# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
1949 desoto custom Values | Hagerty Valuation Tool®

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Are you trying to find 1949 desoto custom values? The Hagerty classic car valuation tool® is designed to help you learn how to value your 1949 desoto custom and assess the current state of the classic car market.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
how to get rid of raccoons from an attic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
All about Louisiana raccoons, how to get rid of raccoons from your attic,what kind we have, what can be done about them if they become a nuisance animal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's a mystery that has both fascinated and confounded everyone from ornithologists at top-tier universities to casual weekend bird-watchers for decades.

Are there still ivory-billed woodpeckers roaming the wilds of the southeastern United States or have they all gone extinct?

While the bird has not been photographed since the 1930s, a new study conducted by a researcher at the Naval Research Laboratory posits that - despite the lack of definitive evidence of the species' existence - the so-called "Lord God bird" is not extinct and its habitat needs to be protected if the woodpecker hopes to thrive.

Michael Collins, who works at the Stennis Space Center in southeastern Mississippi and has made researching the ivory-billed woodpecker a pet project of his for more than a decade, published his findings in the online journal Heliyon. In his study, Collins presents evidence - including three video that show birds he believes to be the ivory-billed woodpecker - that he says proves that the elusive bird is not extinct.
PRIMATE STUDY FIND IT'S 'WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT'
"You're not going to find the birds by going out and looking for them for a week or even a year," Collins, who spent 1,500 hours between 2005 and 2013 in Mississippi and Louisiana's Pearl River region looking for the woodpecker, told Fox News. "Over eight years of intense research I've only had 10 sightings of the bird."

Among his research is video footage Collins shot while kayaking and climbing trees of the purported woodpecker's signature swooping flights, rapid wingbeats, and audible double-knock. These findings are consistent with reports of sightings of the bird made back in the 1940s.

The ivory-billed woodpecker - one of the largest woodpeckers in the world - saw its numbers dwindle in the late 19 th century due to widespread deforestation from the Southeast's burgeoning logging industry as well as hunting. By 1938, an estimated 20 woodpeckers remained in the wild and six years later the last known ivory-billed woodpecker, a female, was gone.

While not officially labelled as extinct, the species is listed as critically endangered and possibly extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Alleged sightings in Arkansas in 2004, however, renewed hope among conservationists that the woodpecker still existed and led Collins to conduct his research.
GOODNIGHT, COLO! OLDEST GORILLA IN THE US DIES IN SLEEP
"There is no logical reason to conclude that the population is less than it was in the 1920s," Collins said. "I really doubt they are extinct."

Others, however, are not so sure.

Steve Milloy, author and founder of the blog JunkScience, contends that that there is no hard evidence that the bird is still alive and the reports of sightings are just meant to keep land from being developed.

"As JunkScience.com exposed in February 2006, alleged sightings of the Ivory-billed woodpecker are just a trick to keep land from being developed," Milloy said on JunkScience.
SHARK'S 'VIRGIN BIRTH' MAKES HISTORY, COULD SAVE HER SPECIES
Milloy argues that the sightings of the woodpecker in 2004 were organized and supported by the Nature Conservancy as the organization stood to benefit substantially from the sightings and possibly be granted $10.2 million federal dollars and hundreds of thousands of acres in Arkansas.

"Given that the land acquisition is made possible with taxpayer dollars and tax breaks - for who knows what ultimate purposes - you can almost hear the Nature Conservancy laughing like that other fictional woodpecker, Woody Woodpecker, all the way to the bank," Milloy wrote in an article for Fox News in 2006.

When contacted by Fox News, a spokeswoman for the Nature Conservancy could neither confirm nor deny that the organization received any federal funding related to the project.

Prominent ornithologists across the U.S. don't dismiss Collins' claims that he has spotted the ivory-billed woodpecker, but say that more concrete evidence needs to be obtained before a definitive answer to whether or not this species still exists is given.
HUGE GATOR SPOTTED TAKING STROLL IN FLORIDA RESERVE
"Mike [Collins] lays out good arguments. It certainly doesn't settle the issue - there's nothing definitive in what he presents - but it's an interesting case." Geoff Hill, an ornithologist at Auburn University, said of Collins' research back in a 2011 interview with LiveScience, "Of course, whether something is 'definitive' is to some degree a matter of opinion."

A clear image of the bird is what ornithologists and bird-watchers are all hoping to get to prove the woodpecker's existence, but Collins is doubtful that will ever happen given a number of factors. The large area of its habitat, the dense swamp forest where it is known to reside and the fact that it travels miles from its nest for food all stack the odds against researchers looking to snap a photo of the bird.

"It's unlikely anyone will get a clear photo," Collins said. "It's like a perfect storm of factors."

Until that image is captured, everyone can agree that the debate over the bird that John James Audubon described as "graceful to the extreme" will continue.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Extinct or not? New study claims 'extinct' ivory-billed woodpecker is still alive

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
While the bird has not been photographed since the 1930s, a new study conducted by a researcher at the Naval Research Laboratory posits that - despite the lack of definitive evidence of the species' existence - the so-called "Lord God bird" is not extinct and its habitat needs to be protected if the woodpecker hopes to thrive.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Canebrake Rattlesnake | Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Canebrake rattlers inhabit wooded and forested areas, preferring hardwoods. They tend to lie motionless in a resting coil, usually near logs, tree bases, or in thickets. They feed on rodents, preferring wood rats and squirrels. Canebrake rattlers move from hibernation sites to summer foraging grounds in mid-spring, and return to winter quarters in late summer and early fall.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Table of Contents

sugarcane, ( Saccharum officinarum), perennial grass of the family Poaceae, primarily cultivated for its juice from which sugar is processed. Most of the world's sugarcane is grown in subtropical and tropical areas. The plant is also grown for biofuel production, especially in Brazil, as the canes can be used directly to produce ethyl alcohol (ethanol). The by-products from cane sugar processing, namely the straw and bagasse (cane fibres), can be used to produce cellulosic ethanol, a second-generation biofuel. Other sugarcane products include molasses, rum, and cachaça (a Brazilian alcohol), and the plant itself can be used as thatch and as livestock fodder. This article treats the cultivation of the sugarcane plant. For information on the processing of cane sugar and the history of its use, see sugar.

The sugarcane plant produces a number of stalks that reach 3 to 7 metres (10 to 24 feet) high and bear long sword-shaped leaves. The stalks are composed of many segments, and at each joint there is a bud. When the cane becomes mature, a growing point at the upper end of the stalk develops into a slender arrow bearing a tassel of tiny flowers.

Culture

Sugarcane is propagated primarily by the planting of cuttings. The sections of the stalk of immature cane used for planting are known as seed cane, or cane sets, and have two or more buds (eyes), usually three. Seed cane is planted in well-worked fields. Mechanical planters that open the furrow, fertilize, drop the seed cane, and cover it with soil are widely used.

Seed cane is spaced 1.4 to 1.8 metres (4.5 to 6 feet) apart at densities 10,000 to 25,000 per hectare (4,000 to 10,000 per acre). Under favourable conditions, each bud germinates and produces a primary shoot. Root bands adjacent to each bud give rise to a large number of roots, and each young shoot develops its own root system. Tillering, or sprouting at the base of the plant, takes place, and each original seed cane develops into a number of growing canes, forming a stool. The plant crop is obtained from these stools.

Another method of cane propagation is by ratooning, in which, when the cane is harvested, a portion of stalk is left underground to give rise to a succeeding growth of cane, the ratoon or stubble crop. The ratooning process is usually repeated three times so that three economical crops are taken from one original planting. The yield of ratoon crops decreases after each cycle, and at the end of the last economical cycle all stumps are plowed out and the field is replanted.

Sugarcane is grown in various kinds of soils, such as red volcanic soils and alluvial soils of rivers. The ideal soil is a mixture of sand, silt, and clay particles, with a measure of organic material. The land is plowed and left to weather for a time before subsoiling (stirring up the subsoil) is carried out. The crop demands a well-drained soil, and drains-on the surface, underground, or both-are provided according to the topographic conditions of the fields.

To attain good yields, sugarcane requires 2,000 to 2,300 mm (80 to 90 inches) of water during the growing period. When precipitation is deficient, irrigation, either by spraying or by applying water in furrows, can make up for the deficiency. The growth period for cane crops varies considerably according to the region: 8-9 months in Louisiana, U.S.; 15 months in Australia and Taiwan; 18-22 months in Hawaii, South Africa, and Peru. The lowest temperature for good cane-plant growth is about 20 °C (68 °F). Continuous cooler temperature promotes the maturation of cane, as does withholding water. Harvesting and milling begin in the dry, relatively cool season of the year and last for five to six months.

Fertilizers are applied to sugarcane from the beginning of planting through the whole growth cycle but not during the ripening period. Optimum amounts of fertilizers ( nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) vary greatly with soil types, climatic conditions, and the kind and length of the growing cycle.

To secure a good crop, weeds in the cane fields must be attacked until the cane stools develop a good canopy, which checks weed growth. Weeding, still largely manual, is done with a hoe, though mechanical cane weeders with attached rakes have been developed. Chemical herbicides are widely used.

The mature cane is harvested by both manual and mechanical means. Some mechanical harvesters are able to sever and discard the tops of erect crops and cut cane stalks, which are delivered into a bin trailer for transport to the mill by tractor or light railway wagon.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
sugarcane, (Saccharum officinarum), perennial grass of the family Poaceae, primarily cultivated for its juice from which sugar is processed. Most of the world's sugarcane is grown in subtropical and tropical areas. The plant is also grown for biofuel production, especially in Brazil, as the canes can be used directly to produce ethyl alcohol (ethanol).

# data[].attributes.headline
World Champion gator wrestler Jaeger Stitch

# data[].attributes.subject
World Champion gator wrestler Jaeger Stitch

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sugar Cream Pie, Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie, Quebec Sugar Cream Pie, Tartes au sucre, or Finger Pie are all names for the same type of pie.

This pie consists of simply a pie shell spread with layers of creamed butter and maple or brown sugar with a sprinkling of flour, then filled with vanilla-flavored cream and baked. The filling is dense and sweet, but when properly baked it is at once loosely jiggly - while also solid enough to slice. Think pecan pie without the pecans and you are on the right track.

Sugar Cream Pie or Sugar Pie - Believed to have originated from the Amish and Shaker communities.

Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie - Since 2009, Sugar Cream Pie is the official Indiana state pie. The Indiana General Assembly officially elevated the status of this humble dessert in 2009.

Finger Pie - Sugar Cream Pie is referred to as "Finger Pie" because of the method used to mix the ingredients. This is done to prevent incorporating any air into the cream before the pie is baked.

Quebec Sugar Cream Pie, Tartes au Sucre - A favorite with the French-Canadian people of Canada. Such tarts are common in Northern France (and Belgium), from where so many of the original immigrants to la Nouvelle France, now Quebec, came from.
More recipes for Sugar Cream Pie.
History of Sugar Cream Pie:

1850s - The recipe appears to have originated in Indiana with the Shaker and/or Amish communities in the 1800s as a great pie recipe to use when the apple bins were empty. You will find somewhat similar pies in the Pennsylvania Dutch County and a few other places in the United States with significant Amish populations. The Shakers believed in eating hearty and healthy food. They definitely must have had a sweet tooth, though, judging by the sugar cream pie.

This pie was also know as finger pie because the filling was sometimes stirred with a finger during the baking process to prevent breaking the bottom crust. People used to skim the thick yellow cream from the top of chilled fresh milk to make this delectable dessert.

The following information is courtesy of Joanne Raetz Stuttgen, author of Cafe Indiana:

I suspect there is no single origin of sugar cream pie. It is a simple and basic pie "desperation pie" that could be made with ingredients that would have nearly always been on hand on any farm, just like buttermilk pie, vinegar pie, and mock apple pie using green tomatoes. It's possible that it may have originated with Indiana pioneers, or with the Amish, who make a similar type of egg less baked cream pie.

The Hoosier Cookbook (1976), by Elaine Lumbra and Jacqueline Lacy, includes but one recipe for sugar cream pie. The note says it is a 160-year-old recipe; it was contributed by Mrs. Kenneth D. Hahn of Miami County. This would take the recipe back to 1816, the year of Indiana statehood. So, you might ask, which came first? Indiana or sugar cream pie? The arrival of the Amish began in the 1830s, so apparently Hoosier sugar cream pie predates the Amish. I find it very interesting that in The Hoosier Cookbook, the two recipes following the one for sugar cream pie are Amish Vanilla Pie and Vinegar Pie, two other desperation pies.

I've had a chance to do some research and make some calls to the Shaker villages in Kentucky, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, a historian of Shaker religion at Indiana University, and the local extension homemakers council. The "finger" sugar cream pie you have in your cookbook may be derived from the Eastern Shaker community, West Union Shaker Village in Busro, Indiana. A recipe for Sister Lizzie's Sugar Pie appears in The Best of Shaker Cooking by Amy Bess Williams Miller and Persis Wellington Fuller. The historian at Shaker Hill is unfamiliar with the pie among the foodways of the Western community, of which the short-lived Indiana community (1810-1827) was a part. She doubts that its origins lie in the western community.

The dry mix method was/is apparently also by the Amish (Haedrich, 373), of which there are large and very old communities in Indiana. I am also familiar with a baked Amish cream pie that is similar to sugar cream, but it has a stiffer texture (more like pumpkin pie) and is not as "gluey" as sugar cream.

There are many varied recipes for sugar cream pie in Hoosier compiled cookbooks. Most have very similar ingredients (a few have eggs or egg yolks), but the cooking methods vary. Instructions include cooking the filling on the stove top and pouring it into a baked pie shell, at which time the pie is finished; or, then putting the cooked filling/baked pie shell in the oven and baking 10 to 15 minutes; or putting the uncooked filling in an unbaked pie shell and baking the pie until it is done, about an hour or longer. None of the methods have the baker putting the dry ingredients into the shell, pouring over the liquid, and baking the pie in the oven. No one I have talked to here in Indiana has ever made the pie that way. Although to be honest, few people I talked to make the pie at all, or had mothers who made it.
In my opinion, Hoosier sugar cream pie is best distinguished by the lack of eggs (even though some local recipes include them) and the wet filling.

Quebec Sugar Cream Pie Recipe - Tartes au Sucre:

I stumbled across your "History of Sugar Cream Pie" article and was interested in the additional information provided by Joanne Raetz Stuttgen below. While she states that she has not encountered anyone who mixes the ingredients right in the pie crust, we have a very old family recipe (Quebec "habitant" or farm folk) that has been passed down through the generations that calls for mixing the dry ingredients in the pie shell and adding the liquid. There are only three ingredients: brown sugar, flour, and cream. The filling is the mixed either with a finger or a wooden spoon before baking for about an hour. - Yves Quinty, Ottawa, Ontario Canada (3/25/09)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
History of Sugar Cream Pie, Whats Cooking America

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sugar Cream Pie, Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie, Quebec Sugar Cream Pie, Tartes au sucre, or Finger Pie are all names for the same type of pie. This pie consists of simply a pie shell spread with layers of creamed butter and maple or brown sugar with a sprinkling of flour, then filled with vanilla-flavored cream and baked.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sugar Plantation, Louisiana, 1873-74

Sugar Cane

Sugarcane is the most cultivated single crop in the world. [1] A member of the grass family, it has its origins in Polynesia, where it later spread to India and eventually Europe and the rest of the world. While today we think of sugarcane purely in the context of processing refined sugar, historically it has had numerous other applications. People in New Guinea, Polynesia and India centuries ago chewed cane stalks for their sweetness, and sexually hopeful men in China even chewed on the cane as an aphrodisiac. After the introduction of sugarcane to Louisiana near the end of the 18th century, the land supported a growing number of sugar plantations and sugar mills. Before the Civil War, most sugar grown in the United States came from Louisiana. The Civil War brought great changes to the Louisiana sugar industry and serious economic losses, as many freedmen were reluctant to return to the conditions of the sugarcane fields and desperately wanted their own land. Decades of struggles between planters and laborers ensued over the changing status quo, as well as a series of devastating drops in the price of sugar. The industry slowly adjusted and modernized throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Louisiana remains one of the United States' largest producers of sugarcane.

Sugar in the 'New World'

Louisiana owes its transformation into a sugar economy to the Haitian Revolution in the late 18th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries sugar cultivation was introduced to the Americas and the Caribbean Islands. Portuguese explorers brought sugar to Brazil in the early 1500s, and similar sugar mills were constructed in Cuba and Jamaica around the same time. In the first half of the 17th century, the Dutch brought sugarcane from South America to the Caribbean Islands. Europeans continued to produce numerous small sugar mills throughout the Islands. [2] Britain established colonies in the Caribbean as its own source of production as demand for sugar continued to grow enormously throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The Caribbean soon became the world's largest source of sugar. Slave labor provided the workforce to supply large amounts of sugarcane for both British and French colonies. The slaves were pushed to the breaking point in constant efforts to increase production. [3]

The Haitian Revolution

By 1750, the French colony of Saint-Dominigue, later known as the country of Haiti, became the largest producer of sugar in the world. This heightened production of sugar coincided with the ever-increasing demand in Europe, particularly from Britain in the late 18th century. A slave revolt led by Toussaint Louverture that began in 1791 in French-held Saint-Dominingue resulted in the foundation of the independent Haitian Republic in 1804. Sugar production declined dramatically as a result of the Revolution, which led Cuba to replace the former French colony as the world's largest sugarcane grower and producer. Cuba was not the only territory to benefit from the breakdown of sugar production in Saint-Dominingue. In addition to the rise of Cuba as a sugar producer, the disruption of Haitian sugar production provided market space for Louisiana's sugar producers, and they gained technical knowledge of the crop from whites and blacks who had left Haiti after the fighting began. [4]

Introduction of Sugar Cane in Louisiana

In 1795, just four years after the start of the Haitian Revolution, an American-born man, Jean Étienne Boré, applied the techniques of Haitian sugar producer, Antoine Morin, to process sugar from sugarcane and started the sugar boom in Louisiana. He successfully produced 100,000 pounds of sugar crystals and earned $12,000 for the product. Jesuit planters in Louisiana had previously only been able to produce crude molasses with their techniques, and this earned Boré the title the "savior of Louisiana." As planters constructed more and more sugar mills, French and Haitian planters continued to arrive in Louisiana and the demand for slave labor continued to increase. [5]

Growing Sugarcane

The cultivation of sugarcane is a complicated process. The implementation of technological advancements and continued industrialization throughout the 19th century allowed plantations to meet the increasing production demands while at the same time increasing them. This meant experimenting with different species of sugarcane, the introduction of steam-powered mills and new evaporators for sugarcane juice, vacuum pans and evaporators that controlled steam, and increasingly modern equipment were constantly altering the production of sugar in significant ways. [6] This period saw an increase in machines for sugar production, but the increased mechanization meant nothing without an able workforce. While work on the sugar plantations required brute force and physical stamina, it also called for skill and precision to ensure the crushing, boiling, striking, packing, and other stages of the complicated manufacturing process flowed seamlessly and with maximum possible efficiency. The ordinary schedule of the enslaved men and women demanded too much already, but plantations and mills paid wages for "overwork." Historian Elizabeth Abbott argues that "to planters, their slaves - 125,000 by mid-century - were 'sugar machines.'" [7]

Planting Sugar in Louisiana

Sugar planters in Louisiana faced challenges specific to the region. First, Louisiana had a very short growing season and difficult climate for growing sugarcane. During growing season, the temperature dropped, and the crop often frosted over, which severely damaged the cane. Since the sugar content increases the longer the cane stays in the ground, this required planters to calculate when the frosts would come so they could wait as long as possible to harvest. Harvesting and processing the cane took roughly six to eight weeks in the early 19th century. In addition to cold and frost during the growing season, in the summer Louisiana planters ironically dealt with both drought and swampy, coastal soil prone to flooding. [8]

In Louisiana, sugarcane planting began in January and continued for several months until April. Workers in the field used the technique of rationing, where they cut and trimmed the cane down to the lower part of the plant, which allowed the crop to mature earlier in the season. Since sugarcane grows sweeter the longer it is in the soil, quicker maturation of the plants is beneficial to the amount of sugar processed later. In September, plantation workers cut and stored a portion of the crop to use as seed in the coming planting season, while leaving the rest to continue sweetening until harvest the next month. [9]

Harvesting Sugarcane

Harvesting with machinery in the 20th century accomplished the task much, much faster than cutting by hand as slaves were forced to do. When the time came to begin cutting the sugarcane, the field workers used a "knife similar to a machete," roughly fifteen inches long with a thin blade that required frequent sharpening by the wielder, not the actual owner of the knife. The field workers sheared the cane from the stalk and cut off the top of the stalk so that it was green. This process is illustrated in the image "Sugar Plantation, Louisiana, 1873-74," which shows black fieldworkers reaping sugarcane under the supervision of a white overseer in the spring of 1874. Wages and working conditions for freedmen in the South improved somewhat during the post-emancipation, but the end of Reconstruction, not two years after this illustration, ensured the continued suffering of field hands. Despite the time period, this illustration seems to evoke the Antebellum period rather than a society without slaves. Once the stalk had been cleaned properly it was cut from the root and stacked on the ground where it would be loaded and transported by younger workers and women to the sugarhouse for grinding. (As shown in the illustration Harvesting Sugar Cane, Louisiana 1853)

Processing Sugar

Up until the 20th century, techniques for processing sugar continued to evolve, and planters experimented with different techniques from different regions. The processing of cane into unrefined sugar was an increasingly mechanized operation, though Louisiana produced little refined sugar before Emancipation. The processing of extracting raw, unrefined sugar took place in the sugar mill, where large rollers crushed the cane to extract their juice before transporting them to another section of the mill, the boiling room. [10] Mill workers then piped the cane juice through a series of vats that filtered it through bones or charcoal before it was boiled.

This excerpt from "The Sugar Planter's Guide" by W.J. Evans, a British doctor in 1847, details one process of boiling the sugarcane juice after it has been crushed out. This Planter's Guide provides a highly detailed, if dated, guide for the processing of sugar from cane detailed in this module. Evans provides an illustration of three cylinders where the juice was filtered before boiling, though in Louisiana mills there were likely to be five.

After boiling, pipes carried the cane syrup through a series of pans until the syrup was stored in coolers. Once the syrup was cooled and filtered, the molasses could be poured out to be distilled into rum or processed into brown sugar. The final product of a Louisiana sugar plantation, white sugar remained in the coolers and was packed and shipped to refineries in other areas. [12]

Works Cited

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. http://www.stichtingmilijuli.org/Journaal2009/Fotos/20091105-090144_C5D4_Suikerriet.jpg

Peter Macinnis. Bittersweet: The Story of Sugar. Australia: Allen & Unwin. 2002. xix-xxi.

J. H. Galloway. "Tradition and Innovation in the American Sugar Industry, c. 1500-1800: An Explanation." Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Vol. 75. No. 3. Sep. 1985. pp. 334-335.

Joshua Rothman. "The Sugar Masters: Planters and Slaves in Louisiana's Cane World, 1820-1860." Journal of the Early Republic. Vol. 27. Issue 4. Winter 2007. p745-756.

Elizabeth Abbott. Sugar: A Bittersweet History. New York: Duckworth Overlook. 2009. 280.

Rebecca J. Scott. Degrees of Freedom: Louisiana and Cuba After Slavery. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard. 2005. 26-27.

Elizabeth Abbott. Sugar: A Bittersweet History. New York: Duckworth Overlook. 2009. 281.

Elizabeth Abbott. Sugar: A Bittersweet History. New York: Duckworth Overlook. 2009. 281.

Peter Macinnis. Bittersweet: The Story of Sugar. Australia: Allen & Unwin. 2002. 138-139.

Roderick A. McDonald. "Economy and Material Culture of Slaves: Goods and Chattels on the Sugar Plantations of Jamaica and Louisiana." Louisiana State University Press. 1993. 6-7.

W.J. Evans. The sugar-planter's manual: being a treatise on the art of obtaining sugar from the sugar-cane. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. 1847.

Elizabeth Abbott. Sugar: A Bittersweet History. New York: Duckworth Overlook. 2009. 283.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sugarcane Plantations of Louisiana @ Media Nola

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sugar Plantation, Louisiana, 1873-74 Sugarcane is the most cultivated single crop in the world. [1] A member of the grass family, it has its origins in Polynesia, where it later spread to India and eventually Europe and the rest of the world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Facts about Raccoons | Raccoon Facts | Havahart®

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Raccoons are highly intelligent and curious creatures, but they can also be a nuisance to any homeowner. These nocturnal mammals can destroy gardens, make a mess by tipping over garbage cans, and can cause structural damage in search of food.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's been 73 years since the last clear portrait of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker came out of Louisiana-and according to Michael Collins, it could be decades more until another similar image is captured.

In a study published yesterday in the open-access journal Heliyon, Collins, an intrepid birder and a mathematician and acoustics researcher with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, argues that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers still persist in the forested swamps of Louisiana and Florida. He also believes that, despite the lack of any clear photographic evidence of the birds' existence, the sheer possibility that they could be out there means their habitat deserves better protection from clear-cutting, dredging, and climate change.

The study outlines personal observations and video footage collected by Collins when he was stationed at the Stennis Space Center between 2005 and 2013. Working in his free time, with no outside funding, he kayaked solo through the swamps of the Pearl River along the Mississippi-Louisiana border with a camera fixed to his paddle. He climbed cypress trees at dawn, and haunted places where the woodpeckers were most likely to be lurking.

After 500 visits and 1,500 total hours of observation, Collins produced two videos from the Pearl River in 2006 and 2008, and a third from 2007 in the Choctawhatchee River swamp in Florida. The clips fall short of conclusive: Most of the excerpts show distant blurs that only vaguely resemble birds. But in his paper, Collins describes the birds in the videos as large woodpeckers with rapid wingbeats, bright white marks on their wings, and exceedingly cautious behavior-traits shared by the storied Ivory-bill.

In the best video (above), a large woodpecker-shaped avian clings to a forked tree limb, then leaps to an adjacent branch. Collins collected the limb after a storm blew it down. He then borrowed a Pileated Woodpecker specimen and mounted it in the same position to compare body size, shape, and posture. (Adult Ivory-bills can run one to three inches bigger than Pileateds.)

Avian artist Julie Zickefoose, who reviewed the video, states in the study that the bird in question does have a remarkably "rared-back pose," a "long but fluffy and squared-off crest," and an "extremely long, erect head and neck." That silhouette is more typical of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker than a Pileated.

Collins also says he heard the film subjects make numerous, which is yet another Ivory-bill clue. Furthermore, he reports 10 other sightings, and has photographs of extra-large tree cavities with stripped-away bark. All this evidence considered, Collins says he has zero doubts that the birds are still hanging around the swamps.

The Ivory-bill debate has been plagued with decades of fake photos, failed searches, and quarrels among experts and scientists.

But when he wanted to go public with this conclusion, he had few takers. The journal PNAS rejected his study in 2009, citing inadequate evidence to back up his "extraordinary claims." The skepticism comes with good reason: The Ivory-bill debate has been plagued with decades of fake photos, failed searches (see here for our in-depth feature story on the most recent one in Cuba), and quarrels among experts and scientists. After the rejection, Collins then devoted his time to further analyzing and supporting his evidence. He admits proving the Ivory-bill's existence is an uphill battle, but not one that should be set aside just yet.

"People in conservation are afraid to touch this issue," Collins says."It's become politicized, and hasn't been about science for years. It's an iconic species, living in an area of the southeastern United States that's been neglected in terms of conservation, and could play a key role in turning the tide of conservation in this part of the country."

Geoff Hill, an ornithologist at Auburn University who helped guide Collins around the Choctawhatchee River for the 2007 video, published his own set of Ivory-bill observations in 2006. He says that although Collins' videos and rigorous analysis are intriguing, they're unlikely to change very many minds.

Jerome Jackson, an ornithologist at Florida Gulf Coast University and author of a book and numerous articles on the Ivory-billed woodpecker, doesn't agree with Collins' assertion that even the possibility of the species is enough to promote conservation. Jackson was one of the most vocal critics on a 2006 paper by Cornell Lab of Ornithology director John Fitzpatrick (who also consulted on Collins' study), and his belief then and now is that rushing in with overly optimistic ideas about where the bird exists could actually weaken conservation efforts around it.

The Heliyon paper, he writes in an email, makes a good argument for preserving swampland. But he doesn't think the entire effort should be underpinned by a bird that's very likely extinct.

"There are many other species that would benefit from protection of vast acreages of bottomland hardwood forest," Jackson writes. "Such protection can be justified by considering the other values of the forest, whether or not the Ivory-bill exists."

The bottom line, Jackson adds, is there's no way to know what Collins saw from that video. Which raises an important question: What exactly would be considered enough evidence to prove the bird's existence?

Fitzpatrick, an Ivory-bill chaser himself, says that only an image worthy of the cover of Time magazine-or even Audubon, for that matter-will suffice. There are more than enough capable bird photographers with good equipment out in the field that "a clear, unambiguous photo of an Ivory-bill is what everyone expects for full, conclusive proof." Fitzpatrick asserts that he is by no means ready to declare the Ivory-bill extinct.

Living Bird editor-in-chief Tim Gallagher, who led the search for the Ivory-bill in Cuba last year, agrees that the bar is high.

Collins argues that waiting for a flawless picture of a notoriously skittish bird is a waste of valuable time when it comes to conserving Ivory-bill habitat.

"I know of several excellent sightings that have taken place in the last three or four years," Gallagher writes via email. "I sympathize with Collins, and I believe he probably did see Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. Unfortunately, it requires much more than a blurry video and some sound recordings to convince people that these birds are present and that their habitat should be saved."

Collins, for his part, argues that waiting for a flawless picture of a notoriously skittish bird is a waste of valuable time.

Given that the species' habitat is remote and scarce, and that surviving woodpeckers are likely fearful of humans, snapping the Ivory-bill is going to take a very long time, Collins says. That doesn't mean the debate should be over; it just might need to move away from an image-only definition of evidence. Collins notes that particle physicists didn't give up on finding neutrinos: They had to invent a completely new tool to do it.

"This is simply a bird that's extremely difficult to find," Collins says. "It's pretty clear that if you compare this with a more typical species, the expected waiting time [to get a clear photograph] is millions of times greater."

Still, it seems that until such an image is captured, the Ivory-bill debate will live on. And those seeking the truth will have to keep hunting.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Possible Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Footage Breathes Life Into Extinction Debate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It's been 73 years since the last clear portrait of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker came out of Louisiana-and according to Michael Collins, it could be decades more until another similar image is captured. In a study published yesterday in the open-access journal Heliyon , Collins, an intrepid birder and a mathematician and acoustics researcher with the U.S.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The origin of DeSoto cars (a Chrysler division)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A brief history of DeSoto cars (a Chrysler division)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn more about The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp at http://books.simonandschuster.com/True-Blue-Scouts-of-Sugar-Man-Swamp/Kathi-Appelt/9781442421059?mcd=vd_youtube_book Newberry Honoree, Kathi Appelt shares the inspiration for her National Book Award finalist; The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp.