-53- 

 JEFFERSON TO WILLIAM DRAYTON, FROM PARIS, JULY 30, 1787 



Jefferson believed that "the greatest service which can be rendered any 



country is to add an useful plant to its culture." He was a pioneer 



in the work of introducing foreign plants into the United 



States. The following letter gives special 



attention to upland rice and olives . 



Sir, — Having observed that the consumption of rice in this country, 

 and particularly in this capital, was very great, I thought it my duty 

 to inform myself from what markets they draw their supplies, in what 

 proportion from ours, and whether it might not be practicable to in- 

 crease that proportion. This city being little concerned in foreign 

 commerce, it is difficult to obtain information on particular branches 

 of it in the detail. I addressed myself to the retailers of rice, 

 and from them received a mixture of truth and error, which I was unable 

 to sift apart in the first moment. Continuing, however, my inquiries, 

 they produced at length this result: that the dealers here were in 

 the habit of selling two qualities of rice, that of Carolina, with 

 which they were supplied chiefly from England, and that of Piedmont; 

 that the Carolina rice was long, slender, white and transparent, an- 

 swers well when prepared with milk, sugar, &c., but not so well when 

 prepared au gras ; that that of Piedmont v/as shorter, thicker, and 

 less white, but that it presented its form better when dressed au 

 gras, was better tasted, and therefore preferred by good judges for 

 those purposes; that the consumption of rice, in this form, was much 

 the most considerable, but that the superior beauty of the Carolina 

 rice, seducing the eye of these purchasers who are attached to ap- 

 pearances, the demand for it was upon the whole as great as for that 

 of Piedmont. They supposed this difference of quality to proceed from 

 a difference of management; that the Carolina rice was husked with an 

 instrument that broke it more, and that less pains were taken to 

 separate the broken from the unbroken grains, imagining that it was 

 the broken grains which dissolved in oily preparations; that the 

 Carolina rice costs somev/hat less than that of Piedmont; but that 

 being obliged to sort the v/hole grains from the broken, in order to 

 sa-^isfy the taste of their customers, they ask and receive as much for 

 the first quality of Carolina, when sorted, as for the rice of Pied- 

 mont; but the second and third qualities, obtained by sorting, are 

 sold much cheaper. The objection to the Carolina rice then, being, 

 that it crumbles in certain forms of preparation, and this supposed 

 to be the effect of a less perfect machine for husking, I flattered 

 myself I should be able to learn what might be the machine of Pied- 

 mont, when I should arrive at Marseilles, to which place I was to 



