Aua. 25, 1892.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



1B7 



WILD RICE. 



This is what Prof. Asa Gray has to say about wild rice 

 in his 1863 handbook: 



OBAMIN^— GBASS FAMILT. 



Zizania, Gronov, Water or Indian Rice.— Flowers monoecious. 

 The staminate and pistillate both in one-flowered spikelets in the 

 same panicle. Glnmes wanting or rudimentary, and forming a 

 little cup. Palete herbaceo-membranaceous, convex, awnlesa in 

 the sterile spikeluts, the lower tipped with a straight a wn in the 

 fertile ones. Stamens, six. Stigmas, pencil-form. Large and 

 often reed-like water-grasses. Spikelets jointed with the club- 

 shaped pedicels, yery deciduous. (Adopted from Zizanion, the 

 ancient name of some wild grain). 



[ 



1. Z. aquatica, L. (Indian Rice. Water Oats.) Lower branches 

 of the ample pyramidal panicle staminate, spreading; the upper 

 erect, pistillate; pedicels strongly club-shaped; lower palese long- 

 awned, rough; styles distinct; grain linear, slender. An aanual 

 plant. (Z. elavulosa, Michx.)— Swampr borders of streams and 

 m shallow water, common, especially northwestward. Aug. — 

 Culma 3tt.-9ft. high. Leaves flat, 3ft. -3Et. long, linear-lanceolate. 

 Grain J^in. long; gathered for food by the Northwestern Indians. 



3. Z. miliacea, Miehx. Panicle diffuse, ample, the staminate 

 and pistillate flowers intermixed, awns short, styles united, grain 

 ovate. A perennial plant— Penn.? Ohio aad Southward. Aug.— 

 leaves involute. 



According to Beck, the botanist, wild rice is found 

 from Canada to Florida and west to Missouri. Canada is 

 a vague term when used as a northern limit, and we may 

 better comprehend the distribution by remembering that 

 it has long grown in great luxuriance at Rice Lake in 

 Ontario and the Lake of the Woods, and also, as we shall 

 see, has lately been successfully introduced into Lake 

 Nipissing marshes. 



The appearance of the plant will be sufficiently known 

 by the illustrations herewith, and its economic import- 

 ance is attested by the early notices of travelers in Amer- 

 ica and the extensive literature extant on its uses, value 

 and mode of propagation. 



The earliest important notice that I have met with is 

 by Carver, the American traveler. It dates about 1766, 

 or even before that, and is as follows: 



Wild Rice.— This grain, which grows in the greatest plenty 

 throughout the interior parts of North America, is the most 

 valuable of all the spontaneous productions of that country. Ex- 

 clusive of its utility as a supply of food for those of the human 



species who inhabit this part of the continent and obtained with- 

 out any other trouble than that of gathering it in, the sweetness 

 and nutritious quality of it attracts an infinite number of wild- 

 fowl of every kind, which flock from distant climes to enjoy this 

 rare repast, and by it become inexpressibly fat and delicious. In 

 future periods it will be of great service to the infant colonies, 

 and it will afford them a present support, until in the course of 

 cultivation other supplies may be produced; whereas in those 

 realms which are not furnished with this bounteous gift of 

 nature, even if the climate is temperate and the soil gO )d, the 

 first settlers are of ten exposed to great hardship from the want 

 of an immediate resource for necessary food. This useful grain 

 grows in the water where it is about 2ft. deep, and where it finds 

 a rich muddy soil. The stalks of it, and the branches or ears that 

 bear the seed, resemble oats both in their appearance andmanner 

 of growing. The stalks are full of joints and rise more than 8ft. 

 above the water. The natives gather the grain in the following 

 manner: Nearly about the time that it begins to tui-n from its 

 milky state and to ripen, they run their canoes into the midst of 

 it, and tying btxnches of it together just below the ears with 

 bark, leave it in this situation three or four weeks longer, 



till it is perfectly ripe. About the latter end of September 

 they return to the river, when each family having its 

 separate allottment, and being able to distinguish their 

 own property by the manner of fastening the sheaves, gatber 

 in the portion that belongs to them. This they do by placing 

 their canoes close to the bunches of rice, in such position as to 

 receive the grain when it falls, and then beat it out with pieces of 

 wood formed for that purpose. Having done this, they dry it 

 with smoke and afterward tread or rub off the outside husk; 

 when it is fit for use they put it into the skins of fawns or young 

 buffalo taken off nearly whole for this purpose and sewed into a 

 sort of sack, wherein they preserve it till the return of their 

 harvest. It has been the subject of much speculation why this 

 spontaneous grain is not found in any other region of America, 

 or in those countries situated in the same parallels of latitude, 

 where the waters are as apparently adapted for its growth as in 

 the climates I treat of. As for instance, none of the countries 

 that lie to the south and east of the Great Lakes, even from the 

 province north of the Carolinas to the extremities of Labrador, 

 produce any of this grain. It is true I found great quantities of 

 it in the watered lands near Detroit, between Lake Huron and 

 Lake Erie, but on inquiry I learned that it never arrived nearer 

 to maturity than just to blossom; after which it appeared 

 blighted and died away. This convinces me that the northwest 

 wind, as I have before hinted, is much more powerful in these 

 than in the interior parts, and that it is more inimical to the 

 fruits of the earth, after it has passed over the lakes and become 

 united with the wind which joins it from the frozen regions of the 

 north than it is farther to the westward." 



The next important contribution to the subject is dated 

 1804, and is by Aylmer Bourke Lambert, Esq., who pub- 

 lished in the Linnsean Society's Transactions the plate 

 from which the above is adapted (Trans. Linn, Soc, A^ol. 

 VII., 1804, XVL, p. 264), and comments as follows: 



The seeds of Zizania aquatica in a vegetating state from Amer- 

 ica was long a desideratum among the botanists of this country. 



for although seeds were received here at different times, yet none 

 of them grew. At last Dr. North by the desire of Sir Joseph 

 Banks sent them from the lakes of Canada, put up in jars of 

 water. As soon as they arrived they were sown in a proper situ- 

 tion, where they came up in a few days, and the plants ripened 

 their seeds extremely well in the autumn. In a pond at Spring 

 Grove Sir Joseph Banks has a great quantity of this plant grow- 

 ling annually, ripening its seeds and sowing itself round the 

 ledges; and I am psrsuaded that it might be sown with some ad- 

 vantage in Great Britain and Ireland, especially in the latter 

 country, where I have seen several extensive lakes which appear 

 well suited for tiie purpose. It grosva in graat abundance in the 

 lakes of Canada, and the seeds, which are as large as oats, and 

 perhaps as nutritive, are used by the Indian for food, as may be 

 seen In "Carver's Travels in America," and also in "Kalm'.3 

 Travels," vol. 3, pp. 33 and 54. 



What effect was produced by this article in the most 

 important of English botanical journals I do not know, 

 but public interest seems to have bsen directed toward 



the plant later in America, and the early Patent Office 

 Reports (U. S. Agriculture) contain numerous references 

 to the wild rice of the Northwest. From these I select 

 the following, 1847 : "Gen, Verplanir, late Commissioner 

 of the Chippewa Indians, pronounces it better than 

 Southern rice. The kernels are larger and its flavor is 

 better; for when boiled and stewed and left to cool, it 

 forms a consistent mass like good wheat bread, and more 

 nutritious. It is stated that very great quantities grow 

 on all the lakes in this northern country. The outlets 

 and bays are filled with it. It ripens in the month of 

 August, and is the main reliance of the Indians during 

 the winter months for their subsistence." 



In the 1848 Report is a note by Prof. Randall, of Cin- 

 cinnati, testifying to the economic value of the grain. 

 "It is considered by him superior in taste and far more 

 nutritious than the Southern rice, * * * An Indian 

 squaw will gather from &ve to ten bushels per day. It 

 will grow in water, we are informed, from 6in. to 5ft. 

 deep, when it finds a muddy soil." Comparing it with 

 the commercial rice of the South, Prof. Randall says that 

 "the Minnesota rice ground produces as much to the acre, 

 and will at no distant period compete with the Southern 

 production." 



Interest in the plant seems to have grown steadily. 

 Quantities of seed were distributed, but the silence of the 

 Reports regarding the results is ominous. 



In the Report for 1855 is a note by John B. C. Clazzo, 

 of La Fourche parish, Louisiana, as follows: "The water 



Wild Rice. Adapted from Transactions Linnsean Society. Head of Wild Rice in Seed (Reduced). Also 



Seed (Ealarged.) 



1. Head of rice plant, 3ft. long. 3. Stem and root. 3. Leaf. 4. Male glume, with antherfi, magnified. 



a. Female glume, magnified. 6. Female glume, opened, showing pistillum. 7. Rice grain, 1% size. Adapted from plate in Agricultural Report, 1870, 



