30 MAIZE, RICE 



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those from the United States, South Africa, Canada, and 

 British India increased 



RICE (Oryza sativa). Rice, like wheat and the other cereals, 

 is a grass, and sends up long hollow stems varying from two 

 feet in height to ten feet. The lower stems have many branches 

 which send out roots from their joints. They grow in water, 1 

 so that the cultivation of rice is never a very healthy occu- 

 pation. 



At the end of each stem is a cluster of branches with spike- 

 lets arranged along them. Each spikelet produces one grain 

 which is surrounded by two pales ; these are slightly hairy 

 on the upper part. 



The rice usually sold in our shops is the grain without its 

 husks (i.e. pales or glumes) ; when the pales are left on it 

 is called paddy. The grains when ground are not usually 

 called rice -flour but ground rice. Of all grains it is the one 

 grown most extensively for food, yet it is less nutritious than 

 any of them. It is light and easy of digestion, and is some- 

 times used instead of potatoes, for which, however, it forms 

 a very poor substitute. 



CULTIVATION. Great heat and abundance of moisture are 

 necessary for the growth of rice, and it is cultivated in 

 all the low-lying rainy lands within the tropics. India is 

 usually considered to be its home, and it has been one 

 of the chief crops there and in China from the remotest 

 ages. 



SOURCES OF SUPPLY. The great Deltas of the rivers flowing 

 into the Bay of Bengal are the chief rice -growing lands in the 

 empire ; here the rice-fields cover millions of acres of moist 

 land, the rainfall is everywhere abundant, but nowhere more 

 so than in Assam, where it sometimes reaches the astonishing 

 total of 600 inches in a year. 



Yet though so much rice is grown in Bengal, the population 

 is so great that enormous quantities of it are required for 



1 There is a variety which grows on the slopes of hills, inland, but it is 

 not of such importance as the lowland kind. 



