Rice
Rice names 6 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Rice a genus of grasses
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a genus of grasses. The only important species is the common rice (O. sativa), one of the most useful and extensively cultivated of all grains, supplying the principal food of nearly one-third of the human race. It seems to be originally a native of the East Indies, but is now cultivated in all quarters of the globe, and almost wherever the conditions of warmth and moisture are suitable. Rice is an annual, varying from one to six feet in height. There are many other distinguishing characters of the varieties in cultivation, some having long awns and some being awnless, some having the chaff (palex), when ripe, yellow, white, red, black, etc. The seed or grain of rice grows on little separate stalks springing from the main stalk; and the whole appearance of the plant, when the grain is ripe, may be said to be intermediate between that of barley and of oats. Rice requires a moist soil, sometimes flooded. In South Carolina rice is sown in rows in the bottom of trenches, which are about 18 inches apart; the trenches are filled with water to the depth of several inches, till the seeds germinate; then the water is drawn off, and afterward the fields are again flooded for rather more than a fortnight to kill weeds. They are flooded again when the grain is near ripening. In Europe the cultivation of rice is most extensively carried on in the plains of Lombardy and in Valencia in Spain. The introduction of rice into the United States took place only about the middle or close of the 17th century; but the date has been disputed, 1694 being the earliest year in which it is known to have been grown. The wild rice, plentiful in the marshy tropical countries of southern Asia as well as in northern Australia, is without doubt the plant from which all our forms of cultivated rice have been derived. Most modern authorities regard India as the first home of rice, though some say it was originally derived from China. It has been cultivated in India from time immemorial. Four thousand apparently distinct forms of Bengal rice have been exhibited. There are 1,400 different specimens of rice in the Calcutta Museum. There are as many as 1,300 names of rice. The obvious differences in the grain itself are indeed very remarkable. In color the specimens range from a bright golden hue through almost every gradation of tint to black; and in regard to size also they vary greatly. But all these forms of rice are referable to a very few well-marked and constant varieties of O. sativa, the result of seminal variation commonly observed in plants that have been long brought under cultivation. The rice exported from India is divided broadly into three qualities: (1) table rice; (2) ballam, named after the boats in which it is carried; and (3) moonghy, common or inferior rice. Cargo rice is that in which only one part in five is husked. In 1919 the East suffered from a shortage in the rice crop. British India prohibited export. The Japanese rice crop was about 426,000,000 bushels, Korean about a fifth, the United States produced 41,059,000 bushels; the price to farmers, $2.67 a bushel. The principal rice-growing States are Louisiana, California, Texas and Arkansas. In China rice is generally sown pretty thickly on very wet land, and afterward transplanted to the land which it is finally to occupy. In many parts of China and in other warm countries it is common to obtain two crops of rice in a year. Rice is husked and quickly dried before being brought to market. Special milling machinery achinery is required for removing the inner skin of the rice grain, and a large quantity of the grain is badly broken in the process, being salable only as broken rice or rice flour. Good Indian rice has the following composition: Moisture, 13.50 per cent.; nitrogenous matter, 7.41; starch, 78.10; fatty or oily matter, 0.40; ash, 0.59. Rice contains a smaller amount of nitrogenous elements than any other grain (wheat having as much as 22 per cent.); it is also deficient in fatty matter, and if taken by itself is less nutritious than other grain food; but combined with fatty nitrogenous substances it is a valuable foodstuff. The beer made from rice by the Japanese is called Saki, and is in general use among them. Several kinds of wine are made by the Chinese and Japanese from rice, some of them highly esteemed and very intoxicating; spirit is distilled from the lees. Some of the common arrack of the East is made from rice; and rice is also largely employed by distillers in Great Britain. Rice starch is made in considerable books quantity and is used in laundries and languages matized. muslin manufactories. It has one-fourth more starch in its composition than wheat. The straw of rice is used to make straw plait for bonnets and the straw shoes of Japan. The refuse of rice is valuable as food for cattle. It is known as rice meal and rice dust. Canada rice (Zizania aquatica), the I wild rice or Indian rice of North America, is a species of grass quite different from the true rice, and of a different genus. It is common in North America, and particularly abundant in the N. W. parts, growing in miry places or shal- Quests' Quests low water, often on the margins of lakes. It has a culm seven or eight feet high, with broad diffuse leaves, and a large terminal panicle of male flowers, with a spike of female flowers at the summit. The flowers have six stamens. The seeds are about half an inch long, slender, farinaceous, and are much used by the Indians where the plant abounds.
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
Rice W (ILLIAM) NORTH
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
W (ILLIAM) NORTH, an American geologist and educator, born at Marblehead, Mass., in 1845. He was educated at Wesleyan University and at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. From 1867 to 1884 he was professor of geology and natural history at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., and from 1884 to 1918, professor of geology, retiring in the latter year as professor emeritus. From 1907 to 1909 he served as acting president of this institution. From 1903 to 1916 he was superintendent of the Connecticut State Geological and Natural History Survey. He was a member and, at times, an officer of various scientific societies, and was also chairman of the Board of Examiners of the New York East Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as well as president, and later secretary of the Council of the Connecticut Federation of Churches. He edited the 5th edition of Dana's "Textbook of Geology" (1897), and published "Geology of Bermuda" (1884); "Science Teaching in the Schools" (1889); "Christian Faith in an Age of Science" (1903); "Through Darkness to Dawn" (1917), etc.
Rice ALEXANDER HAMILTON, an American explorer and geographer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ALEXANDER HAMILTON, an American explorer and geographer, born in Boston, Mass., in 1875. He was educated at Harvard, and although receiving a degree of M.D. in 1902, he later became interested in geography born and exploration, studying from 1908 to 1843. 1910 at the School of Geographical Sur- by the vey and Astronomy of the Royal Geo- tiboy " graphical Society, in London. He organ- written_in ized and conducted several expeditions to sant. tropical South American countries. Dur- This ing the World War he served as surgeon with at a military hospital in Paris, and at " The the American Ambulance at Neuilly. He " The was a member of several geographical others societies in this country and abroad and had was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Turf " Geographical Society in 1914. The re- 26, 1882. sults of some of his explorations and scientific investigations were published in the form of articles in the "Geographical Journal."
Rice CALE YOUNG, an American poet and dramatist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
CALE YOUNG, an American poet and dramatist, born at Dixon. Ky., in 1872. He was educated at Cumberland University and at Harvard. In 1902 he married Alice Caldwell Hegan. He was a frequent contributor of poems to many magazines. His poems published in book form include "From Dusk to Dusk" (1898); "With Omar" (1900); "Song-Surf" (1900); "Nirvana Days" (1908); "Many Gods" (1910); "Far " (1912); "At the World's Heart" (1914); "Earth and New Earth" (1916); "Trails Sunward" (1917); "Wraiths and Realities" (1918); "Songs to A. H. R." (1918); and "Shadowy Thresholds" (1919). He also wrote several poetic dramas, including "David" (1904); “A Night in Avignon" (1907), etc. A collection of his plays and poems was published in 1915. He was a member of the National Institute of Social Sciences, the Poetry Society of America, and the Society of American Dramatists and Composers.
Rice ALICE (CALDWELL) HEGAN
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ALICE (CALDWELL) HEGAN, an American author, born in Shelbyville, Ky., in 1870. She was educated in private schools and gave much time and thought to philanthropic anthropic work, work, being one of the founders of the Cabbage Patch Settlement House, of Louisville, Ky. In 1902 she was married to Cale Young Rice (q. v.). Her books, some of which have met with very great success, include "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" (1901); "Lovey Mary" (1903); "Sandy" (1905); "Captain June" (1907); "Mr. Opp" (1909); "A Romance of Billy Goat Hill" (1912); "The Honorable Percival" (1914); and "Calvary Alley" (1918). She also wrote numerous short stories. Some of her have been translated into several , while others have been dra-
Rice JAMES, an English novelist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JAMES, an English novelist; in Northampton, England, Sept. 26, His reputation was well assured publication of " Ready - Money Mor- ( 1872), the first of the series conjunction with Walter Be- It was subsequently dramatized. remarkable partnership continued " The Golden Butterfly " ( 1876), Chaplain of the Fleet " ( 1881), Seamy Side " ( 1880), and several . Previous to the pa partnership he published " History of the British ( 1879). He died at Redhill, April
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's said in 1921 that rice fed "nearly one-third of the human race"; it now feeds roughly half, with world output above 500 million tonnes of milled rice a year, dominated by China and India. The biggest break came with the Green Revolution: the International Rice Research Institute, founded in the Philippines in 1960, released the short-strawed high-yielding IR8 in 1966, and rice yields in much of Asia doubled or better; the genome of Oryza sativa was sequenced in 2005. The old dispute the entry reports "most modern authorities regard India as the first home of rice, though some say it was originally derived from China" has largely been settled by archaeology and genetics into a two-part answer, with japonica rice domesticated from wild Oryza rufipogon in China's Yangtze valley and indica types emerging in South Asia, plus an entirely separate African species, Oryza glaberrima. The South Carolina trench-and-flood culture described here was already finished when the article appeared; the US crop has moved to Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Texas and Missouri, and the entry's worry that polished rice is "deficient" was pinned down as thiamine deficiency, the cause of beriberi.
Written for this edition, 2026.