MODERN RICE CULTURE. / 



SOILS SUITABLE FOR RICE GROWING. 



Any fairly fertile soil that has sufficient clay to retain the moisture will 

 grow rice. Generally speaking, lands which will produce cane, cotton, 

 and corn will produce rice, and, where a system or rotation is followed in 

 the cultivation of these crops, rice can be made a part of the system with 

 advantage. It does not follow, however, that cotton, cane, or corn will 

 grow well where rice will thrive. On the contrary, the best rice lands are 

 those which have an impervious substratum of clay, and, ordinarily, such 

 lands are not very well adapted to sugar, corn, and cotton culture. 



In selecting a site for a rice farm we shall speak of lowland rice only 

 for the present rolling lands should be avoided, as it is impossible to 

 flood such lands economically. The greatest expense in the cultivation of 

 rice is the cone connected with the construction of levees, and the amount 

 of leveeing depends altogether upon the topography of the country. 

 Perfectly level land presents ideal conditions for rice culture, because the 

 "cuts" may be made as extensive as one may desire, the limit being the 

 amount which can be planted in two or three days. A larger field would 

 be impracticable, because the rice would not all germinate at the same 

 time. The advantages of large cuts over small ones can not be exagger- 

 ated. Not only is the expense of leveeing very much reduced, but the 

 amount of unoccupied land is not so great, and there is not so much likeli- 

 hood of the fields becoming infested with weeds, as these levees are verita- 

 ble weed nurseries. Furthermore, if the nature of the soil permits, twine 

 binders can be more profitably employed than in small cuts. 



When the land slopes, on the other hand, the size of cuts depends 

 altogether upon the grade. Eice will not thrive well in more than 8 or 10 

 inches of water, and if the land has a slope of, let us say, 3 inches to the 

 acre, it will be necessary to construct the levees every 2 acres, since 4 

 inches of water on the elevated end of the field will flood the rice to a 

 depth of 10 inches at the lower end. Therefore, the more the land slopes 

 the nearer the levees have to be, and finally a limit is reached when gang 

 plows and other implements can not be used, as every turn at the end of 

 the cut represents a loss of time and money. 



There are two other factors which should be considered in selecting a 

 site for a rice farm, and these are irrigation and drainage. No one can 

 undertake the cultivation of rice and afford to ignore them, and they are 

 of such primary importance that they will be discussed under a separate 

 heading. 



