[Footnote 18:  These processes of matlaying and windrowing are described in L. Bouchereau, Statement of the Sugar and Rice Crops made in Louisiana in 1870-71 (New Orleans, 1871), p. xii.]

Another typical sugar estate was that of Dr. John P.R.  Stone, comprising the two neighboring though not adjacent plantations called Evergreen and Residence, on the right bank of the Mississippi in Iberville Parish.  The proprietor’s diary is much like Aime’s as regards the major crop routine but is fuller in its mention of minor operations.  These included the mending and heightening of the levee in spring, the cutting of staves, the shaving of hoops and the making of hogsheads in summer, and, in their fitting interims, the making of bricks, the sawing of lumber, enlarging old buildings, erecting new ones, whitewashing, ditching, pulling fodder, cutting hay, and planting and harvesting corn, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, peas and turnips.  There is occasional remark upon the health of the slaves, usually in the way of rejoicing at its excellence.  Apparently no outside help was employed except for an Irish carpenter during the construction of a sugar house on Evergreen in 1850.[19] The slaves on Evergreen in 1850 numbered 44 between the ages of 15 and 60 years and 26 children; on Residence, 25 between 15 and 65 years and 6 children.[20] The joint crop in 1850, ground in the Residence mill, amounted to 312 hogsheads of brown sugar and sold for 4-3/4 to 5 cents a pound; that of the phenomenal year 1853, when the Evergreen mill was also in commission, reached 520 hogsheads on that plantation and 179 on Residence, but brought only 3 cents a pound.  These prices were much lower than those of white sugar at the time; but as Valcour Aime found occasion to remark, the refining reduced the weight of the product nearly as much as it heightened the price, so that the chief advantage of the centrifugals lay in the speed of their process.

[Footnote 19:  Diary of Dr. J.P.R.  Stone.  MS. in the possession of Mr. John Stone Ware, White Castle, La.  For the privilege of using the diary I am indebted to Mr. V. Alton Moody of the University of Michigan, now Lieutenant in the American Expeditionary Force in France.]

[Footnote 20:  MS. returns in the U.S.  Census Bureau, data procured through the courtesy of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and Mr.(now Lieutenant) V. Alton Moody.]

All of the characteristic work in the sugar plantation routine called mainly for able-bodied laborers.  Children were less used than in tobacco and cotton production, and the men and women, like the mules, tended to be of sturdier physique.  This was the result partly of selection, partly of the vigorous exertion required.