Rice

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

one of the important cereals. Like several other food plants, rice was originally a wild grass, native in the East Indies. It is now cultivated very generally in all quarters of the globe. It is the chief food of the people of China, Japan, and India. It is said that one-third of the human race lives on rice. More people are dependent on rice than on any other one food. Our first rice seed was brought from Madagascar in 1695. Rice culture was introduced into the Carolinas and Georgia about 1700. The delta lands of that portion of the Atlantic Coast are particularly adapted to its culture. Of late large areas in Louisiana and Texas have been found well adapted to rice raising. Rice requires a warm climate and abundance of moisture in the soil. Two methods of culture are in vogue, that of the Carolinas and that of Texas. The Carolina rice fields are flooded by means of the rivers. The lower courses of the rivers are inclosed by huge mud dikes twenty feet broad at the base and perhaps ten feet high. The lands adjacent to these dikes are subdivided into fields by smaller embankments, and are provided thoroughly with ditches, sluices, and gates. When the tide is out, the planter is able to flood his fields from the river; when the tide is up, the salt water is shut off by gates. Salt water is excluded. It kills the rice plant. At certain times the fields require to be dry for purposes of cultivation, sowing, and reaping. They may be drained at low tide . At other times they are flooded in order to promote growth. A planter requires experience and judgment. If water be withheld, or allowed to stay too long, or to stand too deep, his crop is ruined. The lands are so low that reaping is necessarily done by hand, as heavy machinery cannot be used in the fields. The destruction of forests along the mountains, has rendered the Atlantic rivers much more subject to floods, which tear away the dikes and necessitate the expenditure of large sums to restore the rice plantations. The Texas system is somewhat different. In the southwest, the rice fields lie above the water level and are irrigated by means of lifting pumps. Four hundred thousand acres of rice are watered in this way. The soil is more solid than in the Carolina rice fields, and the use of improved machinery is entirely practicable. The cultivation of rice in Texas and Louisiana is not unlike that of wheat on the northwestern prairies. The United States Department of Agriculture gives the following statistics for 1908, covering nine states: State. Bushels. North Carolina 15,120 South Carolina 480,000 Georgia 87,500 Florida 50,000 Alabama 63,000 Mississippi 34,100 Louisiana 11,550,000 Texas 9,142,500 Arkansas 467,400 United States. . . . . 21,889,620 From the same source we have the rice production of leading countries for the year 1907 as follows: Country. Pounds. United States 520,000,000 Hawaii 33,400,000 Guatemala 1,300,000 Honduras 8,100,000 Mexico 55,151,000 Argentina 17,808,000 British Guiana 56,000,000 Dutch Guiana 3,311,000 Peru 60,000,000 Bulgaria 8,205,000 Italy 823,700,000 Spain 475,400,000 British India 61,416,000,000 Ceylon 498,100,000 French Indo-China 5,000,000,000 Japanese Empire 18,034,525,000 Java and Madura 6,630,000,000 Korea 3,200,000,000 Philippine Islands 695,000,000 Siam 6,824,000,000 Straits Settlements 94,000,000 British Central Africa 1,400,000 Egypt 20,000,000 Fiji Islands 3,800,000 Total . . . . . 104,479,200,000