6 LETTER FROM NEW ORLEANS. 



to six acres per day — plowing them two feet deep, remember, and 

 thus relieving them of the generally superabundant moisture as shal- 

 low plowing, or even ordinary sub-soiling, never did and never can. 

 Mr. Lawrence, upon land thus plowed, makes an average of 2,000 

 pounds per acre of sugar where he formerly made but 800 pounds. 

 And he regards himself as yet on the threshold of Steam Cultiva- 

 tion. 



And even this was not the best he had to show us. In other 

 fields, perhaps half a mile distant, other machines were cultivating 

 Cane hy Steam. I believe the like of this has not yet been done 

 elsewhere on earth. The rows of Cane are fully seven feet apart ; 

 the plants now fully a foot in average height. A locomotive engine 

 stands at either end of the field, moving forward or backward at a 

 touch of the hand of the negro boy standing upon it and looking 

 out for signals. The cultivator is composed of five or six ordinary 

 horse cultivators, enlarged and fixed in a frame, whereof the half 

 that has just stirred the earth to a depth of two and a width of five 

 feet is lifted clear of the ground on reaching the engine which draws 

 it, while its counterpart is brought down to its work by the plow- 

 guider stepping upon it. At a signal, the boy at the other end of 

 the field or " land " starts his engine, and begins to wind up his wire- 

 rope and uncoil or pay out that of the drum beneath the opposite 

 engine, pulling the cultivators through the earth as they are guided 

 nearer the row that they were kept further from as they passed in 

 the opposite direction. Having thus thoroughly pulverized the 

 space between two rows, by traversing it twice, the engines move for- 

 ward to the next space and there repeat the operation ; and so on till 

 nightfall. Mr. Lawrence assured me that one such thorough work- 

 ing answers for the season ; whereas, while tilled by mule-j^ower, 

 every cane-field required working six times per season at intervals 

 of fifteen days. A set of machinery and hands tills about twelve 

 acres per day. I judge the cost of this day's work, including fuel 

 and wear of machinery, ranges from $25 to $30. This is far below 

 the cost of repeated workings by mule-powei', while it is much more 

 efiicacious. The land plowed and tilled by steam is far dryer than 

 the rest. Mr. Lawrence considers his thousand acres under tillage 

 worth 1100 per acre more than they would be but for Steam Cul- 

 ture. He will keep his two sets of Plowing machinery at work not 

 only throughout each day when the earth is not too sodden, but (by 

 relays of hands) throughout each night also, when the moon serves. 



