616 THE SMALL GRAINS 



basing their efforts on experimental results of the Office 

 of Cereal Investigations, United States Department of 

 Agriculture. So far, the crop is grown chiefly in the 

 Sacramento Valley, on the heavy adobe soil of that 

 district, and watered mainly from the Sacramento and 

 Feather Rivers. The present acreage is 34,000 acres (Fig. 

 179). The chief varieties grown are Wataribune and 

 Shinriki. The small-kerneled rices seem better adapted 

 to California conditions than the large-kerneled varieties. 

 Outside these districts, there are about 2800 acres of rice 

 grown in North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Ala- 

 bama. The largest part of this acreage is in Florida, 

 where the upland or " gopher " rice is grown on prairie 

 land. 



688. Introductions of rice. The first rice grown in 

 this country is said to have been planted in the colony of 

 Virginia in 1647. The | bushel of seed, obtained from 

 England, by Sir William Berkeley, Governor of the colony, 

 produced 16 bushels of good rice. The beginning of the 

 Carolina industry was made in 1694. Thomas Smith, 

 Governor of the colony, obtained a small bag of rice from 

 the Captain of an English or Dutch ship, which, driven 

 by a storm, was forced to seek shelter in the Charleston 

 harbor. The seed, which was apparently from a large- 

 kerneled variety, was planted in a garden in Longitude 

 Lane, Charleston, and from the resulting crop rice- 

 growing was established. In 1718, lowland rice was 

 introduced into Louisiana, and upland rice was started in 

 South Carolina in 1772, coming, it is said, from Cochin 

 China. When Honduras rice was first brought into this 

 country is not known. It is supposed to have come origi- 

 nally from the country of the same name, but more recent 

 importations have come from Mexico. It is still the 



