134 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



" There are two kinds of rice, which aj-e said to succeed 

 best on uplands ; the long and the round. The former has a 

 red chaff, and is very difficult to beat. The latter shakes 

 out, if not cut as soon as ripe. They nevertheless succeed 

 best under the inundation system of culture. In the eastern 

 hemisphere, rice is cultivated as far north as the 46lh degree 

 of latitude. The climate of the United States is better suited 

 to it than that of Europe, because our summers are hotter. 

 In the northern part of China the variety called the imperial 

 rice, or riz sec de la Chine (the oriza saliva mutica), is more 

 precocious than any other, is said to yield a heavy harvest, and 

 to constitute the principal food for the people of that populous 

 region. But it has succeeded no better in Europe than. any 

 other kind of rice. 



" The best rice lands of South Carolina are valued at five 

 hundred dollars per acre, while the best cotton-lands sell for a 

 tenth part of that sum, proving that rice is more profitable than 

 cotton. The profits of a crop should not so much be estima. 

 ted by the yield per acre, as the number of acres a laborer 

 can till. After the land is properly prepared for inundation, 

 by levelling, ditching, and embankments, a single individual 

 can grow almost an indefinite quantity of rice. Rice is no 

 doubt ultimately destined to supersede cotton in a large por- 

 tion of Mississippi and Louisiana." 



MIL LET (Panicum milliaceum) 



In it growth and the manner of bearing its seeds, the mil- 

 let strongly resembles a miniature broom corn. It grows to 

 the height of 2 to 4 feet with a profusion of stalks and 

 leaves which furnish excellent forage for cattle. From 80 

 to 100 bushels of seed per acre have been raised, and with 

 straw equivalent to li or 2 tons of hay, but an average crop 

 may be estimated at about one third this quantity. Owing to 

 the great waste during the ripening of the seed, from the shel- 

 ling of the earliest of it before the last is matured, and the 

 frequent depredations of birds which are very fond of it, mil- 

 let is more profitably cut when the first seeds have began to 

 ripen, and harvested for fodder. It is cured like hay, and on 

 good land yields from 2i to 4 tons per acre. All cattle relish 

 it, and experience has shown it to be fully equal to good hay. 



CULTIVATION. Millet requires a dry, rich and well pul- 

 verized soil. It will grow on thin soil, but best repays on the 

 most fertile. It should be sown broadcast or in drills from the 

 1st May to 1st July. If for hay and sown broadcast, 40 



