before planting. The 

 land must be thoroughly broken long enough before planting to permit 

 the decay of vegetable matter, and the soil should be thoroughly cleaned 

 and pulverized by replowing and harrowing before putting out the points. 

 Method of propagation. — Sugar cane is generally propagated in the 

 tropics by planting points or cuttings taken from the immature tops 

 of the stalks. Outside of the tropics, in such countries as Louisiana 

 where cane never grows to full maturity, it is generally propagated 

 by planting the whole stalk. In the tropics the eyes on the lower 

 portion of the stalk generally fail to germinate when cane has gone 

 through a long growing period. When it is desired to make plantings 

 of whole stalks in the tropics it is necessary to cut them before they 

 reach maturity. The generally accepted plan of propagating by points 

 has many advantages to commend it, particularly in that the tops of 



