290 



EICE. 



got up loose, and threshed or trodden out, and winnowed in the 

 same manner as wheat or barley. 



Husking it requires a different and particular operation, in a 

 mill made for that purpose. This mill is constructed of two large 

 flat wooden cylinders, formed like mill-stones, with channels or 

 furrows cut therein, diverging in an oblique direction from the 

 centre to the circumference, made of a heavy and exceedingly hard 

 timber, called lightwood, which is the knots of the pitch pine. 

 This is turned with the hand, like the common hand-mills. After 

 the rice is thus cleared of the husks, it is again winnowed, when 

 it is fit for exportation. 



A bushel of rice will weigh about sixty or sixty-six pounds, and 

 an acre of middling land will produce twenty-five bushels. 



Various machines have been contrived for cleaning rice, of which 

 one secured by patent to Mr. M. Wilson, in 1826, and thus de- 

 scribed by Dr. Ure, may be regarded as a fair specimen : — It con- 

 sists of an oblong hollow cylinder, laid in an inclined position, 

 having a great many teeth stuck in its internal surface, and a 

 central shaft, also furnished with teeth. By the rapid revolution 

 of the shaft, its teeth are carried across the intervals of those of 

 the cylinder, with the efiect of parting the grains of rice, and 

 detaching whatever husks or impurities may adhere to them. A 

 hopper is set above to receive the rice, and conduct it down into 

 the clean cylinder. About eighty teeth are supposed to be set in 

 the cylinder, projecting so as to reach very nearly the central 

 shaifc, in which there is a corresponding number of teeth, that 

 pass freely between the former 



The cylinder may also be placed upright, or horizontal if pre- 

 ferred, and mounted in any convenient framework. The central 

 shaft should be put in rapid rotation, while the cylinder receives 

 a slow motion in the opposite direction. The rice, as cleaned by 

 that action, is discharged at the lower end of the cylinder, where 

 it falls into a shute, and is conducted to the ground. The machine 

 may be driven by hand, or by any other convenient motive power,* 



The growth of rice in North America is almost wholly confined 

 to two States ; nine-tenths of the whole product, indeed, being 

 raised in the States of South Carolina and Georgia. A little is 

 grown in North Carolina, Lousiana, and Mississippi. 



The aggregate crop, for 1843, amounted to 89,879,185 lbs., 

 while in 1847 it had risen to 103,000,000 lbs. 



Besides the rice which is raised in the water, there is also the 

 dry, or mountain rice, which is raised in some parts of Europe on 

 the sides of the hills. It is said to thrive well in Cochin China, 

 in dry light soils, not requiring more moisture than the usual 

 rains or dews supply. By long culture the G-erman rice, raised 

 by the aid of water, is stated to have acquired a remarkable degree 

 of hardness and adaptation to the climate. The upland rice of 

 the United States is thought by some to be only a modified de- 



* Diet, of Arts and Manufacture, 



