190 



A careful cultivation of the rice-plant for consecu- 

 tive centuries, has been the means of developing 

 an insignificant grass into one of the most impor- 

 tant of our food-grains ; but the plant is far from 

 having reached the limit of improvement, for it will 

 be shown that a still more careful cultivation will 

 produce a still superior food-grain. 



India is, no doubt, the native habitat of rice, but 

 its cultivation has gradually spread to other countries 

 to Egypt, Madagascar, the south of Europe, and 

 America. In this last-mentioned country its 

 culture has been improved to an extent that raises 

 it above all other descriptions grown elsewhere ; 

 and while the best Patna rice realizes in the London 

 market 13s. to 16s. per cwt., American or, as it is 

 more commonly called, Carolina rice is quoted 

 from 35s. to 37s. per cwt. 



Such difference in price indicating, as it does, 

 the superior quality and nutritive power of Carolina 

 rice did not fail to attract the attention of the 

 Indian Government at an early period. When, 

 therefore, in 1845, the Directors of the East India 

 Company sent Captain Bayles to America, to procure 

 American cotton-seed, gins, and overseers, for the 

 purpose of ascertaining the practicability of raising 

 cotton by the American method in India, they gave 

 him especial instructions to initiate himself thorough- 

 ly into the American system of rice-culture. 



The Carolina rice -plant is essentially the same 



