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The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom by P. L. Simmonds

P >> P. L. Simmonds >> The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom




It will never do to carry seed corn from South to North, as it will
not mature in a higher or colder climate than that from which it has
been taken. Even half a degree of latitude sensibly affects the
maturing of the blade, and renders it an uncertain crop in our high
northern latitudes. To insure an extra yield of this valuable grain,
the soil must be highly manured, deeply ploughed, thorough
cultivated and hoed, and top-dressed with lime, house ashes, and
plaster. This done, it is the most remunerative and profitable of
all grain crops."

In Delaware there are many varieties, and everybody esteems his own
kind the best. The grain varies from pure "flint" to pure "gourd
seed"--of course the mixtures which are between these two varieties
are most common--it inclines more to gourd seed than to flint. Mint
weighs full standard fifty-six, the gourd seed from forty-nine to
fifty-two pounds, and the mixtures range between. Flint ripens from
ten days to two weeks earlier. It will not produce as many pounds per
acre as the lighter gourd seed. Soil exerts its influence over the
character of corn, a heavy soil tending to produce flint--light soil,
gourd seed.

The corn is "cut up" in the fall, and after curing in the shuck, is
husked; the shuck remaining on the stalk with the blades.

The average yield, on improved land, is fifty bushels; though crops
of one hundred and twelve, and one hundred and sixty bushels per acre
are reported to have been raised in the county, in 1849. The yield
increases from year to year. A general and rapid improvement of the
State is in progress, and in nothing is this seen more clearly than in
the corn crop. Mossy "old sedge" fields, which have been laid out for
years, are broken up, and will yield, if it be a good season, from
five to ten bushels per acre; fence them, lime them with twenty to
thirty bushels, and seed the oat crop with clover, and in two years
the clover sod will return eighteen to twenty bushels of corn. Another
dressing of lime, or its equivalent in marl, of which there is an
abundance in the lower half of Newcastle County, will show thirty
bushels of corn; and of wheat, if the farm manure be used on it, nine
to twelve bushels will not be too much to expect.

In Arkansas, Indian corn is regarded as the "king of grains." It
constitutes the chief food of every animal, from man down to the
marauding rat, while its dried blade furnishes seven-tenths of the
long food for working animals. The _large white_ is the variety most
esteemed, and most generally cultivated, for the reasons that it
yields more grain and fodder, makes, when ground into meal, whiter and
sweeter bread, and is less liable to injury from the weevils. The
blade is usually esteemed the best long food for horses, exceeding in
price the best Northern hay; the average price may be stated at about
seventy cents per cwt. The shuck is fed to cows and young mules, they
eat it, but with less relish than they do the blades, which are
sweeter and more nutritious. The former are much used for mattresses,
being preferred to moss, as they are cleaner, and easier manufactured.
When mixed with coarse cotton, and properly prepared, they will make a
mattress but little inferior to curled hair: price about fifty cents
per cwt. The average price of this grain may be set down at forty
cents per bushel; and the yield on upland in some parts of the State
may be stated at thirty bushels per acre.

Five varieties of maize are grown in Peru. One is known by the name of
_chancayano_, which has a large semi-transparent yellow grain; another
is called _morocho_, and has small yellow grain of a horny appearance;
_amarello_, or the yellow, has a large yellow opaque grain, and is
more farinaceous than the two former varieties; _blanco_, white--this
variety is large, and contains more farina than the former; and
_cancha_, or sweet maize. The last is only cultivated in the colder
climates of the mountains; it grows about two feet high, the cob is
short, and the grains large and white; when green, it is very bitter,
but when ripe and roasted, it is particularly sweet, and so tender
that it may be reduced to flour between the fingers. In this roasted
state it constitutes the principal food of the mountaineers of several
provinces.

The natives remove the husk from the maize by putting it into water
with a quantity of wood ashes, exposing it to a boiling heat, and
washing the grain in running water, when the husk immediately
separates from the grain.

In Jamaica I found maize to produce two crops in the year, and often
three. It is usually grown there on the banks or ridges of the cane
fields. It may be planted at any time when there is rain, and it
yields from fifteen to forty bushels per acre, according to the
richness of the soil, and the more or less close manner in which it is
planted.

In the colony of New South Wales, including the district of Port
Phillip, there were 20,798 acres under cultivation with maize in 1844,
the produce from which was returned at 575,857 bushels; 27,058 bushels
of maize were exported from Sydney in 1848.

_Culture in the East Indies_.--The growers on the hills of Nepaul
reckon three kinds of maize: a white grained species, which is
generally grown on the hill sides; a yellow grained one, grown in the
low and hot valleys; and a smaller one, called "Bhoteah," or "Murilli
Makii," which is considered the sweetest of the three, but from being
less productive is not generally grown on good lands. Maize thrives
best on a siliceous, well-drained, rich soil. A correspondent in my
"Colonial Magazine," vol. ii. p. 309, says the finest Indian corn he
ever saw was in the Himalayas of the Sikim-range, where the soil
consists of a substratum of decomposed _mica_ from the under or rocky
stratum, with a superstratum of from three to six inches of decayed
vegetable matter, from leaves, &c., of the ancient forests.

Throughout Hindostan, June is the usual time for sowing. In Behar,
about two seers are usually sown upon a beggah; in Nepaul, twenty-four
seers upon an English acre; in the vicinity of Poonah, one and a-half
seer per beggah. Before the seed is sown the land is usually ploughed
two or three times, and no further attention given to the crop than
two hoeings. In Nepaul, where it is the principal crop cultivated, the
seed is sown, after one delving and pulverisation of the soil, in the
latter end of May and early part of June, in drills, the seeds being
laid at intervals of seven or eight inches in the drills, and the
drills an equal space apart. The drills are not raised as for turnip
sowing, but consist merely of rows of the plant on a level surface.
The seed is distributed in this manner with the view of facilitating
the weeding of the crop, not for the purpose of earthing up the roots,
which seems unnecessary. The Indian corn sowing resembles that of the
_gohya_ (or upland) rice, in the careful manner in which it is
performed; the sower depositing each grain in its place, having first
dibbled a hole for it five or six inches deep, with a small hand hoe,
with which he also covers up the grain.

The after-culture of this crop is performed with great care in the
valleys, but much neglected in the hills, especially on new and strong
lands. In the former it undergoes repeated weeding during the first
month of its growth, the earth being loosened round the roots, at each
weeding, with the hand hoe. After the first loosening of the soil,
which is performed as soon as the plants are fairly above ground, a
top dressing of ashes or other manure is given. By this mode the crop
gets the immediate benefit of the manure, which otherwise, from the
extraordinary rapidity of its growth, could not be obtained by it. In
three months from the time of sowing, the seed is ripe. The crop is
harvested by cutting off the heads. In Nepaul these are either heaped
on a rude scaffolding, near the cultivator's house, or, more commonly,
they are suspended from the branches of the trees close by, where,
exposed to wind and weather, the hard and tough sheath of the seed
cones preserves the grain for many months uninjured.

Cattle are voraciously fond of the leaves and stems, which are very
sweet, and even the dry straw, which Dr. Buchanan surmises may be the
reason why it is not more generally cultivated by the natives, as the
difficulty would be great to preserve the crop. So slow is the
progress of changes in the regions of India, that near Kaliyachak,
though the people give all other straw to their cattle, yet they burn
that of maize as unfit for fodder. In Nepaul the stalks, with the
leaves attached, often twelve feet long, cut by the sickle, are used
as fodder for elephants, bedding for cattle, and as fuel. The maize
crop within the hills of Nepaul suffers much from the inroads of
bears, which are very numerous in these regions, and extremely partial
to this grain. The average return from this crop is seldom below fifty
seers, ranging frequently far above it.[42] Maize is increasing in
cultivation in Java, and some of the Eastern islands. It is found to
have the advantage there over mountain rice, of being more fruitful
and hardy, and does not suffer from cold until the mean temperature
falls to 45 deg. of Fahrenheit, and no heat is injurious to it.
Several varieties of it are known, but for all practical purposes
these resolve themselves into two kinds: one, a small grain, requiring
five months to ripen, and a larger one, which takes seven to mature.
In some provinces of Java it yields a return of 400 or 500 fold. Mr.
Crawfurd found, from repeated trials, that in the soil of Mataram, in
Java, an acre of land, which afforded a double crop, produced of the
smaller grain 8481/2 lbs. annually.


RICE.

This is one of the most extensively diffused and useful of grain
crops, and supports the greatest number of the human race. The
cultivation prevails in Eastern and Southern Asia, and it is also a
common article of subsistence in various countries bordering on the
Mediterranean. It is grown in the Japan Islands, on all the sea coasts
of China, the Philippine and other large Islands of the Indian
Archipelago, partially in Ceylon, Siam, India, both shores of the Red
Sea, Egypt, the shores of the Mozambique Channel, Madagascar, some
parts of Western Africa, South Carolina, and Central America. Three
species only are enumerated by Lindley:--_Oryza sativa_, the common
rice, a native of the East; _O. latifolia_, a species having its
habitat in South America; and _O. Nepalensis_, common in Nepaul. But
there are a host of varieties known in the East; these, however, may
for all practical purposes, be resolved into two kinds--the upland or
mountain rice (_O. Nepalensis_, the _O. mutica_, of Roxburgh), and the
lowland or aquatic species (_O. sativa_).

_Zizania aquatica_ is exceedingly prolific of bland, farinaceous
seeds, which afford a kind of rice in Canada and North-West America,
where it abounds wild in all the shallow streams. The seeds contribute
essentially to the support of the wandering tribes of Indians, and
feed immense flocks of wild swans, geese, and other water fowl.
Pinkerton says, this plant seems intended to become the bread-corn of
the North. Two other species of Zizania are common in the United
States of America.

Rice, the chief food, perhaps, of one-third of the human race,
possesses the advantage attending wheat, maize, and other grains, of
preserving plenty during the fluctuations of trade, and is also
susceptible of cultivation on land too low and moist for the
production of most other useful plants. Although cultivated
principally within the tropics, it flourishes well beyond, producing
even heavier and better filled grain. Like many other plants in common
use, it is now found wild [it is to be understood that the wild rice,
or water oat (_Zizania aquatica_), already referred to, which grows
along the muddy shores of tide waters, is a distinct plant from the
common rice, and should not be confounded with it], nor is its native
country known. Linnaeus considers it a native of Ethiopia, while others
regard it of Asiatic origin.

The chief variety of this cereal is cultivated throughout the torrid
zone, wherever there is a plentiful supply of water, and it will
mature, under favorable circumstances, in the Eastern continent, as
high as the 45th parallel of north latitude, and as far south as the
38th. On the Atlantic side of the Western continent, it will flourish
as far north as latitude 38 degrees, and to a corresponding parallel
south. On the Western coast of America, it will grow so far north as
40 or more degrees. Its general culture is principally confined to
India, China, Japan, Ceylon, Madagascar, Eastern Africa, the South of
Europe, the Southern portions of the United States, the Spanish Main,
Brazil, and the Valley of Parana and Uruguay.

In 1834, 29,583 bags of rice were shipped from Maranham, but I am not
aware what have been the exports since.

At the Industrial Exhibition in London, in 1851, there were displayed
many curious specimens and varieties of rice, grown without
irrigation, at elevations of three thousand to six thousand feet on
the Himalaya, where the dampness of the summer months compensates for
the want of artificial moisture. Among these American rice received
not only honorable mention for its very superior quality, but the
Carolina rice, exhibited by E.I. Heriot, was pronounced by the jury
"magnificent in size, color, and clearness," and it was awarded a
prize medal. The jury also admitted that the American rice, though
originally imported from the Old World, is now much the finest in
quality.

This grain was first introduced into Virginia by Sir William Berkeley,
in 1647, who received half a bushel of seed, from which he raised
sixteen bushels of excellent rice, most or all of which was sown the
following year. It is also stated that a Dutch brig, from Madagascar,
came to Charleston in 1694, and left about a peck of paddy (rice in
the husk), with Governor Thomas Smith, who distributed it among his
friends for cultivation. Another account of its introduction into
Carolina is, that Ashley was encouraged to send a bag of seed rice to
that province, from the crops of which sixty tons were shipped to
England in 1698. It soon after became the chief staple of the colony.
Its culture was introduced into Louisiana in 1718, by the "Company of
the West."

The present culture of rice in the United States is chiefly confined
to South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas.
The yield per acre varies from twenty to sixty bushels, weighing from
forty-five to forty-eight pounds when cleaned. Under favorable
circumstances as many as ninety bushels to an acre have been raised.

Judge Dougherty, who resides near the borders of Henderson county,
Texas, has raised a crop of several hundred bushels of upland rice.
The crop averages thirty bushels to the acre. He thinks rice can be
raised there as easily as Indian corn, and will be far more
profitable.

Another variety is cultivated in America to a limited extent, called
Cochin-China, dry, or mountain rice, from its adaptation to a dry
soil, without irrigation. It will grow several degrees further north
or south than the Carolina rice, and has been cultivated with success
in the Northern provinces of Hungary, China, Westphalia, Virginia and
Maryland; but the yield is much less than that already stated, being
only fifteen to twenty bushels to an acre. It was first introduced
into Charleston, from Canton, by John Brodly Blake, in 1772.

The American crop of rice in 1848, reached 162,058 tierces in market,
and of these 160,330 tierces were exported from South Carolina. The
largest rice crop grown in South Carolina for the past thirty years,
was in 1847, when 192,462 tierces were raised; 140,000 to 150,000 is
about the average, and it has only exceeded 170,000 on four occasions.

The amount of rice exported from South Carolina in 1724, was 18,000
barrels; in 1731, 41,957 barrels; in 1740, 90,110 barrels; in 1747-48,
55,000 barrels; in 1754, 104,682 barrels; in 1760-61, 100,000 barrels;
from Savannah, in 1755, 2,299 barrels, besides 237 bushels of paddy or
rough rice; in 1760, 3,283 barrels, besides 208 bushels of paddy; in
1770, 22,120 barrels, besides 7,064 bushels of paddy; from
Philadelphia, in 1771, 258,375 pounds. The amount exported from the
United States, in 1770, was 150,529 barrels; in 1791, 96,980 tierces;
in 1800, 112,056 tierces; in 1810, 131,341 tierces; in 1820-21, 88,221
tierces; in 1830-31, 116,517 tierces; in 1840-41, 101,617 tierces; in
1845-46, 124,007 tierces; in 1846-47, 144,427 tierces; in 1850-51,
105,590 tierces.

According to the census of 1840, the rice crop of the United States
amounted to 80,841,422 lbs.; in 1850, 215,312,710 lbs.

Rice being an aquatic plant, is best grown in low moist lands, that
are easily inundated.

The ground is ploughed superficially, and divided into squares of from
twenty to thirty yards in the sides, separated from each other by
dykes of earth about two feet in height, and sufficiently broad for a
man to walk upon. These dykes are for retaining the water when it is
required, and to permit of its being drawn off when the inundation is
no longer necessary. The ground prepared, the water is let on, and
kept at a certain height in the several compartments of the rice
field, and the seedsman goes to work. The rice that is to be used as
seed must have been kept in the husk; it is put into a sack, which is
immersed in the water until the grain swells and shows signs of
germination; the seedsman, walking through the inundated field,
scatters the seed with his hand, as usual; the rice immediately sinks
to the bottom, and many even penetrate to a certain depth in the mud.
In Piedmont, where the sowing takes place at the beginning of April,
they generally use about fifty-five pounds of seed per acre. The rice
begins to show itself above the surface of the water at the end of a
fortnight; as the plant grows, the depth of the water is increased, so
that the stalks may not bend with their own weight. About the middle
of June this disposition is no longer to be apprehended; the rice is
not so flexible as it was, so that the water can be drawn off for a
few days to permit hoeing; after which the water is again let on, and
maintained to the height of the plant. In July it is usual to top the
stalks, an operation which renders the flowering almost simultaneous.

Rice generally flowers in the beginning of the month of August, and a
fortnight later the grain begins to form. It is at this period
especially that the stalks require to be supported, and this is
effectually done by keeping the water at about half their height. The
rice field is emptied when the straw turns yellow. The harvest
generally takes place at the end of September. In the Isle of France
rice is cultivated in very damp soils, upon which a great deal of rain
falls, but which are not flooded, as in other tropical countries: but
the process is not so certain nor the crop so great, as when
inundation is employed. In Piedmont the usual return of a rice field
is reckoned at about fifty for one. At Munzo, in New Granada, the
paddy fields which are not inundated, under the influence of a mean
temperature of 26 deg. centrigrade (79.0 deg. Fahrenheit), yield 100
for 1.--(Simmonds's "Colonial Magazine," vol. xi., p. 92.)

The rice now grown about New Orleans is as sweet, if not sweeter,
than that imported from South Carolina, but it is deficient in
hardness and brightness when ready for market, a defect owing entirely
to two causes, neither of which is beyond the control of the planter.
The one cause is the mode of culture, it being generally grown without
due attention to the seed--seeded at too late a period of the season,
and allowed to become _rare-ripe_ upon the stalk. The other cause is
the very imperfect mode of its preparation for market; this being
invariably accomplished by the primitive pestle and mortar, or the
old-fashioned "pecker mill." The same seed is planted in the same soil
from year to year, a system which, it is generally conceded, will
deteriorate the quality and production of any grain crop. A very large
proportion of the rice grown in Carolina is prepared for market at the
steam toll-mills, in the vicinity of Charleston; and a mill of this
description near New Orleans, would remedy the greatest defect in the
rice of the country, greatly increase the demand for the article, and
undoubtedly yield a large return for the investment. The toll mills at
and around Charleston are, and always have been, prosperous. The mills
of Mr. Lucas, in England, erected to clean "paddy," _i.e._ "rough
rice," sent there in bulk from Carolina, have succeeded also, and have
increased the consumption of the article in that country. The "rough
rice," "paddy," or grain, as it comes from the ear, is composed,
first, of a rough, silicious outer covering, impervious to water,
which is very useful in the neighbourhood of cities, for filling up
low lots or pools, for horse beds, and for packing crockery and _ice_,
being far better for the latter purpose than the sawdust used; second,
a brown flour or bran, lying directly under the outer covering; and
third, of the clean or white rice. There is no question that, as a
common diet, it is better adapted to the climate of Louisiana than
Indian corn; and it can be grown on the hitherto _waste lands of the
sugar plantations_; it is always substituted by the physician, when
practicable, as the food best adapted to the laborer, in seasons of
diarrhoea and other similar diseases, is _preferred_ before any other
grain by the negro; and if the clean rice be ground and bolted, a meal
is produced which can be made up into various forms of cake and other
bread, of unrivalled sweetness and delicacy. The outer flour, or brown
bran, which is separated from the chaff at the toll mill, is known as
"rice flour," and corresponds to the "bran" of wheat, it is a most
excellent food for horses, poultry, pigs and _milch cows_, and would
always command a ready sale in New Orleans. It is used extensively for
these purposes at and around Charleston, and is shipped thence, by the
cargo, to Boston and other Northern ports.

No portion of the globe is better adapted to the growth of this grain
than the delta of the Mississippi. The river is _always_ "up and
ready" to do the all-important duty of irrigation in March, April,
May, and June, in which period of the year the crop ought to be made;
and I am informed, and doubt not, that _two_ cuttings can be obtained
from the same plants, between March and the killing frosts of the
succeeding November.

An interesting report by Dr. E. Elliot, on the Cultivation of Rice,
was read before the Pendleton Farmer's Society, South Carolina, at a
recent annual meeting, from which I shall make an extract.

In "Ramsay's History of South Carolina" it is stated:--"Landgrave
Thomas Smith, who was Governor of the Province in 1693, had been at
Madagascar before he settled in Carolina. There he observed that
rice was planted and grew in low moist ground. Having such ground in
his garden, attached to his dwelling in East Bay, Charleston, he was
persuaded that rice would grow therein, if seed could be procured.
About this time a vessel from Madagascar, being in distress, came to
anchor near Sullivan's Island. The master inquired for Mr. Smith, as
an old acquaintance. An interview took place. In the course of
conversation Mr. Smith expressed a wish to obtain some seed rice to
plant in his garden. The cook being called, said that he had a small
bag of rice suitable for the purpose. This was presented to Mr.
Smith, who sowed it in a low spot in Longitude Lane. From this small
beginning did one of the great staple commodities of South Carolina
takes its rise, which soon became the chief support of the colony,
and its great source of opulence."

"Such is the historical account of the introduction of rice into
South Carolina; and from that day to this, it has constituted one of
her staple articles of production. Although the climate and soil
were found admirably suited to the plant, the planters encountered
incredible difficulty in preparing or dressing the rice for market.
From the day of its introduction, to the close of the Revolution,
the grain was milled, or dressed, partly by hand and partly by
animal power. But the processes were imperfect, very tedious, very
destructive to the laborer, and very exhausting to the animal power.
The planter regarded a good crop as an equivocal blessing, for as
the product was great so in proportion was the labor of preparing it
for market. While matters stood thus, the planters were released
from their painful condition by a circumstance so curious that it
deserves a place in the history of human inventions. A planter from
the Santee, whilst walking in King-street, Charleston, noticed a
small windmill perched on the gable end of a wooden store. His
attention was arrested by the beauty of its performance. He entered
the store and asked who the maker was. He was told that he was a
Northumbrian, then resident in the house--a man in necessitous
circumstances, and wanting employment. A conference was held; the
planter carried the machine to the Santee, pointed out the
difficulties under which the planters labored, and the result was
the rice pounding-mill. This man was the first Mr. Lucas, and to his
genius South Carolina owes a large debt of gratitude. For what the
cotton planter owes to Eli Whitney, the rice planter owes to Mr.
Lucas. His mills were first impelled by water, but more recently by
steam, and though much mechanical ingenuity and much capital have
been expended in improving them, the rice pounding-mill of this day,
in all essential particulars, does not differ materially from the
mill as it came from the hands of Mr. Lucas.

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