November i, 1889.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 
361 
ALL ABOUT RICE. 
(From "Days with Industrials," by Alexander H. 
Jafp, LLD„ F.ES.E.) 
" One half the world," it is said, " knows not how 
the other half lives." One half the human race have 
rice for their food-staple, and yet we in this part of the 
world know on the whole very little about rioe, its his- 
tory, its mode of culture, its many varieties, and the 
processes through which it passes before it is placed 
upon the table. We see it in the shop or in the store 
at home, and it is one of the " familiar good creatures" 
of our life ; but if we knew more of it we should 
esteem it more highly, and probably extend our use of 
it largely. At the present time, when, owing to various 
influences the supply of native grain is so limited, it 
may be more than usually interesting to be made some- 
what better acquainted with the merits of a staple 
which for the last twenty years has been rapidly mak- 
ing way on the Continent, but which hag not yet by 
any means got the positiou it so well deserves amongst 
us. Our interests and its claims are luckily identical ; 
and therefore we have the more faith in our right to 
reqaest our reader's close attention, particularly if 
he is a social reformer, concerned for economy and the 
comfort of the masses. We shall therefore try to begin 
at the beginning, and follow the rice from the first 
to the 1 tst. 
Rice is a cultivated variety of aquatic grass, bearing 
when in the ear a nearer resemblance to barley than 
any other of the English corn plants, and it reaches 
about the same height. The seed grows upon separate 
pedicles like the oat, each springing gracefully upwards 
on a hair-like stalk from the main stem. The seed is 
enclosed in a rough yellow husk, which in some varieties 
terminates with an awn, or beard, like barley ; other 
varieties are awnless. 
There is little reason to doubt that the rice-plant is 
of Indian origin, for in India it is now found growing 
in a wild state. Tradition says it was introduced 
thence into China about 3000 B.C., but its use and in- 
troduction into Europe are far more modern. It was 
first introduced into Spaiu by the Moors as recently as 
the twelfth century. The derivation of the word from 
the Sanscrit, vrihi ; Tamil, arisi ; Arabic, aruz ; Latin, 
oryza; Italian, riso; English, rice, very probably sug- 
gests the route in which the cultivation of the plant 
has extended from its Indian home. It is certain that 
rice was not known in Italy in Pliny's time, 60a.d. In 
describing the foods of India he says : — " But the most 
favourite food of all these is rice, from which they pre- 
pare ' ptisan ' (pearled or clean rice), similar to that 
made from barley in other parts of the world. The 
leaves of rice are fleshy, very like those of the leek, 
but broader; the stem is a cubit (18 in. high), the 
blossom purple, and the root globular, like a pearl in 
shape." (Book xviii. chap. 13.) 
This description clearly proves that Pliny had never 
seen the plant itself. He goes on to say, " Hippocrates, 
one of the famous writers of medical scienoe, has 
devoted a whole volume to the praises of ' ptisan,' the 
method of preparing which is universally known." 
Pliny does not give rice among his list of plants culti- 
vated in Egypt, but Wilkinson considers it was culti- 
vated in the Delta ; and the pictures in the Theban 
tombs of the cultivation and manufacture of a grain 
where the processes are the same as to-day practised 
in India in rice cultivation confirm Wilkinson's opinion. 
The Karens (an aboriginal race in British Burma) 
have an account of the Creation, which is of undoubted 
antiquity, and to this effect : — " The Father, God, said, 
'I love these, my son and daughter; I will bestow my 
life upon them.' He took a particle of his life and 
breathed into their nostrils, and they came to life and 
were man. Thus God created man. God made food 
and drink, rice, fire and water, cattle, elephants and 
birds," (Forbes's "Burma," 1878.) 
Kice has perhaps more cultivated varieties which 
differ more from each other than any of the cerealia. 
The Karens have names for forty varieties. Dr. Moon 
mentions oue hundred varieties growing in Ceylon. 
Besides these, there are the different kinds growing in 
China and Japan and other parts of the world. They 
are of every colour, from ivorv white to coal black. 
40 
The grain varies in shape from cylindrical to globular. 
Some varieties are sweet, some oily, some soft and 
chalky, others hard and translucent. 
With reference to the mode and time of growth, 
there are four main varieties in cultivation — common 
rice, early rice, clammy rice, and mountain rice. Com- 
mon rioe, the variety cultivated in British Burma, is 
the strongest plant and gives the largest yield, for 
one orop about twenty-five-fold, and takes six months 
from ploughing to harvest. Early rice grows mostly 
in China and India, and takes three or four months to 
mature. Mountain rice grows on the Himalayas, some- 
times pushing its way through the snow, and without 
irrigation reaching maturity in ninety days. Clammy 
rice (Oiiza glutinosa) has the advantage of being able to 
grow on wet or dry land, and ripens in about five months. 
The rice-plant is distributed over the earth as high 
as the 45th parallel N. and the 38th S. 
It is the main crop of China, Japan, Burma, Cochin 
China, India, Madagascar, Java, and Italy, and is exten- 
sively cultivated in North and South America. 
Wild rice is still eaten as a luxury on the Madras 
coast : it has a small white grain, very sweet ; it grows 
on waste marshy lands. The only reason it isnotculti. 
vated is because it returns so small an increase as com- 
pared with the cultivated varieties of the same plant. 
Although rice was introduced into Italy eo lately as 
the thirteenth century, its cultivation on the rich mea- 
dows of Lombardy, watered by the Po, and other similar 
flat lands, has so increased that the Italian rice-crop 
of 1879 amounted to no less than 500,000 tons. It is 
the most profitable crop to the cultivator of any that 
is raised in Italy ; but the same unwholesome effect of 
malaria from irrigated lands is experienced there as 
has proved so fatal in Carolina, and the Government 
has found it expedient to place its cultivation under 
great restrictions. This circumstance, together with 
the extra taxation on rice, would have destroyed any 
other oulture save one that offers the only means of 
profitably cropping swampy and marshy lands. 
Rice-culture in Carolina and Georgia and the adjoin- 
ing State, which attained to such a high degree of 
excellence, dates only from about the year a.d. 1700- 
White rice was introduced from India by Mr. Dubois, 
Treasurer to the East India Association, and the red 
rice was brought from Madagascar. It is said that it 
was taken by accident by a sea-captain, who gave some 
of the "paddy" to a Mr. Woodward. After its value 
was discovered the captain was handsomely rewarded 
for the service he had done the country. 
The rice, by careful selection and cultivation in 
trenches — instead of being sown broadcast — has made 
the Carolina plant so famous that the seed has been 
exported to Java, Madras, Spain, and Italy, and some 
of the finest modern varieties of Indian rice are grown 
from Carolina seed. 
Since the American war and the abolition of salvery 
the rioe export trade from America has practically 
ceased. The crop in 1870 was only 73,000,0001b. against 
250,000,0001b. in 1850. This is because the free negroes 
object to work in the swampy rice-fields, associated as 
they are with fever, malaria, and sickness. 
The cultivation of the varieties of common and early 
rice throughout India and China are very much alike. 
The fields are carefully levelled and divided into 
squares, surrounded by low embankments about 
eighteen inches wide, and the same height, which fall 
gradually from the level of the source of supply to that 
of the drainage-cut, which carries off the surplus 
water. In some instances, as in Southern India and 
China, crops are raised which depend in the main on 
artificial irrigation — the water being raised by manual 
or animal labour from a tank or river, but generally 
the natural fall of the country is taken advantage of to 
save this extra expense. 
The fields are cleared of weeds ; then, when the rains 
have begun, they are ploughed or scratched with a 
simple wooden plough while they ar • a foot or more 
under water, the ploughman and bis buffaloes being 
sometimes knee-deep in slush. 
The '-paddy" intended for seed is placed in large 
baskets under water for a few days to let it germinate. 
When it has sprouted and is known to be good, it is 
