1858 
T JIE CUE TI V A T0 R. 
303 
The Indian Rice—Zizania aquatica. 
BY PROF. AJL.YRED &. KENNEDY, M. IX. 
The eminent French agricultural reformer, Ga-s- 
parin, was right when Ie took for the watchword of 
himself and his followers, Variete. Variety of pro¬ 
duction and its consequence, variety in diet, ought to 
be the aim of every American farmer. The milk of 
animals, of all the substances provided by nature, 
alone contains all the principles, and in due proportion, 
which are essential to animal development. No one 
vegetable does. Even the potato, rich as it is in nour¬ 
ishing and in easily digested principles, when too ex¬ 
clusively cultivated, became a curse to Ireland. Not 
less disastrous to America will be the more stimulating 
and less easily digested Indian corn, should it become 
as there is reason to fear it may, almost the sole fari¬ 
naceous food of large communities in the Western 
States. Hog, the other standing dish, is not a com¬ 
pensating diet- The hog itself is corn fed—a sort of 
metamorphosed maize. A metamorphosis greater, it 
is true, than corn-bread, johnny-cake, hominy, ship¬ 
pers, mush, grits or corn-dodgers, and quite beyond 
the <( chemistry of the 'kitchen,'” yet a metamorphosis 
which the chef de cuisine might not inaptly term mais 
animalise. 
The Southeastern States bordering on the Atlantic 
and the ■Gulf, have in the common rice, Oryza saliva , 
a cheap substitute or rather alternate for the Indian 
corn. To the great Southwest, represented in soil and 
climate by West Tennessee, and illy adapted to the 
economical production of wheat, but noted for its yield 
of maize, the introduction of a new and easily culti¬ 
vated cereal from abroad, or the domestication of one 
indigenous to this country,, would prove an especial 
boon. Although the latter, the preferable plan is sel¬ 
dom pursued, while the importation by government of 
foreign seeds and plants is annually repeated at great 
expense; yet at home, almost within the maize grow¬ 
ing region itself, may be found a plant eminently 
worthy of general experimental cultivation. Nature 
appears to have furnished us in the Zizania aquatica, 
with an indigenous grain susceptible of easy culture, 
and even in its wild state possessed of highly nutritive 
properties. Pursh , in his “ Flora Americm, septen 
trioaalis,” London, 1814, describes the plant as peren¬ 
nial, and as common in all shallow waters from Florida 
to Canada. Gray , in his “ Botany of the Northern 
U S,” groups the Zizania with the common rice, al¬ 
though regarding them as distinct genera, and states 
that the plant is common on the swampy borders of 
streams especially westward; growing from three to 
nine feet high, with leaves from two to three feet long ; 
grain half an inch long, and gathered largely for food 
by the Northwestern Indians. Darby, the author of 
the “ Botany of the Southern States,” published in 
Maeon, Ga., represents the Indian rice as growing there 
in inundated places, and attaining a hight of from six 
to twelve feet. It has therefore a geographical range 
through many degrees of latitude, and is probably as 
capable of withstanding extremes of climate as its 
sister cereal, the Indian corn. The latter when dis¬ 
covered to be the principal grain eaten by the Abori¬ 
gines, was immediately adopted by the early colonists 
as an article of food. 
The Indian Rice is as highly esteemed by the In¬ 
dians of the northwest, as was corn in the first settle¬ 
ment of the country, by the Indians of the northeast, 
yet with less forecast than our ancestors we overlook 
its value and neglect experiments upon its cultivation. 
Its remarkable abundance in the swampy lakes of Min¬ 
nesota, is attested by many travellers, who also as¬ 
sure us that the grain is collected in September, by 
by the squaws, who pushing their canoes among the 
thick growth, bend the heads of rice over the sides of 
their rude vessels, beat out the grain with their pad¬ 
dles, and after drying it in the sun husk and winnow 
it. Loudon , quoting from Pinkerton , remarks that 
u productive as is this excellent plant, and habituated 
to situations which refuse all cultivation, it is sur¬ 
prising that the European settlers in the more northern 
parts of America, have as yet taken no pains to cul¬ 
tivate and improve a vegetable production, which 
seems intended by nature to become at some future 
period the bread-corn of the north. 
In 1855, a missionary party on their journey from 
Toronto, to the stations on the Red River of the north, 
found in the Indian rioe an agreeable dish. They 
purchased it, clean and husked, of the Indians at 
a dollar a bushel, and made it a principal article of 
food. 
In his herbomations round Philadelphia, the writer 
has collected the plant, which is not uncommon. Its 
appearance more nearly resembles the oat than the 
common rice, and in habit simulates the reed so com¬ 
mon along our tidal water courses, growing in the wa¬ 
ter where other crops cannot be cultivated, and not 
on recently drained or unusually inundated land. 
Plantations of Indian rice, therefore, promise to be 
free from the curse of southern rice-fields—malaria. 
From the apprehension that the seeds in order to 
retain their vitality should be transported in damp 
earth, mud or water, many have probably been de¬ 
terred from attempting the cultivation. Experiments, 
however, show this apprehension to be wholly un¬ 
founded, as seeds transmitted in paper to Great Bri¬ 
tain, have germinated and produced flowers and fruit 
in a green-house-aquarium during the second year 
after their arrival. The dryness of the seed retarded 
their development, but did not destroy their vitality ; 
hence we infer, that they should be preserved fresh 
and planted in earth under the water as early as pos¬ 
sible after their receipt 
The distribution during the approaching season of 
fresh Indian rice seed by the Agricultural Depart¬ 
ment of the Patent Office, would in all probability 
before three years, add another and an important 
element to the stock of cultivated human food, and 
this not only without taking land now appropriated to 
grass or tillage, but by utilising portions now useless 
for any agricultural purpose. Such a distribution 
would manifest a laudable desire on the part of the 
office to promote experiments with our own wild pro¬ 
ducts, in order to their domestication. The farmer 
who now moans over the possession of shallow watery 
wastes, would gladly respond to any proposition to ex¬ 
periment with the view of ultimately making them 
profitable, and the miniature depths of the thousands 
of aquaria which—now, that the sub-aqueous woi-ld is 
fashionable,—grace the parlors of the rich and the 
lowly, would become so many seed-beds and nurseries 
of the Zizania. Polytechnic College , Philadelphia , 
August , 1858. 
