The Largest Cane Field in State of Alabama. 



^Y HE largest cane field in Alabama is in Geneva County 

 %• and within eight miles of the court house. 



The largest syrup producer of the entire State is ex-sheriff 

 George W. Black of this county. Mr. Black is the proprietor 

 of the big cane field. It is on his farm at Black, a station on the 

 Louisville and Nashville railroad, named in his honor. Here 

 en this farm, which is a model of its kind, Mr. Black has nearly 

 fifty acres in cane. Fifty acres to the uninitiated does not seem 

 anything big or important, but when fifty acres are devoted 

 to cane growing and syrup making it means much more than 

 if that much land was in cotton. 



Moreover, Mr. Black has introduced the idea of having his 

 tenants grow cane on shares as they would cotton. 



Primarily it means more in that the returns from the land 

 will be assuredly larger. And, secondly, it means more trouble 

 in harvesting and in marketing than if cotton had been grown. 



The industry of growing cane for sugar or for syrup is yet 

 in its infancy in Alabama. Its real progress has been made in 

 the past two years. It is only within the past two years that 

 modern machinery has been introduced, and it is only within 

 the past two years' that syrup has been made to sell in other 

 markets. Heretofore the making and selling of syrup has: been 

 purely a local industry. The farmer would plant an acre or 

 a half acre on his bottom land or in the little valley at the 

 head of some branch. The idea was deep-rooted that sugar 

 cane had to be panted on lowland or it would not grow at 

 all. The erroneous idea has been completely dissipated now. 

 It has been proven that the sweetest and the best cane is 

 grown on uplands. 



THE STEAM ROLLERS. 



The old cane mill, with its rollers five feet from the ground, 

 its lever not unlike that of the old-fashioned cotton gin, and the 

 old mule plodding around and around all day in a never ending 

 circle, is a familiar memory to the man whose boyhood days 



