&34 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [June i, 1889, 
the level of the water in navigation treDches. The 
trenches are supplied with water from the Tapacooma 
lake, and the supply has never failed. The fields 
were formerly in cane cultivation, but the land was 
not suitable for it, as the canes used to suffer from 
the slightest drought. The preparation of the land 
for rice necessitated the filling up of the old drains, 
and the formation of little ridges or smouses, about 
18 inches wide and 6 inches high, separating each 
man's lot from his neighbour's. This is done by agri- 
cultural forks and shovels, and costs about $15 an 
acre. When a plot has been roughly levelled, water 
is let on to it from the navigation trench, and the 
whole surface is then thoroughly levelled and puddled, 
at a further cost of $5 an acre. It is then allowed 
to remain covered with a few inches of water until 
all the grass and weeds are killed out. In some con- 
venient corner, a patch of about 10 feet square is 
raised a few inches above the water level, and the 
ground is thoroughly pulverized ; and to give plants 
for an acre, this patch is thickly sewn with 6 gallons 
of paddy, costiug 72 cents. In 4 weeks it gives a 
thick growth of young rice-plants about 12 inches 
high, having been carefully watered every day. The 
plants are then pulled up by the roots and tied into 
bundles. The seedlings from these bundles are stuck 
by hand into the mud in the levelled plots, two or 
three together, about 10 inches apart, with wonder- 
ful regularity, and they present the appearance of 
corn sewn with machines in other countries. It takes 
a man 16 days to plant an acre, and a day's pay for 
this work is 32 cents. After the transplanting, no 
further care is given beyond attending to the supply 
of water which should cover the ground an inch in 
depth, until the grain ripens. This happens about 
3 months after transplanting. When there were only 
a few acres in rice on Anna Regiua, some one had 
to attend to each patch all day to keep off the birds 
while the grain was ripening; but since the cultiva- 
tion has been extended, this has become unnecessary, 
as the birds do not seem to have increased in num- 
bers — at all events, in no proportion to the cultiva- 
tion. When the rice is ripe, the ears are picked with 
the top of the stalk, the straw being left standing. 
The cost of this operation is $2.40 an acre. The 
yield of the first crop is more uncertain than the 
following ones, but the average may be safely put 
down at 20 bags of paddy, each weighing 100 lb. 
The grain is threshed out on a piece of levelled 
ground covered with hard mud, and it is separated 
from the husk by dropping it slowly from a height 
of 3 or 4 feet in a light breeze. This costs 4 cents 
a bag of paddy. Up to this time no rent is paid for 
the land, and the cost of the first levelling is capital 
which can always be recovered by the first occupant 
of a bed from the next one, so I take neither of 
these items into account in estimating the profit of 
the first crop. 
The value of 20 bags of paddy is ... $38 40 
The cost of procuring them, 
Final levelling and paddling ... §5 00 
Plants ... ... ... 0 72 
Transplanting ... ••• 5 12 
Attending to water supply, &c. 3 00 
Reaping 20 bags at T2c. ... 2 40 
Threshing & winnowing ... 80 $17 04 
Shewing a profit, on 3 months' work, of $21 36 
Sometimes tho straw is cut down close to the ground, 
and a second crop allowed to como up from the old 
roots, but it gives a poor yield; and as a heavy rent 
has to be met after the first crop, this second crop 
is seldom taken. Instead of that, the straw is cut 
off, and the roots hoed up and puddled with the feet, 
the operation costing about the same sum as the final 
levelling for the first crop. The ground is now ready 
for the reception of fresh plants which have been grown 
in the nursery in anticipation ; and the transplanting 
and following operations are the. same as were those 
for the first crop. The monotony of these operations 
is never varied, and one crop succeeds another, as the 
years roll on. The return from an acre is about 20 
bags of paddy from each crop ; while three crops 
can be grown comfortably in a year. As the rent 
for each crop would therefore be eight dollars, this 
would still leave a profit of $13.36 a crop. 
These calculations are made on the a'sumption that 
the laml is worked by hired labour, whereas it is usu- 
ally done by the lessee in his spare time. A good 
man can thoroughly cultivate half an acre of rice in 
100 days a year. The work is very congenial to East 
Indian immigrants, and the regular supply of water 
is a great charm after their experience in this respect 
in India. For comparison with what I have wri ten 
about their constant supply of water, I will quote 
what H. B. Proctor writes in a pamphlet on rice, 
reprinted from The Miller, 1882, with reference to 
the crop in Burmah: — 
" Where so much depends upon rainfall it is no 
exaggeration to say that an inch or so of water, 
more or less, determines whether the receding flood 
shall leave a bright fertile plain full of promise, or 
a ruined waste of drowned and rotted crops. With 
a late and heavy monsoon, thousands of acres are 
sometimes submerged and the crops ruined ; should 
tbe floods, however, not be too late in the season, the 
ground is replanted a second time, and sometimes a 
third time, and the cvltivator possibly saves his harvest. 
In 1876-7 the crops were ruined by floods over no 
less than 171,000 acres, entailing great suffering on 
the people." 
In that country only one crop is raised in a year, 
and as all of the planting has to be done at one 
time, a great strain is thrown on the labour market. 
Here, as I have stated, three crops can be raised 
in a year, and no attention whatever has had to be 
paid to the seasons. It is not at all uncommon to 
see here one acre with four or five crops of different 
ages on it. 
The limits of this article do not allow of my going 
very deeply into the question of rice-cleaning. It is 
done here by pounding the rice in a mortar, the 
pestle of which is attached to a lever worked by a 
man's foot. The cost of converting two bags of paddy 
nto one of very well cleaned rice, is about two sbill- 
ngs. I have gone to a great deal of trouble in search- 
ng for a machine to clean rice on a comparatively 
small scale, but can hear of none that is working 
satisfactorily. Some idea of the difficulty of con- 
structing such a machine may be gathered from the 
following list of separate and distinct machines used 
in a rice-cleaning mill in Liverpool: Sieve and As- 
pirator, Shelling Stones, Scouring Machines, Blower, 
Decorticators one or more in succession, Blower, 
Polishers in succession, Blower and Sieve. The Liver- 
pool rice-mills are not constructed so as to be able 
to deal with paddy. What is cleaned there is called 
"cargo rice," which is about four parts of clean rice 
and one part of paddy. All of the cargo rice is 
shelled and milled in large mills at the rice ports 
in Burmah, India, &c. When enough rice is grown 
in the colony to meet its consumption of 250,000 bags, 
there will be plenty of work for a good mill, but until 
then I fear we must keep to the primitive " stamper- 
pot," as the rice mortar is called. 
There are infinite varieties of rice (over 200 at all 
events) cultivated in different parts of the world. In 
England about 92 per cent, of the consumption is 
obtained from India, and last year it was worth about 
6/6 a cwt. in the shape of cargo rice. The other 8 per 
cent, is obtained from Patna, Java and Japan, and was 
worth last year about 12/ a cwt. A sample of the rice 
grown on Anna Reyina, which is the same as that grown 
almost universally in this part of the colony, was cleaned 
in Liverpool and shewn there in the Exhibition of last 
year. It closely resembled the finest samples of Java 
and Italian rice, which are considered the most desir- 
able ; and it was very highly thought of by the miller 
who reported on it He thought it was wasted in feed- 
ing the labourers here who would not appreciate its 
value, as the English consumer would, at double that of 
ordinary rice. For some reason, which I have not been 
able to discover, this kind of rice cannot be grown in 
the great rice-producing parts of India. There is no 
difficulty whatever about growing it here, and this is a 
very great point in considering rice as a future industr 
