Evening Times Republican

TO BUCK SUGAR TRUST.
Texas Going in Cane Growing and
Refining on Extensive Scale.
San Antonio, Texas, Feb. 4.--Texas
is preparing to buck the sugar trust
by going into the growing of sugar
cane and refining of sugar on a large
scale. The penitentiary board has recommended and the governor has approved a plan to purchase two of the
largest sugar plantations in this state.
These consist of the Cunningham
plantation, known as Sugarland, and
the Riddick Plantation, both in Fort
Bend county. When this deal is consummated the state of Texas will be
the largest single sugar producer in
the southwest.
This proposed action grows out of
the fact that since slavery was abolished, the cane sugar industry has been
largely carried on by convict labor by
means of a system of leases. This system has long been a sore spot in Texas, and persistent rumors have gone up
and down the state about the treatment of the convicts so leased. Under
the new arrangement the handling of
the convict labor will be done directly
by the state, and its regulation will
be entirely under control of the state
legislature.
The Sugarland plantation is one of
the finest of the kind in the south. It
consists of 15,000 acres, of which 12,000
are under cultivation. Some six or
eight thousand are in sugar and the
remainder in corn, cotton and fodder
crops.
Some
thirteen
or
fourteen
hundred acres
are under
irrigation
from the Brazos river.