Cane field

“ The one who knows the game takes a cane in his left hand and pounds upon the floor with it, saying, “He can do little who can’t do this,” and passes the cane with his right hand to his right hand neighbor, who tries to do the same thing, but generally fails. The catch consists in quickly changing the cane from the left to the right hand before you pass it. Every one is then intent on your manner of pounding the cane on the floor. ”

“ Field work in the tropics is everywhere shunned by white men, and in Queensland, north of Mackay, it has not as yet been found possible to induce Europeans to engage in it. Some of the work connected with cane-growing, also, is peculiarly exhausting, because the canes, when they reach a height of six or seven feet, shut out every breeze, and the heat between the rows is stifling. ”

“ The amount of work accomplished during the six winter months was enormous and varied. Every operation, from the planting of cane to the shipping of sugar, was in progress at the same time. As the cane—to be ground—was cut and hauled away, the field was taken possession of by the boyero to herd and feed his oxen, and they followed day by day in the wake of the cane-cutters. The slender cane-tops, and leaves that grow along the stalk, form the only food the cattle receive in winter, though in time the saccharine matter contained therein destroys the teeth. ”

“ When cane is to be planted in new ground, the scrub, stumps and logs are first cleared away and the field is then ready for the seed. Holes are made with a mattock at regular intervals, the seed cane is placed therein, covered with earth and left to grow. The ground is hoed from time to time to keep the weeds under control, but the young cane does not require much attention after the first five or six months. On cleared land, ploughing is done two, three or four times, after which the surface is harrowed, rolled and planted. Three or four weedings are necessary during the growth of the crop. ”

“ Making our way with excessive toil among these gigantic gramina, our party might be said to resemble a company of rats traversing a sturdy field of grass. The cane stalks, after being trod to the earth, often inflicted, in virtue of their elasticity, blows as severe as they were unexpected. ”

“ The mode of cultivation is interesting. A trench is dug from one end of the field to the other, and in it longways are laid two rows of cane. From each joint of these canes spring a root and several sprouts. ”

“ When the cane is ripe, they proceed to the field, each armed with a matchet. Spreading over the plantation, they commence the cutting of the cane, first by one cut at the top, which takes off the long leaves and that part which is worthless, except as fodder for the cattle. ”

“ If they come up irregularly, the field is set on fire from the outside, which drives the rats, the great destroyers of the cane, to the centre, where they are killed. The ashes of the stalks and weeds serve to manure the field, which often produces a better crop than before. The canes are cut with a billhook, one at a time; and being fastened together in faggots, are sent off to the crushing-mill on mules’ backs or in carts. Windmills are much in use. The canes are crushed by rollers and as the juice is pressed out, it runs into a cistern near the boiling-house. ”

“ The beautiful and verdant green of the waving cane-fields is one of the most beautiful and characteristic sights of the island; the cane grows from 4 to 7 feet high, occasionally it attains a height of 12 feet. The old mills were worked either by water, wind, or cattle. The machinery used for squeezing the juice out of the sugar-cane consisted of three upright iron-plated rollers, or cylinders, 30 to 40 feet in height. ”

“ The first is called plant cane; the second is known as first-year stubble, or ratoon. Sometimes second-year stubble is grown.
Fig. 217. A Common Type of Sirup Factory
In Louisiana large quantities of tankage, cotton-seed meal, and acid phosphate are used to fertilize cane-fields. Each [Pg 226] country has its own time for planting and harvesting. In Louisiana, for example, canes are planted from October to April. In the United States cane is harvested each year because of frost, but in tropical countries the stalks are permitted to grow from fifteen to twenty-four months. ”

“ There they sweep for miles away, with their different grasses waving and whispering under the steady blowing breeze, first the red-top, then as the soil grows wet the blue-joint and the swamp grass, and out of the standing water the dark green reeds, and farthest in the tall, wild cane bowing its stately, tasseled head. ”

“ It reaches a height of thirty feet. At the age of about thirty or forty years, the big cane flowers and produces an abundance of rich nourishing grains for stock and game. After flowering, the old canes die and new plants spring up from the seed. The young shoots are known as mutton cane, because deer and bear and stock grow fat on them.
“This cane,” said Tatanka, after they had eaten their supper, “is like the pipe-stem reeds of the Sioux Country. The Indian boys called them spear-grass, and we threw the reeds at each other when we played war.” ”

“ The sun is hammered to a band of gold. Pine-needles, like mazda, are brilliantly aglow. No rain has come to take the rustle from the falling sweet-gum leaves. Over in the forest, across the swamp, a sawmill blows its closing whistle. Smoke curls up. Marvelous web spun by the spider sawdust pile. Curls up and spreads itself pine-high above the branch, a single silver band along the eastern valley. A black boy ... you are the most sleepiest man I ever seed, Sleeping Beauty ... cradled on a gray mule, guided by the hollow sound of cow-bells, heads for them through a rusty cotton field. ”

“ To this remark, all its tributaries are exceptions; for they invariably afford, however small, tracts of the most fertile land, covered with a heavy growth of forest trees and underbrush. The cane is also common to this stream in its whole course, and affords a nutritious food for cows, horses, and hogs, who are fond of it, and fatten upon it. This plant being an evergreen, cattle and horses may feed upon it all winter; and it is accordingly given to them, as a substitute for hay, by the Indians and hunters. ”

“ Along the little stream that threaded its way down the middle with zigzag indecision, grew the southern cane from 6 to 15 feet high; the mass a hundred yards broad in places, and at others narrowing down to fords. This cane growing erect is impenetrable for horses. The rest of the valley, half a mile wide, was grown up in sage, broomstraw, little pines and briars.
The general shape of the ground was that of the letter Y, the stem being the creek, and the arms its two feeders leading in from the hills. ”

“ Into the bore of the cane thus left, a mixture of sulphur and stable litter is tightly rammed, just as you would charge a hole for blasting or would load a gun. For a period of three years every shoot which shows above the ground is cut away. The best shoot of the fourth year is allowed to grow to its full altitude and bulk, which at times is truly prodigious, leading to the false conclusion that some cane of peculiar species was the subject of wonder and investigation. ”

“ The whole will and mind of the creator must go below the surfaces of race. And this has been an almost impossible condition for the American Negro to achieve, forced every moment of his life into a specific and superficial plane of consciousness.
The first negative significance of Cane is that this so natural and restrictive state of mind is completely lacking. For Toomer, the Southland is not a problem to be solved; it is a field of loveliness ixto be sung: the Georgia Negro is not a downtrodden soul to be uplifted ”

“ Travelling in these rich forests is attended with great fatigue and exertion from the underbrush, particularly from the thick growth of cane and greenbriar; the latter of which often binds masses of the fields of cane together, and makes it next to impossible to force a horse through the matted vegetation. Our horse, indeed, while he relieved us from the burden of carrying packs, became the greatest impediment to our getting forward, while in this valley. ”

“ These canes grow all over the South, in the swamps. They are, in fact, a kind of gigantic grass, although the people who are most familiar with them do not dream of the fact. The botanists call them a grass, at any rate, and the botanists know. Each cane is a long, straight rod, tapering very gently, with "joints," as they are called, about eight or ten inches apart. These joints are simply places where the cane, outside, is a little larger than it is between joints, while inside each joint consists of a hard woody partition, across the hollow tube, which is otherwise continuous. ”

“ Tinder must be procured. Like a flash came to my mind the feathery heads of the wild cane. If I could find one dry enough I thought it would do. I at once ran up stream to where the canes grew, and after a little search I found a plume that was dead and quite dry. Bending the cane down I gathered a handful of the floss from the head, and going to the foot of a cocoanut tree, I lay the cane floss down by the foot of the tree and once more tried to produce a spark. I was soon able to obtain a spark frequently, but they invariably failed to reach the floss, or to ignite when they touched it. ”

“ To ascertain whether it can be improved by art or industry, is a matter about which he is unconcerned.
But the cane is not often planted. Most of the cane pieces on plantations are old, probably they were planted by the French, or subsequently in the time of Toussaint. They exhibit an appearance of age, for their circumference is small, and their joints are not more than three inches apart, nor do they ever exceed four feet in length. ”

“ Big canes were driven into the mud for supports, others for pillars and beams, and the floor was of smaller ones, split and laid close together, and then bound in their places with long lengths of the rotan cane which grew so plentifully in the jungle, running up the great forest trees, and after reaching the top, going on growing till it swung down by the yard, and waited till the wind blew it into the next tree, where it held on by its thorns, and went on growing to any length. ”

“ It takes over twelve months for the cane to mature, and as some fields are being cut others are being planted. The ground required for factory buildings, dwellings, roads and other purposes connected with the industry must also be taken into account, and it has been estimated that altogether [292] 1,200,000 acres are tributary to cane culture. ”

“ When the young canes are sprouted up from the joints, they would be seen stretching across the plantation like rows of Indian corn. Then would begin the battle with the grass and 471weeds, to last without a day’s intermission until June or July. In mid-summer the cane would be “laid by,” and a three month’s interval would follow, corresponding to the winter’s leisure of the Northern farmer. During this time cypress would be cut and hauled for the engines, the fences would be repaired, and every preparation for sugar-boiling made in advance. ”

“ Certainly 300 feet is not uncommon, and one can readily concede an additional 100 feet, knowing the extravagance of the remarkable palm under ordinary circumstances. And the cane weaves and entangles the jungle, binds and links mighty trees together, and with the co-operation of other clinging, and creeping, and trailing plants—some massive as ship's cables, and some thin and fine as fishing-lines—forms compact masses of vegetation to penetrate which tracks must be cut yard by yard. ”

“ The cane raised here is three per cent. richer than that raised in the Southern States. It grows from four to eight feet in height, according to the fertility of the soil. It is now March, and the summit of the cane is crowned with its useful blooms, which are gathered and dried for upholstering purposes, while the leaves are cut and used for the sustenance of stock, which are herded, watched, and fed, night and day, when not working. In passing through the country we frequently see, remote from any dwelling, small tents stretched over a cot-bed. Here is where the coolie cattle-herder sleeps. ”

“ Cane stalks grow fifty and sixty feet high, the grass is fifteen feet deep, beautiful bamboo trees, whose foliage is as fine as feathers, and palms which have plumage like a peacock and a bird of paradise, lift their proud and haughty heads above an impenetrable growth which, the guides tell us, is the home of tigers, rhinoceroses, panthers, bears, wild hogs, buffaloes, deer and all sorts of beasts, and snakes as big around as a barrel. ”

“ The native houses in New Britain are built of cane, neatly lashed together with coir cinnet, and the roofs thatched with broad-leaved grass or sugar-cane leaves. They burn well, and as the cane swells to the heat each joint bursts with a crack like a pistol shot. ”

“ The yield of cane per acre depends upon the soil, the adequacy of the water supply and the temperature ruling during the period of growth; the average from plant cane is twenty-four tons and from ratoons sixteen tons.
The factories depend upon cane furnished by the growers, either large plantation owners or small farmers who cultivate a few acres of rented land, and one of the serious problems which they have to face is the difficulty of obtaining an adequate supply. ”

“ Different kinds of cane have been introduced, and if the cultivation is to be continued at the present enormous extent, artificial manures will have to be largely employed to prevent the soil becoming exhausted. The cane—I may say luckily—cannot be grown above an altitude of about 1,700 feet, or it would seem as if there would be no end to its cultivation, which by no means adds to the beauty of the island, and to my mind is an unsightly crop. ”