604 
WILD RICE IN EAST NORFOLK. 
failures. Since this date it has become acclimatised, has freely 
reproduced itself, and has been growing in Kew Gardens, both 
in water from one to two feet in depth and also around the 
pond margins. 
I extract the following from letters from the U.S.A., kindly 
submitted for my perusal by Mr. Wilks : — “ Zizania aquatica, 
sometimes called Indian or Canadian Wild Rice, is a tall- 
growing annual grass which furnishes food to countless flocks 
of water birds, and also to the Red Men in out-of-the-way 
places. The seed must never be allowed to become dry, or 
vitality is destroyed. Keep seeds in a bottle of water in a cool 
place and put into single pots in a cool place below surface of 
water in spring. My experience is that whether you sow in a 
cool or warm house there is very little difference in the time of 
germination. Sow towards end of February, keep close to 
glass in a light place so as not to draw the plants, harden off 
in a cold frame and plant out at end of May in permanent 
quarters.” 
From the seed sent me in February, 1900, a good deal of 
which had already germinated, I was successful in rearing 
several dozen plants. I planted out nearly all these at Hickling 
and Catfield Hall Broads, in each instance carefully surrounding 
the plants with small-meshed wire netting. At Catfield, where 
the plants were also covered over with netting, young water voles 
got through and completely devoured them. At Hickling some- 
thing — swans, I believe — broke down the netting and destroyed 
the rice. It was difficult to find suitable situations for planting, 
i.e., water not too deep, a fairly good bottom, and out of the way 
of the countless coots and grazing stock. Catfield Hall Broad 
has no hard shore, and in the few places where the edges of 
Hickling Broad are solid, cattle are turned out in summer upon 
the adjoining walls and marshes. Where the sides of the Broad 
are free from stock, the water and mud are too deep, or the 
natural vegetation grows too thickly for the rice to have a 
chance. If sowed in the shallow water of the open Broad, 
water-fowl would eat off the leaves as soon as they showed on 
the surface. The few plants that I saved this year to grow in 
