158 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



larly Cochin China, named it riz sec or dry rice, and sent 

 the seed to Europe, where many experiments were made with 

 it. It yielded no better than any other kind of rice, and was 

 found like all others to succeed best when inundated. The 

 reason why it yielded so much more in Asia than in Europe 

 can be readily accounted for, by the natural inundations it 

 receives from the excessive rains during the monsoons. 



No variety has been discovered which yields as much 

 out of the water as it does in it. There are many localities 

 in the United States, where the culture of rice by the irriga- 

 ting system, would rather serve to make the surrounding 

 neighborhoods healthy instead of sickly. It is generally ad- 

 mitted, that a given surface of ground completely inundated, 

 is much less unhealthy than the same surface partially in- 

 undated, or in transitu between the wet and the dry state. 

 Hence mill-ponds which partially dry up in the summer, are 

 fruitful sources of disease. Some of the best rice is said to 

 grow on the bottom of mill-ponds. Nothing more is ne- 

 cessary, than to make the bottom perfectly level, and 

 then to overflow the whole surface just deep enough to keep 

 the top leaves above water. As if to show that unhealthi- 

 ness is not necessarily connected with the culture of this 

 valuable grain, nature has imposed a law upon it, ordering 

 that it should flourish better when overflowed with pure 

 running water than with the stagnant waters of impure lakes 

 and marshes. 



There are two kinds of rice, which are said to succeed 

 best on uplands, the long and the round. The former has a 

 red chaff, and is very difficult to beat. The latter shakes 

 out, if not cut as soon as ripe. They nevertheless succeed 

 best under the inundation system of culture. In the eastern 

 hemisphere, rice is cultivated as far North as the 46th degree 

 of latitude. The climate of the United States is better suit- 

 ed to it than that of Europe, because our summers are hotter. 

 In the northern part of China, the variety called the imperial 

 rice, or riz sec de la Chine (the oriza sativa mutica), is more 

 precocious than any other, is said to yield a heavy harvest, 

 and to constitute the principal food for the people of that 

 populous region. But it has succeeded no better in Europe 

 than any other kind of rice. 



The best rice lands of South Carolina are valued at five 

 hundred dollars per acre, while the best cotton lands sell for 

 a tenth part of that sum, proving that rice is more profitable 

 than cotton. The profits of a crop should not so much be es- 



