RICE. 



317 



cultivators. It is usual to soak the rice-seed in water for twenty-four 

 hours previously, with the double object of quickening its vegetation, 

 and preventing its floating on the surface of the water, as without 

 this precaution it occasionally does. 



Twelve or fifteen days after the sowing, the young plants rise above 

 the surface of the soil, and as they increase in height, the sheet of 

 water is gradually increased with them, so that merely their tops show 

 above it. The fields are kept in this flooded state until the plant 

 flowers, which, according to the time of sowing, takes place between 

 the middle of July and the middle of August. About this time the 

 flooding of the crop is replaced by regular but abundant irrigation, at 

 intervals of a few days. When the head becomes well formed, the 

 grain of good size and the colour changes from deep to lighter 

 yellowish green, all use of water is discontinued, the land is drained 

 as dry as practicable, and in ten or fifteen days afterwards the crop is 

 ready for cutting. The rice harvest in the north of Italy ranges, 

 according to circumstances, from the middle of September to the 

 beginning of October ; and the crop is cut with the scythe when large 

 compartments are used, and with the reaping-hook in the smaller 

 ones. The grain is made into small sheaves about 25 lbs. or 30 lbs. 

 in weight, and with a constant length of 18 inches. When the plants 

 are longer than this, they are cut higher, and the stubble is afterwards 

 ploughed in as manure. 



The thrashing is effected after the Oriental fashion, by the treading 

 of bullocks or horses ; and the grain is subsequently dried for some 

 days by exposure to the sun. It is then stored, and during the 

 winter, when water is cheap and abundant, it is cleared of the husks 

 in the rice mills attached to the farms, which are worked by water- 

 power. Throughout Northern Italy the meadow and rice lands may 

 be said almost to divide between them that vast volume of water 

 which is every year poured over the face of the country. - 



Italy exported the following quantity of rice : 



Kilos. 



1862 26,666,820 



1866 52,466,222 



1867 86,340,069 



1870 86,681,044 



Kilos. 



1871 84,350,000 



1872 75,372,000 



1873 66,421,000 



1875 72,769,000 



India. — At least three-fourths of the rice that forms the export 

 trade of the world is exported from British India. Bengal rice finds 

 its way wherever coolies emigrate, and no other rice seems able to 

 compete with it in the market. 



The rice exported from Calcutta is divided broadly into three 

 qualities : table rice, ballam, and moonghy ; of these table rice is of 

 course the best quality. Ballam is mostly Backergunge and Eastern 

 Bengal rice ; the name may be supposed to be derived from the 

 Chittagong boats of peculiar construction in which the rice is carried, 

 called ballam boats. The moonghy is common or inferior rice. To 

 the United Kingdom the exports in the largest proportion are of 

 table rice ; and similarly to Bombay and Australia, where it is in- 

 tended in the first instance as food for Europeans ; the rice exported 



