These unusual looking machines are used to harvest suar cane.

The machine cuts the stalk of cane, then strips the leaves off throwing them out the white hood at the top. The cane is cut into 18" sections and dropped into the cane cart which is following the combine.

The short stalks of cane are easier to "cook" down into syrup and ultimately - sugar.

The area had about 3 - 4 inches of rain Thursday evening, so the field is terribly muddy. This is normal during cane harvest time.

Sugar cane is nothing more than tall grass. It is planted at the end of summer the first year, and harvested the following fall. Because of this, this years field will remain unplanted next year.

Sugar cane is planted primarily south of Alexandria, in the southern part of the state, from Raceland to the Texas border. Can season usually brings muddy roads to Louisiana, the cane is cut and loaded onto carts hauled out of the muddy field by tractors to a site where it is loaded onto
18-wheeler rigs that haul it to the sugar mills.

Sugar mills have been a dying breed in Louisiana. A new mill was built in Lacassine (southwest Louisiana) to serve the western areas, but most of the mills are located east of New Iberia.