56 NUTRITIVE PLANTS. 



According to father Labat, the smallest bits of manioc which have 

 escaped the grater, and the clods which have not passed the sieve, 

 are not useless. They are dried in the stove after the flour is roast- 

 ed, and then pounded in a mortar to a fine white powder, with 

 which they make soup. It is likewise used for making a kind of 

 thick coarse cassada, which is roasted till almost burnt ; of this, 

 fermented with melasses and West India potatoes, they prepare a 

 much esteemed drink or beverage called ouycou. This liquor, the 

 favourite drink of the natives, is sometimes made extremely strong, 

 especially on any great occasion, as a feast ; with this they get intoxi- 

 cated, and remembering their old quarrels, massacre and murder 

 each other. Such of the inhabitants and workmen as have not 

 wine, drink ouycou. It is of a red colour, strong, nourishing, re- 

 freshing, and easily inebriates the inhabitants, who soon accustom 

 themselves to it as easily as beer. 



[Linn. Labat. Editor. 



5ECTION VII. 



Rice. 

 Qryza. Linn. 



0f this most useful esculent there is but one known species, 

 which is supposed to be a native of Ethiopia, though now propa- 

 gated in different parts of the four quarters of the globe. It affords 

 many varieties, of which the following are tlie chief. 



a Common rice : cut six or eight months after planting. 



C Early rice : ripens and is cut the fourth month after planting. 



y Dry or mountain rice : the paddy of the Hindus ; grows in 

 mountains and other dry soils. 



$ Clammy rice: with large, glutinous, very white seeds; will 

 grow well in both dry and moist soils. 



These plants may be increased by seeds in the early parts of 

 spring. The seeds should be sown in a hot-bed, and when the 

 plants appear, they should be transplanted into pots filled with rich 

 light earth, and placed in pans of water which should be plunged 

 into a hot-bed ; and as the water wastes it must be renewed from 

 time to time. '1 he plants must be preserved in a stove all the sum- 

 mer ; when towards the end of August they will produce grain, 



