PEODDCTS WE MIGHT GROW. 113 



where they come up too thick, and filling up blanks and 

 thin spaces. After being thinned out to an average 

 distance of about an inch apart, two or three hoeings bring 

 the crop to maturity. By dry cultivation, rice is found to 

 ripen sooner than when it is flooded, but the latter is 

 unmistakably the heavy crop, and experts say the grain is 

 finer. In America the rice-fields are flooded at planting 

 time, and to a depth of four or five inches around the 

 plants as soon as they are high enough to stand it, and this 

 is repeated at intervals until the crop comes into ear. In 

 favourable seasons and on strong land the roots, in 

 Australia, are found capable of bearing two crops. The 

 first ripens in February and March. When ripe, the grain 

 and straw become yellowish, like wheat, and the tokens of 

 ripeness in that grain apply to rice. The heads of the first 

 crop are then cut off the wheat-stripper should answer 

 for this work, as the grain stands well up. The second 

 crop (at this stage looking like half-grown wheat) then 

 springs up. and ripens in from five to eight weeks. In 

 ordinary farming, the rice is cut down with reaping-hook, 

 scythe, or machine, bound up in sheaves, stacked, and 

 thrashed out. The husks stick very closely to the grain, 

 and are removed by millstones, set at such distance apart as 

 to split off the chaff without injuring the grain. In 

 America, " hullers " are used for this purpose ; they cost 

 from 15 to 40. The rice is then dressed or polished in 

 machinery less or more expensive. The grain i.s best 

 preserved in the husk or " paddy " state, and is usually 

 sold in that form by the growers. The crop ranges from 

 twenty to forty bushels per acre. It is one of the 

 bestrpaying and least-exhausting grain crops grown, and in 

 Australia would be harvested at a time when there is little 

 doing on the cane plantations. 



CHICORY. This plant has been cultivated here, as a 

 forage crop principally, for many years. Our German and 

 French fellow-colonists are especially partial to it, and in a 

 few cases have extended chicory culture to over an acre. 

 As a rule, however, a few perches only are grown, mostly 

 used for feeding cattle. Ten tons of roots per acre is a 

 fair average crop of chicory in Victoria, where it is grown 



