6 THE TEXAS RICE BOOK. 



stroyed all of his cotton, but his rice successfully withstood the 

 storm and yielded seventeen barrels per acre. Given a suitable 

 soil, plenty of water and intelligent husbandry and the rice crop 

 may be depended upon with a greater regularity than bank divi- 

 dends. 



A third reason for adopting rice as the staple food supply 

 in countries of dense population is that the annual crop does not 

 exhaust the soil as rapidlyas other cereals, the water of irrigation 

 furnishing a material amount of plant food, and in some coun- 

 tries a winter renovating crop, as clover in Egypt, is used, mak- 

 ing it possible to continuously crop a field in rice for an indefin- 

 ite period. Further, a staple food for a warm climate must be 

 one that can be easily preserved from one season to another. In 

 the tropics corn and wheat cannot constitute the staple food, ex- 

 cept in sparsely settled sections where corn can be held in the 

 shuck. Corn meal and wheat flour are soon spoiled, weevil and 

 must speedily make them unfit for use ; but rice can be stored 

 with -reasonable safety. It can be prepared and cooked with the 

 crudest implements, and is a healthful food for people of all ages 

 and all conditions. It is fair, therefore, to assume that the con- 

 sumption of rice in the United States will increase more rapidly 

 than the population, all other things being equal. A dense pop- 

 ulation will demand it. 



Fifteen years since it appeared highly improbable that rice 

 would ever occupy any commanding position in the food mar- 

 kets of this country. Wheat and corn imperially controlled the 

 situation and were dominating the markets of the world. The 

 spinning jenny and the power loom did not do more to enthrone 

 the cotton industry than the machine seeder, the twine binder and 

 the steam thresher did to make wheat chief of cereals. Rice, in 

 all this period of the evolution of wheat, remained stationary. 

 Fifty years ago it was planted, harvested and milled the world 

 over precisely as it was 2000 years before America was discov- 

 ered and to all appearances there would be no improvement for 

 the ensuing twenty centuries. One day some bold optimists con- 

 ceived the idea that improved farm machinery could be adjusted 

 to the rice industry. After many trials and failures it was a suc- 

 cess. The gang plow, the horse drill and the twine binder and 

 the steam thresher took possession of the rice fields. This in- 

 volved a revolution, to-wit, the Southern States would become in 

 the near future large contributors to the world's food supply as 

 well as to her fiber supply. 



I have digressed somewhat from the topic assigned me, 

 "Rice Culture in the South," to discuss some of the general pro- 

 positions relating to rice but necessary to a full understanding ^of 

 the situation. It is needless to enter into an account of the in- 

 troduction of rice into the United States. It is sufficient to state 

 that its cultivation, until recently, was along old lines, and that 

 ks production appeared likely to decrease, owing to the stronger 

 competition from India and Siam, due to the construction of the 



