"Loadin' Cane"

Sugarcane cutting was a labor-intensive process. Prior to mechanization in the 1940's, the four best cane handcutters in a crew were known as the "lead row cutters" and were paid about $1.25 per day with other crews receiving $1 per day. This was working from sunup to sundown (can't to can't). Teamsters (those who worked the mules) received $1.25 per day, his helper received $1 and a water boy .45 cents for his long day's work. Even today, sugar cane in many other countries is still cut by hand.

Sugar cane was brought to the West Indies soon after the discovery of the New World and introduced to Louisiana in 1751 by Jesuits who brought it to their plantation outside of New Orleans. Raised for syrup and a rum-like drink called tafia, cane became a commercial crop when Etienne de Bore' developed the crystillization process to refine sugar in 1795. Sugar hit its height in the 1850's with the advent of the steamship, allowing sugar to be transported great distances. Most of the crop was refined in Philadelphia and Maine. At the peak of prosperity, there were some 1,500 plantations in operation. The great number of the grand plantation houses of Louisiana were built then.

Cane in Lousiana has a 250-day growing season. Harvested cane sprouts a second crop (called "first stubble") that matures in the following growing season, and a third ("second stubble") and so on, until yields decline so much that usually after the third year fields are plowed under and replanted.