BICE AND ITS CULTURE. 827 



and what must be done to supply it. If we had fancied that there 

 were no defects in it, recent events, including the irresistible and 

 disastrous overflows of Yellow River, would have demonstrated 

 the contrary. They teach us that unceasing vigilance must be 

 exercised in keeping the artificial waterways open, and that ad- 

 ditional works are needed to make the system complete. 



A difficulty resulting from the special character of our social 

 organization stands in the way of the execution of new works. 

 The whole of our territory is under cultivation. There is not a 

 corner of the land capable of producing a crop that has not been 

 devoted to some profitable occupation. To construct new canals, 

 enormous sums additional to the expense of labor — very consider- 

 able at the cheapest wages — would have to be applied to the 

 indemnification of dispossessed proprietors. • There is also consid- 

 erable diversity in the plans that are under consideration. Some 

 favor the addition of new canals to the old ones. Others prefer 

 vast basins, artificial lakes for the storage of the water of freshets, 

 whence it may be drawn when wanted, to distribute over the 

 country fertility instead of desolation. Formidable as the ob- 

 stacles to immediate execution may be, we can foresee the time 

 when these great works, indispensable to the completeness of our 

 hydraulic system, shall have been brought to a good end. Then 

 China, endowed with the grandest system of water distribution 

 that the world has ever seen, will have nothing to do but to keep 

 up the good condition of the work of the ancients with its modern 

 additions. — Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the 

 Revue Scientifique. 



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1 

 RICE AND ITS CULTURE. 



By L. W. EOBARTS. 



THE rice-plant (Oryza sativa) is a member of the grass family, 

 and furnishes one of the most valuable grains known to eco- 

 nomical science. It is cultivated, by the aid of abundant irriga- 

 tion, in numerous varieties in most warm countries, and in the 

 East Indies and China constitutes the principal food of hundreds 

 of millions of human beings. The grain is also applied to me- 

 chanical uses in the arts, and the straw is one of the most highly 

 prized materials of that class. 



Ages before the discovery of America rice was cultivated in 

 India, and is of volunteer growth in many parts of that country, 

 " but principally on river-banks, where the seed was perhaps let 

 fall." There is a wild rice preferred by the wealthy of Hindo- 

 stan, but, on account of its small yield, it is not much grown. 



There is no certainty of the place of the nativity of this valu- 



