THE GRAMINEjE. 



221 



Tills calculation applies only to Knglanil and 

 Wales. Of the number consuming wheat, tlie 

 proportion assigned to the northern counties of 

 Yorl<, Westmoreland, Durham, Cumberland, 

 and Northumberland, is only 30,000. Eden, in 

 his History of the Poor, says, " About fifty years 

 ago (this was written in 1797), so small was the 

 quantity of wheat used in the county of Cum- 

 berland, that it was only a rich family that used 

 a peck of wheat in the course of the year, and 

 that was used at Christmas. The usuiil treat 

 for a stranger was a thick oat-cake (called haver- 

 bannock ) and butter. A n old labourer of eighty- 

 five remarks that when he was a boy he -was at 

 Carlisle market with his father, and wishing to 

 indulge himself with a penny loaf made of wheat- 

 flour, he searched for it for some time, but could 

 not procure a piece of wheaten bread at any shop 

 in the town." 



At the time of the Revolution, according to 

 the estimate of Gregory ICing, 14,000,000 bushels 

 of wheat were grown in England. In 1828, ac- 

 cording to the estimate of Mr Jacob, in his Tracts 

 on the Corn Trade, 12,500,000 quarters, or 

 100,000,000 bushels were grown. The popula- 

 tion of England at the Revolution was under 

 five millions, so that each person consumed about 

 tlu-ee bushels annually. The population, at the 

 present time, is under fifteen millions, so that 

 each person consumes about seven bushels an- 

 nually. 



Rice (oryza sativa) . This is a panicled grass, 

 bearing, when in ear, a 

 nearer resemblance to bar- 

 ley than to any other of the 

 corn-plants grown in Eng- 

 land. The seed grows on 

 separate pedicles springing 

 from the main stalk ; each 

 grain is terminated with an 

 awn or beard, and is in- 

 closed in a rough j^eUow 

 husk, the whole forming a 

 spiked panicle. The stalk 

 is not unlike that of wheat, 

 but the joints are more nu- 

 merous. The farina of rice 

 is almost entirely composed 

 of starch, having little or 

 no gluten, and being with- 

 out any ready formed sac- 

 charine matter. The outer 

 husk clings with great tenacity to the grain, 

 and is only to be detached from it by p;iss- 

 ing the rice between a pair of mill-stones, placed 

 at such a distance from each other as shall serve 

 to remove the husk by friction, without crush- 

 ing the grain. This is besides enveloped by a 

 thin pellicle, which for the most part is rubbed 

 off by trituration in large mortars, with pestles 

 weighing from two to three hundred pounds. 



There is little reason for doubting that this 

 grain is of Asiatic origin. From the earliest re- 

 cords it has formed the principal, if not the only 

 food of the great mass of the population on the 

 continent and islands of India and throughout 

 the Chinese empire. 



Rice is one of the chief productions of Egypt, 

 and constitutes one of the principal sources of 

 wealth to the inhabitants. It gi-ows in the rice 

 fields round Damietta and Rosetta, which are 

 easily irrigated for this purpose by the waters of 

 the Nile. The Egyptians are supposed to have 

 learned the cultivation of rice under the reign of 

 the Caliphs, at which time many useful plants 

 were brought over the Red sea to Egypt, which 

 now grow spontaneously there and enrich the 

 country. Hasselquist thus describes the man- 

 ner in which he witnessed the separation of the 

 grain from the husk. It is pounded by hollow 

 iron pestles of a cylindrical form, an inch in dia- 

 meter, lifted up by a wheel worked by oxen. A 

 person sitting between the two pestles pushes 

 forward the rice when the pestles are rising; 

 another sifts, winnows, and lays it under the 

 pestles. In this manner they continue working 

 until it is entirely free from chaff and husks. 

 When it is clean they add a thirtieth part of 

 salt, and pound them together, by which the 

 rice becomes white, which before was gray. 

 After this fining it is passed through a fine sieve 

 to part the salt from the rice, and then it is ready 

 for sale. 



The introduction of rice as an object of culti- 

 vation in America is of very modern occurrence. 

 The author of a work " On the importance of 

 the British Plantations in America," which was 

 published iu London during the year 1701, has 

 recorded, as a circumstance then recent, that " a 

 brigantine from the island of Madagascar hap- 

 pened to put in at Carolina, having a little seed- 

 rice left, which the captain gave to a gentleman 

 of the name of Woodward. From part of this 

 he had a very good crop, but was ignorant for 

 some years how to clean it. It was soon dis- 

 persed over the province ; and by frequent expe- 

 riments and observations, they found out ways 

 of producing and manufacturing it to so great 

 perfection, that it is thought to exceed any other 

 in value. The writer of this has seen the said 

 captain in Carolina, where he received a hand- 

 some gratuity from the gentlemen of that coun- 

 try, in acknowledgment of the service he had 

 done the province. It is likewise reported, that 

 Mr Dubois, then treasurer of the East India com- 

 pany, did send to that country a small bag of 

 seed-rice some short time after, from whence it 

 is reasonable enough to suppose might come those 

 two sorts of that commodity ; the one called red 

 rice, in contradistinction to the white, from the 

 redness of the inner husk or rind of this sort, al- 

 though tliey both clean and become white alike." 



