832 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



their full energies in the race from .the fields to the mill, and long 

 and wild are the exultant cries from the captain and crew of the 

 barge that first moors at its destination and wins the prize offered 

 by the planter. After this great exertion the careful master of 

 the ante-bellum time generally dealt out to his slaves the expected 

 grog, and required a bath and change of clothing. 



Thrashing, etc. — This is done by machinery : a thrasher much 

 used was invented by Calvin Emmons, of New York. It separates 

 the grain by tooth-beaters, which make from seven hundred and 

 fifty to eight hundred revolutions per minute. The barge con- 

 taining the bundles of rice passes under the mill, and its load is 

 elevated by hooks to the floor above. When thrashed, if the crop 

 is small, about five thousand bushels, it is put in sacks ; but if 

 large, say about forty thousand bushels, the paddy or rough rice 

 is poured down a flume from the mill to the hold of the schooner 

 in waiting, and is next taken to the cleaning-mill, which is fre- 

 quently owned by the speculator that purchases it ; and, when 

 the grain is hulled, he in his turn sells it to the merchant. 



By the old method the chaff was removed by pounding in 

 hand-mortars hollowed out of pitch-pine blocks ; it is now hulled 

 by steam-power. When ready for market, the rice is put into 

 barrels holding about six hundred pounds. The average of sev- 

 eral analyses of rice gives — of albuminoids, 7*5 ; carbohydrates, 

 76*5 ; water, 14*6 ; ash, 6*5. Rice constitutes the food of almost 

 one third of the human family. It is used in rice-meat and vari- 

 ous aromatics, fermented and distilled into arrack, molded into 

 models and busts, and is employed in paper-making, cement, and 

 starch ; the chaff, broken rice and dust, makes valuable food for 

 cattle ; the straw is sold for forage and bedding, and is also used 

 in the manufacture of bonnets, while the Southern housewife can 

 tell of the use of rice-flour in the making of delightful breads. 



The total rice crop in 1870, according to the Federal census, was 

 73,635,021 pounds, a decided falling off from 215,313,497 pounds in 

 1850, and 187,167,032 in 1860. The yield for 1879 was better, being 

 110,131,372 pounds. Charleston, S. C, is the great rice market of 

 the United States. The American grain is much preferred to the 

 imported, and, as the demand is far greater than the supply, there 

 is still ample room for the rice-planter. 



It is observed, in Dr. G. M. Humphrey's book on Old Age, that the fertility of 

 long-lived persons is above the normal, aDd in some continues to an advanced old 

 age. The effect of the combination of conditions must be to give the stock of 

 long-lived people an advantage in the race for existence, so that one would expect 

 their number, in proportion to the rest of ihe population, rapidly to increase. 

 This may help to account for the greater number of aged people, and the pro- 

 longed continuance of vigor among them. 



