38c HE CEREALS IN AMERICA 



Quotatio '^s of milled rice are usually by the pound. The New 

 Orleans Board of Trade recognizes the following grades: 

 extra fancy, fancy head, choice head, prime head, good head, 

 fair head, ordinary, screenings, common, inferior, No. 2. All 

 grades between extra fancy and fair are for whole grains or 

 head rice. 



Grades between ordinary and inferior include broken grains ; 

 while No. 2 is composed of fine particles, which are sold princi- 

 pally to brewers. The wholesale price of rice of the highest 

 grade is somewhat more than three times that of the lowest 

 grade. Variations in grade of head rice depend principally 

 upon the size of the kernel, the brilliancy of the polish and the 

 pureness of the color. 



The export of rice from the United States is insignificant, but 

 the import is fully one-half as much as the domestic production. 

 The principal sources are Japan, China, Germany and Great 

 Britain. 



III. HISTORY. 



532. History. — In the annual ceremony of sowing five kinds 

 of seeds, instituted by the Chinese Emperor 2800 B. C, rice is 

 considered the most important, since the Emperor must sow it 

 himself, while the other four species may be sown by princes 

 of the family.^ (192) Rice was not known to the ancient 

 Egyptians. It was introduced into Spain by the Saracens, and 

 into Italy in the fifteenth century A. D. It was introduced into 

 the Virginia Colony in 1647 ; but its cultivation cannot be said 

 to have begun until 1694, when a small bag of rice seed was 

 presented to the Governor of South Carolina by the captain of 

 a trading vessel bound from Madagascar. The garden in 

 Longitude Lane, Charleston, where the industry originated, so 

 far as this country is concerned, is still pointed out.^ 



' Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 385. 



8 Ramsey : History of South Carolina ; U. S. Dept. of Agr., Div. of Stat Misc. 

 Ser. 6, p. 8 



