[SEL] Castagnos Cane Loader

[jbcast at charter.net]

A friend gave me a Castagnos Cane Loader this week. It's disassembled and needs a lot of work, but it's almost complete. All of the framework is there, it has the draw works and the grab, the Fairbanks Morse engine is gone, but they are easy to find. My grandfather, J.B. Castagnos made the first succesful cane loader, patented in 1907. There are interviews with him here in the Louisian Sugar planters magazine.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_ucoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA298&lpg=PA298&dq=jb+castagnos&source=bl&ots=wUBSZfNk0V&sig=SxuXcp-F1iduu24-unNcwJQlyo8&hl=en&ei=sEdnTOsow4GUB-TozZ4F&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CEcQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=jb%20castagnos&f=false

Don't know if that link will work, but you can Google JB Castagnos and go to the sugar planters magazine article. He tells of offering two models, one mule powered, and one with a New Way gasoline engine. The gasoline engine powered  was a better design requiring a man and a boy to operate it, while the mule powered machines took two men and a boy. He said farmers were scared of the technology involved with the gasoline engine.
Here's a link to the patent.

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=cyRgAAAAEBAJ&dq=jb+castagnos

J.B. Castagnos
Belle Rose, LA