SUGAR-CANE CULTURE FOR SIRUP PRODUCTION. 
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in harvesting in the eastern Gulf States differ somewhat from those 
in Louisiana and of cane-growing countries. Three different tools are 
used in stripping, topping, and cutting the cane, and the work is done 
in three stages. First, the cane is stripped by the use of a flat stick 
about 3 to 4 feet long or, better, with a tool consisting of two curved 
and forking narrow blades of spring steel on the end of a stick, so 
disposed that the operator can beat the leaves down from both sides 
of the stalk with a single stroke (fig. 13, a). The second operation, 
the topping, is done with an ordinary cane knife. Finally, the cane 
is cut off at the ground with a heavy, short-handled hoe (fig. 11). 
Persistent efforts have been made by a number of very capable 
inventors to design and build machines to harvest the cane, and 
encouraging progress has been made. Stripping and topping the 
Fig. 12. — Harvesting sugar cane in Louisiana. 
cane satisfactorily without making the machine unwieldy offer the 
great difficulty. Possibly we may hope for the solution of the 
machine-harvesting problem when means for utilizing the tops are 
worked out, e. g., siloing and feeding, so as to pay for their trans- 
portation to the mill or to some central loading station. Then the 
inventors could attack the problem of stripping and topping by 
means of stationary machines without being so closely limited in 
the weight or size of the machines. 
The loading of the cane is done by hand except en some of the 
large sugar plantations, wdiere loading machines are in use, operated 
either by mules or, better, by gasoline power. (Fig. 15.) Suitable 
grabs and hoists pick up the cane from the small heaps into which 
the cutters have dropped it and swing it over, to be tripped off into 
the wagon box. The wagons or carts may be provided with slings 
