RICE. 32T 



extended its dissemination along the rivers farther towards the interior, until, in a few years it 

 became, by careful culture, one of the principal cultivated crops of the colony. 



In some of the southern localities the cultivation of rice is regarded as more profitable 

 than that of the sugar-cane. In the swamps of South Carolina and Louisiana and the rice 

 lands of lower Mississippi it yields very largs crops, and is cultivated with comparatively little 

 labor; but the great difficulty in its production is that the localities in which it thrives best are 

 generally very damp, inducing malarial fevers, and is detrimental to health generally. 



Considerable difficulty is also experienced by planters in selecting seed free from the 

 &quot; volunteer &quot; or red rice, which is the product of the self-sown grain left in the soil after har 

 vest, and which springs up the following year, and grows with the cultivated crop, the plants 

 being indistinguishable from them. The grain of this self-sown product will after a few years 

 become loose in its attachment to the stalk, and consequently easily shells out, so that it is 

 almost impossible to eradicate it from a soil when it once gains a position there. Its seed is 

 also red and coarse, requiring considerable care in milling to clear the harvested crop from it. 

 To show the effect of climate and soil on rice, a few years since several samples of seed were 

 selected from the South Carolina crops, and sent to India to be sown in the rice fields of that 

 country. Specimens of the product of that seed were subsequently sent to the planters who 

 furnished it, who were surprised to find the grain so changed that it could scarcely be recog 

 nized as the same variety. The heaviest grain is usually grown in the most northerly of the 

 rice-growing sections. Rice, as an article of food, contains but very little oil, and a large 

 proportion of starch. 



Cultivation. The lands best adapted to rice-culture, or that produce the largest grain, 

 are those swamps and rush-lands lying adjacent to tide-water rivers between 29 and 30 north 

 latitude. The plantations for this purpose should be located above the junction of salt and 

 fresh water, because rice, being a fresh- water plant, is fatally injured by salt water in any stage 

 of its growth. These lands are of rich alluvial soil, and by being easily irrigated are admir 

 ably adapted to the culture of this grain. Inland swamps are also valuable for this purpose; 

 they are reclaimed by means of drainage, and the water reserved for irrigating purposes, in 

 such a manner that it may be turned on or off at will. Tide-river plantations are protected by 

 means of embankments or levees, which have been described by Mr. Augustus Favean 

 of South Carolina, as follows : &quot; These levees are made high and strong enough to effectually 

 bar out the water of the river. Smaller embankments, called check-banks, subdivide that 

 portion of the plantation lying between the main river embankment and the highland into 

 squares or fields, generally from fifteen to twenty acres in area. These squares are all sub 

 divided again into beds or lands, of twenty-five or thirty feet width, by a system of main 

 ditches and quarter drains. Canals, from twelve to thirty feet wide and four or five feet 

 deep, are sometimes cut from the river embankment, through the centre of the plantation, to 

 the high land, for the purpose of introducing or draining off the water to or from those fields sit 

 uated far back from the river. These canals also form a very conspicuous feature in the harvest 

 scene, as they serve as a medium of navigation for the large flat-boats which convey the rice 

 to the stack-yard in quantities of eight or ten acre s yield at a load ; and as rice usually yields 

 from two to three tons of straw per acre, the value of this immense water-carriage can be 

 easily conceived. 



Flood-gates or trunks having doors at both ends are buried in the embankments on the 

 river, as well as in the canal embankments and the check-banks, those at the outlet of canals 

 being so constructed as to permit the flat-boats to pass into the river. By means of these flood 

 gates or trunks the whole system of irrigation is carried on under the complete control of the 

 planter, and the lands are flooded or drained at will.&quot; 



These lands, being enriched by annual alluvial deposits from the river, do not require 



deep plowing, four or five inches being generally sufficient, after which it is thoroughly har- 

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