24 THE SUGAR INDUSTRY. 
or early in July. After ‘‘lay by,’’ the cane grows very rapidly, particularly if fre- 
quent showers at short intervals conspire with warm weather. 
After the cane is planted we usually get two crops, sometimes three, from the 
same planting. The first crop is usually termed the ‘‘plant cane,’’ and the second 
and third ‘‘first stubble’? or rattoons. Cane is planted in this state so as to secure a 
continuous stand at maturity of from three to five stalks to the running foot. The 
stalks usually weigh from 2 to 41]bs apiece. Like all grasses, cane tillers or suckers 
very greatly, and during the summer months many of these suckers or tillers perish. 
Hence the necessity of not planting cane too thick or too thin. If planted thickly, it 
will exhaust its energies in trying to sucker—a natural quality which seems to be éxer- 
cised. If planted too thinly, the field will be filled at harvest with a large proportion 
of immature suckers, low in sugar. 
HARVESTING. 
In Louisiana the general harvest begins in October and lasts till January. In trop- 
ical countries grinding does not begin before January and usually lasts till June or 
July. In Louisiana, on account of the severity of our winter, cane must be harvested 
in the fall and winter or be killed. It is therefore only about eight or niue months 
old when worked in the sugarhouse. In tropical countries it is frequently fifteen 
and sometimes eighteen months old when harvested. Hence the superiority of tropic- 
al canes in sucrose over those grown in the southern part of this country. 
in the latitude of southern Louisiana, we make a crop every year, while in the 
tropics only two crops are made in three years. Our less yield per acre than in the 
tropics is therefore somewhat made up. But, per contra, in the tropics, they only 
plant cane once in four to six years, while we must plant every other year. 
ROTATION OF CROPS. 
In Louisiana the regular rotation of cane is as follows: Cane, two or three years, 
and then followed with corn, sown broadcast at lay by with cowpeas (usually the clay 
variety), and the entire mass of vines and stalks turned under in August or Septem- 
ber, and replanted in cane. 
HOW TO START THE CANE SUGAR INDUSTRY. 
A community can experiment to demonstrate what it can do with sugar cane in 
this way: 
Let each individual plant sugar cane on a small area and manufacture it on a 
small scale, with horse mills and open evaporators, according to the old-fashioned sys- 
tem. In this way, the saccharine content of their cane and the average available 
tonnage per acre can be established. Then, they can present to the commercial world 
a valid argument to enlist capital in a factory. The average yield being say 40 tons 
per acre, 5000 acres would be required to furnish the maximum crop of 100,000 tons 
that can be worked up in a single season by a modern factory of large size. Certainly 
nothing less than 2500 acres under cane each year would answer for a modern 
factory. 
The Louisiana experiment station at Baton Rouge has published a bulletin (No. 
5) giving full directions about sugar making on a small scale, which also gives direc- 
