10 

 CULTIVATING AND HANDLING CANE. 



PREPARING SOILS FOR PLANTING. 



As most of the cane is grown on gently sloping land, all kinds of 

 machinery for preparing the soil can be used. A piece of land to be 

 put into cane is Hrst cleared of any brush that may be growing on it, 

 holes are filled up, and the turning up of the soil is done by the steam 

 plow. (The latest introduction is the disc plow.) The field is plowed 

 and cross plowed. If the land is new, it is divided off by roadways 

 and drainage ditches into sub-sections as nearly square or rectangular 

 as possible. A bird's-eye view of an estate gives the appearance of a 

 a checker board. The sub-sections once laid out in this manner serve 

 until the next planting. After plowing, clod crushers and pulverizers 

 are drawn over the field until the soil is reduced to powder. 



Laying off furrows. The furrows a re laid off in parallels of be- 

 tween three and four feet. To do this, stakes are set up in line 

 across the field and the driver sighting along them guides his oxen 

 so that each stake when approached hits the middle of the yoke; the 

 yoke knocks it down and the driver sights on to the next. On the 

 return trip, one oxen takes the furrow while the other walks on the 

 outside. The furrow is made deeper by a larger plow and VM by a 

 double mould-board plow. 



PLANTING. 



The field is now ready for planting. As it is the custom to plant 

 tops of cane, these are cut in the field when cane is being harvest- 

 ed, loaded on cars and run to the fields that are to be planted. The 

 seed cane is placed on the lidge of the furrow; then the planting gang 

 lay it in the furrow horizontally and cover it with a few inches of 

 soil. After the whole field is planted, water is turned on from the 

 main section irrigation ditches and the cane left to sprout. 



CULTURE OF THE CANE. 



After the cane has reached the height of about a foot, the weeds 

 are removed after an irrigation. The field is cleared of weeds until 

 the leaves of the cane have grown large enough to shade the ground 

 and prevent their growth. The cane is allowed to grow for from 18 

 to 24 months depending on the locality, soil conditions, weather and 

 N of cut. Some weeks befjre harvesting the water is turned off of 

 the field and the cane allowed to mature. 



