XIV RICE 265 



way the germ is destroyed, and all surplus moisture is 

 driven off. 



In the tropics maize will give a return in from two to Returns, 

 three months, and thus several crops may be taken off the 

 same ground during the year. But unless the land be 

 very rich, high manuring will be necessary, and no crop. Manuring. 

 perhaps, shows better results for expenditure in manures 

 than maize. The returns vary much, according to soil, cli- 

 mate and cultivation. From fifty to eighty bushels should be Heavy 

 obtained from good land, but much heavier crops are often ^°^^' 

 reaped, and 100 bushels to the acre is not an uncommon 

 yield in some parts of the United States, 



Rice. Ory::a sativa. 



Of all the grain crops, rice supplies food for the principal The enor- 

 number of the human race. It is said to be the greatest JJimptSnof 

 sustenance of a third of the population of the globe. And "'=^- 

 Porter says of it, in his Tropical Agriculturist^ "From 

 "time immemorial it has formed the staple food of the 

 "great mass of the vast population of China, and of a large 

 "proportion of the natives of India and the adjacent isles." 



The plant is supposed to be a native of the warmer regions Habitat, 

 of Asia ; but, as it has been found growing wild in several 

 places in South America, it is thought by some botanists to 

 be also of American origin. The cultivation, formerly con- 

 fined to the East, has now spread over most of the tropical 

 and sub-tropical countries of the world. In the Southern Cultivation 

 States of America the cultivation of rice began about the 

 year 1700, seed having been introduced by the captain of 

 a vessel that had come from Madagascar ; and, before long 

 the Carolina rice became the finest in the world. Atwood Carolina 



' nee. 



in 1791, writes, " Rice grows extremely well in Dominica, 

 and he states that it was introduced by the American re- 

 fugees, and that it yielded crops " in great perfection." At Former 

 the beginning of this century Lunan wrote that it " thrives ?"^'jj^^^°" 

 well in many parts of Jamaica," and he expresses his regret indies. 



