RICE 



5000 



RICE 



In 1647 an unsuccessful attempt was made to 

 irrcnv it in Virginia. The first romantic chapter 

 of the real story of the American rice indu-try. 

 however, was written in 16D4, when a Mada- 

 gascar ship damaged by a storm took refuge in 

 the harbor cf Charleston, S. C. Before it sailed 

 away its captain presented the governor of the 

 colony with a >;u k of Mid-rice, which was 

 planted in various kinds of soil with such good 

 results that the first crop yielded almost enough 



HOW RICE GROWS 



to supply everybody in South Carolina. From 

 this chance beginning rice growing has spread 

 to other parts of the United States, where soil 

 and climate are adapted to the special needs of 

 the plant. The temperature it requires for 

 ripening is between 60 and 80 F. 



Its Thirsty Habits. Since rice traces its 

 family history back to a shore grass, it is only 

 natural to find that it has inherited habits of 

 growth demanding a great deal of water. It 

 likes rich mud to root in, especially with a 

 layer of clayey soil beneath to hold the mois- 

 ture ; and most of the time, except during actual 

 cultivation, it is necessary to keep the ground 

 flooded to a depth of many inches. At a dis- 

 tance a crowing r ; cc f ic id looks like an emerald 

 lake. 



The fertile deltas of great rivers the Tigris, 

 Euphrates, Ganges, Irrawaddy, Yan~-tse-kiang, 

 the Nile and the Mississippi are marvelously 

 well adapted to the needs of this aquatic grain 

 because they are subject to flooding from the 



overflow. So are the well-watered plains ami 

 river-bottoms of India and China, and the low 

 swamps and reclaimed t.dflands of the South 

 Atlantic and Gulf states. The Hawaiian Is- 

 lands, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Ceylon, 

 the West Indies, and parts of Central and 

 South America are all good rice-growing dis- 

 tricts because of their well-irrigated valleys and 

 abundant rainfall. 



Where there is less natural moisture there must 

 be artificial irrigation; and, therefore, in the 

 prairie regions of Texas, Louisiana and Arkan- 

 sas great pumps operated by steam or gasoline 

 brinj water to the rice plantations from near-by 

 wells and streams. In India, where drought and 

 famine have afflicted the people for countless 

 centuries, the British government is spending 

 millions of dollars on irrigation canals. In 

 many parts of China and Japan the water is 

 pumped up to the terraced rice fields by tread- 

 mills at which men and boys, or blindfolded 

 bullocks and water buffaloes, labor all day long. 

 Often it is brought up in buckets passed from 

 hand to hand. Where the country is rugged, 

 as in certain districts of Java, China, and Japan, 

 the mountain streams plunge from terrace to 

 terrace, supplying natural irrigation. 



Upland Rice. There is an upland variety 

 that can be grown without water culture, in 

 practically the same way as oats and wheat. 

 Some claim that it is even superior in quality 

 to the ordinary lowland rice, although it does 

 not yield so abundant a crop. 



The Rice Field and Its Cultivation. Ridges 

 or embankments of earth divide the rice field 

 into many smaller fields separated by canals 

 equipped with dams, sluices and floodgates, by 

 means of which they can be flooded or drained, 

 as the needs of the plants may require. Since 

 salt water is fatal to rice, plantations which, 

 like those of South Carolina, depend upon the 

 tides for flooding are situated sufficiently far 

 from the sea to be free from salt water and 

 carefully protected by dikes. They are flooded 

 from the river at high tide and drained at low 

 tide. 



The great rice plantations of the Southern 

 United States have introduced modern agri- 

 cultural machinery, thus revolutionizing an in- 

 dustry which once received only hand cultiva- 

 tion. The South Carolina soil is too soft and 

 marshy to permit the use of heavy farm ma- 

 chines, but that of the Texas and Louisiana rice 

 region, artificially irrigated, is sufficiently solid 

 to be cultivated according to the labor-saving 

 methods which have made American agricul- 



