534 



RICE 



RICE 



Fodder Crops, Chapman & Hall, London ; W. M. 

 Hays, Rape — Test of Varieties, Bulletin No. 46, 

 Minnesota Experiment Station ; A. S. Hitchcock, 

 Rape as a Forage Crop, Farmers' Bulletin No. 164, 

 United States Department of Agriculture ; John 

 A. Craig, The Rape Crop, Its Growth and Value 

 for Soiling and Fattening Sheep and Swine, Bulletin 

 No. 58, Wisconsin Experiment Station ; Forage 

 and Fodders, Report, Kansas State Board of Agri- 

 culture, Quarter Ending March, 1900 ; J. H. Gria- 

 dale. The Rape Plant : Its Culture, Use and Value, 

 Bulletin No. 42, Central Experimental Farm, 

 Ottawa, Canada ; The Book of Rothamsted Experi- 

 ments, Compiled by A. D. Hall, John Murray, 

 London (1905); Wm. T. Brannt, Animal and Vege- 

 table Fats and Oils, Henry Carey Baird & Com- 

 pany, Philadelphia. 



RICE. Oryza sativa, Linn. Graminem. Figs. 768 

 773 ; also Fig. 531, p. 371. 



By S. A. Knapp. 



An annual plant of the grass family grown for 

 its grain, which is used for human food. The 

 seeds grow on short separate stems radiating from 

 the main stalk, and at maturity stand at a height 

 of two to iive feet. The flowers of rice (Pig. 768) 

 are perfect with six stamens, 

 one borne in each spikelet, 

 and usually with rudiments of 

 others ; the fruit or grain 

 (Fig. 769) is oblong and ob- 

 tuse and closely enclosed in 

 the glume or hull, and it falls 

 or shells easily, hull and all. 

 The grain is used in a great 

 variety of ways, and it prob- 

 ably supplies more human be- 

 ings with food than any other 

 single plant. Rice is exten- 

 sively cultivated around the 

 world in the tropical and sub- 

 tropical countries, mostly fol- 

 lowing the shores. Its culture 

 is very ancient. 



Distribution. 



While a tropical plant, rice 

 thrives in subtropical coun- 

 tries. It is known to have ex- 

 isted in India in early historic 

 periods and is doubtless indig- 

 , ,?*s. ?68. enous there. It requires a 



•^ PiirX^^hot rich, moist soil, but is of wide 

 ing flower -with adaptation. It thrives better 

 siTstemOTs^ ma. tinder high temperature than 

 531 shows the wheat and is more resistant 

 habitofthepiant. ^ extreme heat. It has been 

 produced under favorable conditions as far north 

 as 44°, but its production is limited chiefly to about 

 40° north and south of the equator; hence it is 

 adapted to all of the states south of Pennsylvania, 

 and under favorable conditions may be grown in 

 most of the United States. With increasing den- 

 sity of population it will doubtless become a staple 



crop in all of the states south of the Ohio river, 

 especially on lands now considered waste by reason 

 of insufiicient drainage. Wherever fresh water is 

 found in abundance and can be economically ap- 

 plied to the lands within the rice zone, it will 

 prove a profitable crop and will become staple. 



In the United States 

 the production of rice 

 has been limited mainly 

 to the south Atlantic 

 coast states and to the 

 states bordering on the , 

 Gulf of Mexico. 



Development of the rice Pig. 769. Two types of rice. 



industry.- The common long Hon- 



^ duras on the left, and the 



Rice was first intro- short Japanese on the 



duced into America soon ".e^-^K '^^o short-kerneied 



jfi j.1. J.J.1 i. £ rice does not break so 



after the settlement Ot readily as the long, in the 



Virginia and attained polishing, 

 considerable importance 



ill the colonial times. According to the Encyclo- 

 pedia Americana, the practical introduction of 

 rice took place accidentally in 1694 in lower Caro- 

 lina. A vessel bound for Liverpool from Madi- 

 gascar, blown out of her course and in need of 

 repairs, put into Charleston. The captain gave 

 Landgrave Thomas Smith a small parcel of rough 

 rice. This was used as seed ; , enough was soon 

 grown to provide the needs of the colony, and 

 early in the following century it began to fur- 

 nish a considerable amount for export. In 1707, 

 seventeen ships were reported as sailing from 

 South Carolina with cargoes of rice. Production 

 gradually increased, and in 1730 it reached 

 21,153,054 pounds; in 1755 it was 50,747,090 

 pounds, and in 1770 it had increased to 75,264,- 

 500 pounds. This was the product of slave labor 

 and was mostly exported to Europe and the West 

 Indies. During the next seventy years the increase 

 was slight. In 1840 the report was only 84,145,800 

 pounds, but in 1860 it amounted to 187,167,032 

 pounds. The civil war practically destroyed the 

 industry. The crop of 1865 was reported at 

 4,740,580 pounds. It gradually revived till in 

 1880 it reached 85,596,800 pounds, and in 1893, 

 237,546,900 pounds, of which amount Louisiana 

 produced approximately 182,400,000 pounds and 

 the Atlantic coast 55,146,900^ pounds. In 1905, 

 the total rice crop of the country was 12,923,920 

 bushels, valued at $12,266,343. 



In Louisiana the production of rice began at an 

 early date, but the commercial product was mainly 

 confined to the alluvial lands along the Mississippi 

 till about 1884, when on the prairie region of 

 southwestern Louisiana the rice industry began to 

 be developed along entirely new Mnes. The wheat 

 machinery of the northwestern states was adjusted 

 to the rice crop ; the gang-plow, the force-feed 

 drill, the twine binder and the steam thresher 

 became necessary adjuncts to the rice-farm. This 

 was possible because the tenacious subsoil of the 

 prairies along the Gulf coast becomes firm enough 

 to sustain harvesting machinery in the period that 

 elapses between drawing off the water of irrigation 



