4 THE BOOK OF USEFUL PLANTS 



seed and improved by cultivation. Other regions 

 got the seed, and so the crop spread eastward 

 through what is now the great Chinese Empire, 

 Japan, Siam, and the islands between India and 

 Australia. 



The culture of rice in the valley of the Euphrates 

 was described by historians who wrote centuries 

 before the Christian Era. Rice is mentioned in 

 the Talmud. The Moors established it in Spain. 

 It was grown on both sides of the Mediterranean 

 Sea; with especial success in Italy. The boy 

 Columbus might have seen thousands of acres 

 of rice growing in the marshy lands about Genoa 

 and Pisa, as he wandered about, dreaming of that 

 far-off India he hoped to reach by a new route. 

 His expeditions opened the way for the rice 

 industry in Mexico and Central America. In 

 1647 the English attempted to grow rice in the 

 swamps owned by the Virginia Colony, but 

 that was out of its natural habitat — too far 

 north. 



The introduction of rice into the South was 

 an accident, though it must surely have come. 

 In 1694 a sailing vessel, bound for England from 

 Madagascar, encountered a gale off the coast of 

 South Carolina and was obliged to put into the 

 port of Charleston for repairs Here the captain 



