292 DESCRITTIVE BOTANY. 



The growth of rice in America dates from about the year 1 700. It is related 

 that a vessel from Madagascar entered one of the ports of South Carolina, 

 believed to be Charleston, and the captain of the vessel presented Mr. Wood- 

 ward, a settler, with a small quantity of seed rice, which he planted. Soon 

 after this occurrence Mr. Dubois, the treasurer of the East India Co., sent to 

 Carolina a bag of rice. From these two small quantities of seed, coming from 

 different countries, sprang the three varieties of rice grown in America, one 

 of which is now the favorite in the markets of America, as well as in Europe, 

 and is pronounced the best in the world. 



Rice of excellent quality is raised in the Sandwich Islands, most of which is 

 brought to the United States via San Francisco. 



Cultivation. — The mode of culture is to prepare the ground, plant the seed 

 in drills a foot apart in the row, with the rows far enough apart to work 

 between them in keeping the ground free from weeds. After planting, the 

 field is flooded for some days, and then the water is drained off. AVhen the 

 plants make their appearance above the ground the water is again let on to 

 kill the young weeds. After two or three weeks, in the month of April, the 

 water is again withdrawn, and the ground kept free from weeds with the hoe. 

 AVhen the plants are some eight inches to a foot in height, late in August or 

 early in September, the water is let on and left till the grain is ripe. Then 

 the water is finally withdrawn, and as soon as the ground is sufficiently dry, 

 the crop is reaped, bound in sheaves, and taken to the high land to cure and 

 to be threshed. 



A continuation of rainy weather about harvest time, which frequently 

 occurs in southern India, renders the rice crop uncertain there. In 1770 the 

 crop failed, or was destroyed, and ten million persons died of starvation ; in 

 1860 one and a half million persons perished from the same cause. 



Use. — Rice, in the United States, is used in many ways : it is prepared by 

 boiling in water and eaten as a vegetable ; cooked with milk and eaten as a 

 porridge for dessert ; baked with milk and eggs for dessert puddings ; ground 

 into flour and used to thicken soups and gravies ; and also made into griddle- 

 cakes. It is said that the modes of cooking rice in the East are very numerous ; 

 but the masses of Asia boil it in the most simple manner, and eat it without 

 any sort of dressing. 



Rice, in India, China, Japan, Egypt, and the islands off the coast of Asia, 

 forms the principal article of food for more than five hundred million persons. 

 The greater part of the teeming millions of Japan, China, and southern India 

 seldom taste any other food. It furnishes food for a far greater number of 

 people than any other plant. Rice does not possess the nutritive qualities of 

 the other food grains, being constituted largely of starch ; it should not be 

 eaten until six or eight months after harvesting. 



SACCHARTTM, L. (Sugar Cane.) Spikelets panicled, in pairs, one 

 pedicellate, and the other sessile, spikelets made up of 2 flowers each, 

 at the base of which is a tuft of long silky hairs ; lower floret without 

 stamens or pistils, a single bract at the base ; upper floret perfect ; 

 glumes 2, equal, and without awns ; stamens 1 to 3 ; ovary sessile, 

 glabrous ; styles 2, elongated ; stigma plumose ; hairs simple and 

 toothed. Fruit free, perennial. 



S. officinarum, L. (Sugar Cane.) Stem or culm 10 to 20 feet high, com- 

 posed of a strong cortex filled with a pith, charged with a sugary substance. 



