1836.] On Rice, Wool, and Cotton, from Nepal, 8$c. 367 



hot-house. In May they were removed to the green-house, where they 

 became stout, healthy plants. In the end of June they were transferred 

 to a sheltered place in a basin for the growth of aquatic plants, having 

 nine inches depth of water and twelve of mud; here they grew and 

 promised well till the beginning of August, when, the weather 

 becoming cloudy and rather cold, they became sickly, and were all 

 dead by the beginning of September without having come into flower. 

 It seems, therefore, evident that the temperature even of the warmer 

 parts of England is not sufficient for the successful cultivation of hill-rice. 



The latitude of Sirinagar, where this grain is cultivated, is about 

 30° ; that is, under nearly the same parallel as Cairo ; and although, 

 from its height above the sea and its vicinity to ridges of snowy 

 mountains, the winters are severe, yet in such situations the summers 

 are much hotter than on lower levels in higher latitudes, where the 

 average temperature of the whole year is not perhaps greater than 

 that of the middle of one of Europe. In Florence, and even in Rome, 

 frost and snow are by no means of unfrequent occurrence in the 

 winter, and yet the summers are hot enough to bring to perfection 

 many annual vegetable products, rice among the rest, which will 

 not succeed north of the Alps. 



Concerning the second head of inquiry, — viz. the comparative profit 

 of land cropped with hill-rice, and with barley or oats, — the Committee 

 are not in possession of a single fact on which to found an opinion. 

 But they may be allowed to state that, as the farinaceous food of 

 Europeans is consumed chiefly in the form of bread or of cakes, and 

 as rice is not capable of being made into either one or the other of 

 these preparations by the simple process of kneading with cold water 

 and then baking, either an additional process of cooking would be 

 necessary in the attempt to substitute rice for the ordinary European 

 grains, or the new habit must be superinduced, of doing without 

 bread and replacing it by boiled rice. 



In <!>rder to obtain a correct opinion of the comparative value of 

 hill-rice with the other qualities of this grain in the London market, 

 a sample was sent to Mr. Ewbank for examination. That gentleman 

 reports that fine Carolina rice, imported in the state of paddy and 

 cleaned here, is worth 30 shillings per cwt. ; that fine Bengal rice 

 cleaned here, is worth 23 shillings per cwt. ; that rough and inferior 

 East India rice, imported half-cleaned and finished here, is worth 14 

 shillings per cwt. This latter was purchased from the importer at 

 eight shillings, lost 20 per cent, in cleaning, and the cost of this 

 process was two shillings per cwt. ; so that there remained only two 

 shillings per cwt. for interest, profit, &c. 



