158 WALL'S MANUAL 



or space between the rows, are not broken up until 

 the rice attains several inches in height. One or two 

 plo wings suffice in the piney woods for its cultivation, 

 weeds and grass, owning to the nature of the soil, not 

 being troublesome, 



There are two kinds of rice, said to succeed best 

 on uplands, the long and the round, The long, has a 

 red chaff, and is very difficult to beat out. The round 

 shakes out, if not cut as soon as ripe. They, never- 

 theless, all succeed best under the inundation system 

 of culture, for rice is essentially a water plant. 



Before the war, the best rice lands of South 

 Carolina and Georgia, w r ere valued at five hundred 

 dollars per acre ; while the best cotton lands sold for 

 one- tenth part of that sum; proving that rice w T as 

 more profitable than cotton. The profit of a crop of 

 rice, should not be estimated by the yield per acre, 

 but by the number of acres a laborer can till. After 

 the land is properly prepared for inundation, by 

 levelling, ditching, and embankments, a single indi- 

 vidual can grow rice almost without limit. If Chinese 

 labor is introduced into the lower Yalley of the 

 Mississippi, rice is ultimately destined to supercede 

 cotton, in a large portion of the States of Mississippi 

 and Louisiana, 



From the immense extent of our lowlands through- 

 out the delta of the Mississippi, which, if subjected 

 to the inundating system for growing rice, may be 

 considered of inexhaustible fertility, we may expect 

 at some future day, not very distant, to surpass every 

 other portion of the world in the quantity, as we do 

 now in the quality, of our rice. (Condensed from 

 Allen's American Farm Book.} 



