44 PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Dec, 1860. 



all hard except three or four of the lowermost on the panicle or head. The 

 water is drawn oif, and the Hands cut down with the Keap-hook as much as 

 they can bind into sheaves and carry into the barn-yard during the latter half 

 of the following day. During the forenoon of every day they cut down ; and 

 during the afternoon they tie up and carry to the Barn-yard that which has 

 been drying on the stubble since the day before. In the Barn-yard the Rice 

 is put up in Ricks, generally of 22 feet length, by 8 feet breadth, and built 

 up 12 or 15 feet high, of such shape as to turn the rain and keep the grain 

 dry ; and in this condition it remains until threshed either by machinery or 

 by flail. The portion intended for seed is never threshed by machinery, as 

 by this process many of the grains have the ' * chaff cracked " ( the glumes par- 

 tially separated ) so as to admit the water when planted, and this invariably 

 rots the grain. 



The Product of Rice Lands in Carolina varies from 30 to 75 bushels per acre ; 

 and the quality of the grain is better in the N. E. part of the State than farther 

 South. 



One of the worst evils with which the Cultivator of Rice has to contend is 

 Volunteer Rice. This is not a distinct species, but only a variety, produced in 

 this way : During Harvest some grains are unavoidably broken off and left in 

 the Held, many of them pressed down into the earth by the feet of the Harvest- 

 ers. Immediately after Harvest the fields are flowed for the purpose of sprout- 

 ing these. Most of those near the surface, in the earlier harvested fields, 

 germinate, and are destroyed by the first frost, but such as are too deep in the 

 earth to germinate, or for the birds and ducks to find during the Winter, remain 

 sound until brought near the surface in tui'ning the land, and they spring up 

 with the Rice sown for the crop, and grow with it. But its Winter exposure 

 has changed its character : it ripens earlier ; and when reaped with the crop 

 Rice, the grain so easily falls from the foot-stalk, that much of it is left in the 

 field to increase the evil the next season. The product of this first year volun- 

 teer has these peculiarities augmented every season, so that by the third or 

 fourth year, the head of Volunteer Rice has ripened and dropped all its grains 

 by the time of Harvest, and half the sheaves carried to the Barn-yard may be 

 ' * nothing but straw. " Nor does the evil end here. The Volunteer grains which 

 reach the mill require to be pounded longer than the Gold-Seed, because the 

 Palea which forms the inner pellicle of the grain, is much more adherent, as 

 well as much more apparent, having changed its straw-color ( or nearly white ) 

 of the Gold-Seed, to a decided red, and this longer pounding impairs the 

 quality of the whole. 



The Grasses most troublesome to the Rice crop are the following : 



Water Crab, (Oeresia fluiUins,) 



Goose Grass, 



Shank Grass, {Fanicum crusgalli, ) 



Shiny Grass or Flaxseed, {lihyncJws'poi'a hngirostris, ) 



Rice-Cousin or Cat-tail, {Leersia oryzoides, ) 



Bull Grass or Crowfoot, (Paspalum distichum^) 



Savannah Grass, {Aukixanthus ciliatus, Ell., or Panicum ignoratum.) 



