RICE — CRIST 521 



steadily and world production of tliat grain is greater than that of 

 wheat. The grower of rice is almost always sure of a crop because 

 pests and serious diseases are few. Rice is a concentrated form of 

 relatively cheap calories that keeps well and can be easily shipped. 

 It is easily digested and is what might be called neutral in flavor; 

 hence the person accustomed from childhood to consuming rice never 

 seems to tire of eating it. Millions of people of the world practically 

 live on rice alone and are glad indeed if they can obtain each day the 

 few grains of rice necessary to keep body and soul together. 



Smce many tropical lowland soils can be used for crop production, 

 they will have to be pressed into service as the number of mouths to 

 be fed increases. Fortunately, many of the principles of agronomy 

 which apply to the usual grain crops do not seem to apply to wet or 

 irrigated rice. A soil too mfertile to produce any other grain crop 

 will produce some rice if it is well puddled and if the crop can have 

 a few inches of water standing on it throughout the growing season. 

 Lowland rice is the most effective food crop that can be grown on 

 many very poor tropical soils, because it is adapted to wet soils and 

 because even on extremely poor soils it still produces some foodstuffs. 

 Soils of mediocre fertility, which can produce reasonable yields of 

 upland grain crops, if planted to lowland rice, flooded, irrigated, and 

 weeded, can produce about a quarter more of rice grain than of any 

 other grain crops, according to J. Lossing Buck as quoted by Profes- 

 sor Robert Pendleton. Hence it seems inevitable that more and more 

 people of the world, especially those living within the Tropics, will 

 have rice as their basic foodstuff. Wherever it will thrive, anywhere 

 in the world, the growing of rice will probably cover a food deficit 

 more quickly than the growing of any other cereal. 



