CHAIN AND ITS OTLTIVATION. 133 



ad iiiiinitum, if it \vere not that the land, after a few years> 

 ig to tlie sandy nature of the soil, becomes too dry for it. 

 1 1 lias been ascertained by Arnal, that 12 pounds of wheat 

 flour and 2 pounds of rice will make 24 pounds of an excel 

 leul bread, very white and good ; whereas, without the addi- 

 tion of rice, 14 pounds of flour will only make 18 pounds of 

 bread. Like other kinds of grain, rice adapts itself to the 

 soil and climate, and particular mode of cultivation ; but if 

 the seed be not changed, or selected from the best specimens 

 of the plant, it will ultimately degenerate. Thus in Pied- 

 mont, after a long series of year.-, the rice became so much 

 affected with a kind of blight called the brusone, as to compel 

 the Piedmontese to import fresh seed in 1829, from South 

 Carolina; The American rice introduced into Piedmont es- 

 caped the brusone, but it was several years before it adapted 

 itself to the soil and climate. Some years ago, a French tra- 

 veller by the name of Poivre, finding rice growing in great 

 perfection on the mountains and highlands of Asia, particular- 

 ly Cochin China, named it t riz sec 1 or dry rice, and sent the 

 seed to Europe, where many experiments were made with it. 

 It yielded no better than any other kind of rice, and was 

 found like all others to succeed best when inundated. The 

 reason why it yielded so much more in Asia than in Europe, 

 can be readily accounted for, by the natural inundations it 

 receives from the excessive rains during the monsoons. 



" No variety has been discovered which yields as much 

 out of the water as it does in it. There are many localities 

 in the United States, where the culture of rice by the irriga- 

 ting system, would rather serve to "make the surrounding 

 neighborhoods healthy instead of sickly. It is generally ad- 

 mitted, that a given surface of ground completely inundated, 

 is much less unhealthy than the same surface partially in- 

 undated, or in transitu between the wet and the dry state. 

 Hence mill-ponds which partially dry up in the summer, are 

 fruitful sources of disease. Some of the best rice is said to 

 grow on the bottom of mill-ponds. Nothing more is neces- 

 sary, than to make the bottom of the mill-pond perfectly level, 

 and then to overflow the whole surface just deep enough to 

 keep the top leaves above water. As if to show, that un- 

 healtliiness is not necessarily connected with the culture of 

 this valuable grain, nature has imposed a law upon it, order- 

 ing that it should flourish better when overflowed with pure 

 running water than with the stagnant waters of impure lakes 

 and marshes. 



