AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 459 



nurture, heirs to the polish of a far-reaching ancestry, established 

 their "seigniories" here and there, but paid little attention to 

 the cultivation of the soil. 



Louisiana was the only French colony in which especial atten- 

 tion was paid to agricultural pursuits. A variety of crops was 

 tried successively, but none proved as remunerative as the 

 sugar-cane, which had been taken from India to Spain, by the 

 Saracens, thence to Madeira, and thence to the West India Isl- 

 ands. In 1751 a French transport, having on board 200 troops 

 for the garrison of the colony of Louisiana, touched at St. 

 Domingo. The Jesuits located in the bay of Port-au-Prince 

 obtained leave to send on board, for their branch establishment 

 at New Orleans, a supply of cane, with a few negroes used to 

 its cultivation and the manufacture of sugar. These canes were 

 landed and planted, but for several years the Jesuits, and those 

 to whom they gave canes, were equally unsuccessful either in 

 their cultivation or in the manufacture of sugar. 



A quaint engraving, executed in Germany, represents the 

 process of manufacture. The cane was stripped of its leaves 

 and ground, or rather crushed, by a heavy stone, made to revolve 

 by manual force. The expressed juice, after having been boiled 

 in a cauldron, was ladled into large stone jars, which were ex- 

 posed to the rays of the sun until the sugar crystallized. 



In 1764 the Chevalier De Mazan tried the experiment on his 

 plantation, on the opposite shore of the Mississippi River, with 

 more success. In the following year, Destrehan (then treasurer 

 of the king of France, in the colony), and several other planters, 

 put up works below the city, on the left bank, but: with the same 

 result. The planters were disheartened, and in 1769 the manu- 

 facture of sugar Jn Louisiana was entirely abandoned, and the 

 planters turned their attention to the cultivation of indigo, cot- 

 ton, tobacco, rice, corn, etc. A few small gardeners continued 

 the planting of sugar-cane in the neighborhood of the city, which 

 they retailed in the market for the use of children, or expressed 

 the juice, making syrup, which they sold in bottles. More than 

 twenty-five years elapsed before further efforts were made in its 

 cultivation. 



, In 1791 A. Mendez, of New Orleans, purchased the apparatus, 

 land, etc., which now forms a part of the Oluren plantation, at 



