"Sugar Cane Scenes"

Sugar cane is planted in the fall by laying stalks from the still growing previous year's crop into open rows then covering with a few inches of soil. Planting, once done by hand, is primarily accomplished now by specialized machine.

Cane for planting and harvest is cut by another specialized machine generally called the "cane-cutter". These machines can cut one row or multiple rows and have all but replaced hand labor for this task. The cut stalks are laid across rows, the leaves removed through burning, and tractor-mounted or self-propelled loaders place the cane into tractor-pulled carts. Some modern cane-cutters load directly into carts. Loaded carts are brought to a central site and placed by "transloader", a modified logging machine, into trucks for transport to mills for processing.

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.

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