MODERN RICE CULTURE. 21 



With these figures we should be able to form a fair estimate of the 

 amount of fertilizer to apply to rice land. But from this a deduction in 

 the amount of nitrogen to be applied may be made for the nitrogen which 

 is brought to the soil in rain water, and where irrigation is practiced a 

 deduction may be made not only in the amount of nitrogen but also in 

 the phosphoric acid and potash. What this amount is it will be impossible 

 to say until chemical analyses are made of the waters of the principal 

 rivers and streams of these Islands, and it is to be hoped that data in 

 reference to this matter will be available in the near future. 



Just in what form to apply fertilizers to rice lands is another question 

 to be considered. Rice is so peculiar in its habits of growth that the 

 matter of fertilizing it is very much more complicated than is the case of 

 ordinary crops. As was noted above, nitrification is an impossibility hi a 

 field of growing rice which is under water ; consequently, the application 

 of any but soluble fertilizers will give no immediate results, and such 

 soluble fertilizers as sodium nitrate and water soluble phosphates are so 

 high priced that it is questionable whether they will ever be extensively 

 used. The only practical scheme that can be suggested just now is that 

 the land be fertilized and fallowed, or that a system of rotation such as 

 is practiced in Java be introduced. By rotating the crop with corn, 

 leguminous plants, cane, and cotton, not" only is it possible to fertilize the 

 land and increase the subsequent yield, but noxious weeds can be either 

 totally destroyed, or at least greatly decimated. 



VARIETIES. 



The number of distinct varieties of rice is variously estimated at from 

 1,400 to 3,000. Whether there are even so many as 1,400, or whether the 

 same variety bears different names in different localities, is not known. 

 It is very well recognized, nevertheless, that varieties play an important 

 part in the color, shape, size, taste, yield, and maturity of the grain, and 

 too much care and judgment can not be exercised in selecting seed. Many 

 of the good effects of efficient cultivation will be lost if an inferior variety 

 of seed is planted, and there are certain varieties of the rice which are so 

 poorly adapted to the milling process that great financial losses are 

 incurred in cultivating them. 



In certain parts of the United States where Honduras rice was for- 

 merly exclusively grown this loss was so great that seed rice was imported 

 from Japan with the view of obviating this defect in the Honduras, and 

 the Japanese rice gave such satisfactory results, not only in the greater 

 resisting power which it possessed in withstanding the breakage of the 

 mills, but also in the yield per acre, that larger quantities were imported 

 the following year, and now the Japanese rice is cultivated very 

 extensively. 



Some of this Japan rice has lately been imported by the Insular Bureau 

 of Agriculture and is now being distributed to the farmers of the Islands. 



