20 THE SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



oe increased tenfold. In fact, I may almost say, without fear of contradiction, thai, 

 there is hardly an acre in Louisiana tliat is not available for sugar cane under intelli- 

 gent culture. 



PECULIARITY OF THE CROP. 



Cane culture has one peculiar feature, not possessed by hardly any other plant 

 cultivated in the United States. The large amount of cane necessary to plant an acre 

 (from four to six tons) makes it necessary to go slowly in the establishment of a large 

 plantation. The usual method is to buy a carload or two of cane, plant a few acres 

 and then use the entire crop of the next year in planting a larger acreage, and then 

 the third year the entire crop in planting the plantation. In this way, it maybe said 

 to require three years to get into the cane culture upon a full scale. For this reason, 

 the increasing and decreasing of a cane crop must be done gradually, and is unlike 

 the beets, which can be increased or decreased annually at the will of the planter. 



PRESENT OBSTACLES TO THE CANE INDUSTRY. 



There is no doubt the area of cane will be greatly extended in the near future if 

 we can receive substantial assurances of a permanent support against foreign compe- 

 tition. At present, capitalists hesitate to invest in an industry the prices of whose 

 product are more or less influenced by a changeable congress at Washington. A per- 

 manent tariff is desired, in order that we may know and publish to the world what 

 the profits will be under such a system. Having determined the profits, it will be 

 easy (if the profits be remunerative), to secure capital to develop the large areas 

 adaptable to the sugar cane. 



THE GREAT TROUBLE IN THE SUGAR CANE INDUSTRY 



is the large cost of the machinery necessary to economically manufacture the cane. We 

 have reached that point in the development of this industry, that the larger the fac- 

 tory the more economical the manufacture of cane into sugar. There seems to be no 

 limit in the expansion of the sugarhouse. We have several in this state that are now 

 working as high as from 1000 to 1500 tons of cane per day. This gives a factory the 

 capacity of working 60,000 to 70,000 tons of cane in a season and some are able to work 

 up even 100,000 tons. 



The clientele attached to such a sugarhouse is but little larger or more expen- 

 sive than one for a sugarhouse taking off 200 to 300 tons per day. In these days of 

 close competition and small profit, the large sugarhouse will survive, while the small 

 one must inevitably surrender. Hence, in establishing central factories, it is now 

 the purpose to build as large as possible so as to make the manufacturing expense of 

 cane as low as possible per ton. 



To build and equip such a factory as this requires hundreds of thousands of dol- 

 lars. These factories run only sixty to ninety days in a year, hence requiring the 

 highest intelligence in every department to make the profit in these sixty or ninety 

 days necessary to pay good interest upon the investment. The running of this sugar- 

 house machinery night and day, from start to finish, often hurried by the advent of 

 a disastrous frost, causes a wear and tear which would not occur if it could be kept 

 running regularly throughout the year, and at a regular rate of speed. 



Moreover, while the sugarhouse is idle during nine or ten months of the year, 

 the outfit depreciates in value, for idleness may be as injurious to machinery as wear 



