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Cutting the Cane in Windrowed Rows. The harvesting of sugar-cane was done by hand, with men and women cutting the cane with sharp knives, usually about 18 inches long and two inches wide. It was dangerous work, and accidents were commonplace. The cane had to be cut first from the top, then stripped of its leaves, and then cut at the base of the stalk. The tops of the stalk were reserved usually for next year's seed canes, from which sprouts would grow to be planted in the fields. Once cut, the stalks were piled on the ground and then transported in wagons to the crushing mills and boiling grounds or sheds, where the cane was pressed between heavy rolling mills to extract the juice, which was then boiled in a complex process producing molasses and pure sugar. Some of these mills, were crude iron-covered, wooden rollers driven by oxen and mules. On the eve of the Civil War, the largest plantations in Louisiana used steam-powered rolling mills. Notice the height of the cane in this painting, the cut stalks, and use of women and children in the work. The canes are planted in rows, which enabled hands to work the crops with hoes during the growing season. Usually harvest began in October. Rural Life Museum. Artist: Steele Burden.	Two Men and a Woman Chopping Sugar-Cane. The work cutting cane demanded nearly round-the-clock labor once it began. The cane had to be cut precisely when it was ripe, or just before, in order to save it from frost or insects. It was common for enslaved workers to work every third night, with just a few hours of sleep in between. In this painting, the artist shows the strength required for the task. Most of the sugar grown in the ante-bellum South occurred in the regions along the Mississippi River just above New Orleans and to the west. Although some sugar was grown in Florida and Texas, the lion's share fell to Louisiana. In the 1850s, for example, Louisiana produced 314,122,000 pounds per year compared to just 17,717,000 pounds each year for all of the other southern states combined. Notice the clothing worn by the workers. Rural Life Museum. Artist: Steele Burden.	Harvesting Sugar. Four men, two women, and a child, cut sugar-canes under the watchful eyes of a mounted overseer. The cane towers over the humans in the painting. Each row of cane is attacked by individual workers. Rural Life Museum. Artist: Steele Burden.
Boiling Sugar. This vivid painting shows an early sugar plantation, probably in the 1820s. Center is an iron kettle boiling the juice from the crushed canes. Notice the enslaved workers rolling a mill stone over the canes; their clothing suggests they are Africans by birth. Notice too that this is a mixed plantation setting, with both cotton and sugar--a not uncommon feature in Louisiana. In the background is a large plantation house and a row of slave cabins. Rural Life Museum. Artist: Steele Burden.	Loading a Wagon with Sugar-Cane. Once the cane was cut, it was loaded into wagons and transported to the rolling mills. At least one third of the crop was required each year for seed cane, which was usually obtained from the oldest canes that had grown from "rattoons," or the cane that sprouted from old roots. Typically, the cane fields were grown in sugar for three years and then the land was plowed under, planted in peas and corn, or grazed on by cows and horses. Unlike cotton and corn, sugar was planted by drilling holes in the ground and placing cut canes, length wise, two or three in each hole. Or else the cane was covered by earth thrown up by plows in ridges. Rural Life Museum. Artist: Steele Burden.	Sugar in the Field with a Mill in the Background. In this image the sugar mill looms large in the background as workers labor to get the cane ready for the rolling mills. It stands equal in value to the workers and the cane in the artist's eye. Unlike in cotton, hard work remained to be done in sugar after the crop was harvested. Workers in sugar brought cut cane to the rolling mills where the juice was squeezed out and placed in large iron kettles or, later, in so-called vacuum pans, a new technology that appeared in the 1850s. The process was complicated and required a substantial investment of money in skilled labor and for equipment. The juice from the crushed canes was first treated with lime or, in later years, with boneblack to help the liquid granulate and to remove color impurities. Then it was boiled in a series of kettles ranged in a line over a brick furnace. The boiling liquid was passed from kettle to kettle by hand in long-handled dippers until it reached a point of crystallization in the last kettle. The next step drained off the liquid into hogsheads, or large barrels, which were then put into a cooling house, where a molasses residue was dripped into a cistern. In the 1850s, steam power replaced wood and charcoal fires, and the kettles were modified into double-bottom vacuum kettles, fitted with lids and steam coils for heating them. On well-run sugar plantations, five housheads of sugar and 250 gallons of molasses could be produced per slave in the 1850s. Rural Life Museum. Artist: Steele Burden.

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