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

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This great impediment being removed, one formidable difficulty still
remained in the way of the rice planters, and that was the threshing
of the crop by flail. The labor requisite to accomplish this was so
great, that we once heard a distinguished planter say, while having
one large crop threshed out by flail, that he would regard another
large crop as a calamity. Previous to 1830 threshing mills had been
tried by various individuals, but with no apparent success. In that
year the attempt was renewed, and we were present and witnessed the
first trial of a thresher, constructed in New York, and which was
tested on Savannah river, under the auspices of General Hamilton.
The machinery was driven by apparatus similar to that employed for
driving the cotton gin. The result was not very satisfactory, but
there was ground for hope, and after an outlay of very large sums,
and after many disappointments, the happy expedient was thought of,
of testing the mill with steam instead of animal power. The
experiment was completely successful, and it was manifest at once
that the difficulties had not been in the imperfect construction, of
the thresher, but in the insufficiency of the moving power.

It is now twenty years since we witnessed the working of the small
mill alluded to, and the rice threshing-mill, with steam-engine
attached, is now a splendid piece of operative machinery. The rice
in sheaf is taken up to the thresher by a conveyor, it is threshed,
the straw taken off, then thrice winnowed and twice screened, and
the result in some cases exceeds a thousand bushels of clean rough
rice, the work of a short winter day.

Humanity rejoices at these inventions--at this transfer to water and
steam, of processes so slow and so exhausting to the human as well
as to the animal frame--and in this feeling we are confident every
planter deeply sympathises. Moreover, the relief they have afforded
in other respects has been perfectly indescribable. Previous to
these improvements all the finer portions of the winter were
appropriated exclusively to the milling and the threshing of the
crop with the flail, yet it is manifest they added not one particle
to the value of the property; indeed, while going on, all other
work, and all preparation for another crop had to be suspended, so
that the condition of the plantation was not progressive, but
retrograde.

A short recapitulation will show what has been accomplished by the
enterprise of our planters in the last seventy years. At the close
of the Revolution it is believed the rice fields were poorly
drained, and when broken up were chiefly turned with the hoe, then
trenched with the hoe; then came three or four hoeings and as many
pickings. The rice was then cut with the sickle and carried in on
the head, then threshed with the flail, then milled and dressed, in
some cases wholly by human labor, and in others by a rude machine,
called a pecker mill. Now, in 1852, the hoeing, the pickings, and
the cutting with the sickle remain unchanged; but the lands are
better drained, and in the turning the plough has superseded the
hoe; the trenching, when, necessary, is done by animal power; the
rice, when cut, is carried in on a flat and wagon, then threshed and
milled by machinery, so perfect that it is difficult to imagine how
it can be surpassed.

It is one hundred and fifty-nine years since the introduction of
rice into Carolina, and there are grounds for supposing that our
people have accomplished more during that period, in the cultivation
and preparation of this grain, than has been done by any of the
Asiatic nations who have been conversant with its growth for many
centuries. We had the rare opportunity, a few years since, of seeing
a Chinese book on rice planting, which contained many engravings.
The language we could not read, but we comprehended a sufficient
number of the engravings to institute a comparison between their
system and our own, and the result was, in our method of irrigation
we were their equals, while in economy of cultivation, and in the
preparation of the grain for market and for use, we are greatly
their superiors. Again, some six or seven years since the East India
Company, of London, sent an agent to this country to procure
American cotton seed, gins, and overseers, for the purpose of
testing the practicability of raising cotton by our method in India.
This agent, Captain Bayles, when in Savannah, was heard to say that
he had especial directions from the Company to inform himself
minutely of our system of rice culture. Here, then, was an embassage
from the banks of the Ganges, a spot where rice has been cultivated
probably for twenty centuries, to inquire into the method of
cultivation and preparation, of a people amongst whom the grain had
no existence one hundred and sixty years ago."

The following is the mode of culture for rice in Carolina:--It is
sowed as soon as it conveniently can be after the vernal equinox, from
which period until the middle, and even the last of May, is the usual
time of putting it in the ground. It grows best in low marshy land,
and should be sowed in furrows twelve inches asunder; it requires to
be flooded, and thrives best if six inches under water; the water is
occasionally drained off, and turned on again to overflow it, for
three or four times.

When ripe the straw becomes yellow, and it is either reaped with a
sickle, or cut down with a scythe and cradle, some time in the month
of September; after which it is raked and bound, or got up loose, and
threshed or trodden out, and winnowed in the same manner as wheat or
barley.

Husking it requires a different and particular operation, in a mill
made for that purpose. This mill is constructed of two large flat
wooden cylinders, formed like mill-stones, with channels or furrows
cut therein, diverging in an oblique direction from the centre to the
circumference, made of a heavy and exceedingly hard timber, called
lightwood, which is the knots of the pitch pine. This is turned with
the hand, like the common hand-mills. After the rice is thus cleared
of the husks, it is again winnowed, when it is fit for exportation.

A bushel of rice will weigh about sixty or sixty-six pounds, and an
acre of middling land will produce twenty-five bushels.

Various machines have been contrived for cleaning rice, of which one
secured by patent to Mr. M. Wilson, in 1826, and thus described by Dr.
Ure, may be regarded as a fair specimen:--It consists of an oblong
hollow cylinder, laid in an inclined position, having a great many
teeth stuck in its internal surface, and a central shaft, also
furnished with teeth. By the rapid revolution of the shaft, its teeth
are carried across the intervals of those of the cylinder, with the
effect of parting the grains of rice, and detaching whatever husks or
impurities may adhere to them. A hopper is set above to receive the
rice, and conduct it down into the clean cylinder. About eighty teeth
are supposed to be set in the cylinder, projecting so as to reach very
nearly the central shaft, in which there is a corresponding number of
teeth, that pass freely between the former.

The cylinder may also be placed upright, or horizontal if preferred,
and mounted in any convenient framework. The central shaft should be
put in rapid rotation, while the cylinder receives a slow motion in
the opposite direction. The rice, as cleaned by that action, is
discharged at the lower end of the cylinder, where it falls into a
shute, and is conducted to the ground. The machine may be driven by
hand, or by any other convenient motive power.[43] The growth of rice
in North America is almost wholly confined to two States; nine-tenths
of the whole product, indeed, being raised in the States of South
Carolina and Georgia. A little is grown in North Carolina, Louisiana,
and Mississippi.

The aggregate crop, for 1843, amounted to 89,879,185 lbs., while in
1847 it had risen to 103,000,000 lbs.

Besides the rice which is raised in the water, there is also the dry,
or mountain rice, which is raised in some parts of Europe on the sides
of the hills. It is said to thrive well in Cochin China, in dry light
soils, not requiring more moisture than the usual rains or dews
supply. By long culture the German rice, raised by the aid of water,
is stated to have acquired a remarkable degree of hardness and
adaptation to the climate. The upland rice of the United States is
thought by some to be only a modified description of the swamp rice.
It will grow on high and poor land, and produce more than Indian corn
on the same land would do, even fifteen bushels, when the corn is but
seven bushels. The swamp rice was originally cultivated on high land,
and is not so now, because it is more productive in the swamp, in the
proportion, as is said, of twenty to sixty bushels per acre; and the
use of water likewise, it is stated, makes it easier of cultivation,
by enabling the planter to kill the grasses. It is thought that on
rich high land, rice may be made to produce twenty-five or thirty
bushels to an acre in a good season. A letter from a gentleman in
North Carolina gives the following account of some rice raised there.
He says:--

"I have planted it the two past years with a view to private
consumption only; not, however, with the success of my neighbours,
who are famous, and have the things under their own management. They
make from forty to fifty, and some, sixty bushels to the acre, on
fine land that produces ordinarily from ten to fifteen bushels of
Indian corn or maize. It is a larger grain than the gold or swamp
rice, and very white; hence it is commonly called here the 'white
rice.' It is planted generally about the middle of March, or 1st of
April, in small ridges two-and-a-half feet apart, in chops at
intervals of about eighteen inches, on the top of the ridge, ten or
twelve seeds in each chop. A season that will make Indian corn,
will, if long enough, make this rice; but it requires about four or
five weeks more than the corn to mature. It ought to be cut before
quite ripe, as it threshes off very easily, and is liable to great
waste. Instead of the flail, we take the sheaf in the hand, and whip
it across a bench in a close room until the rice leaves the straw.
It does not stand the pestle as well as the swamp rice, but breaks a
good deal in the beating; this, however, I have heard attributed to
the dry culture."

A new variety of rice is mentioned as having been discovered in South
Carolina, in 1838, called the big-grained rice. It has been proved to
be unusually productive. One gentleman, in 1840, planted not quite
half an acre with this seed, which yielded forty-nine and a half
bushels of clean winnowed rice. In 1842, he planted 400 acres, and in
1843, he sowed his whole crop with this seed. His first parcel when
milled, was eighty barrels, and netted half a dollar per cwt. over the
primest rice sold on the same day. Another gentleman also planted two
fields in 1839, which yielded seventy-three bushels per acre. The
average crop before from the same fields of fifteen and ten acres, had
only been thirty-three bushels per acre.

The following were the returns of produce on some of the leading
estates of South Carolina, in 1848:--

-----------------+----------+-----------+---------+------------+----------
| Barrels | | | |
| Shipped | Barrels | |Average Net |Net Income
Plantation |__________| of | | Produce | Amount
|Whole|Half|600 lbs.net| Weight |per barrel. | Dollars
-----------------+-----+----+-----------+---------+------------+----------
1. Prospect Hill |1,387| 10 | 1,4951/2 | 897,166|16 08-100ths| 24,001
2. Springfield | 737| 5 | 8011/2 | 480,937|16 60-100ths| 13,264
3. Brook Green |1,571| 15 | 1,716 |1,026,405|16 53-100ths| 28,261
4. Longwood |1,113| 4 | 1,2271/2 | 736,413|15 53-100ths| 19,021
5. Alderly | 484| 6 | 533 | 319,912|16 68-100ths| 8,851
-----------------+-----+----+-----------+---------+------------+----------
Total |5,292| 40 | 5,7731/2 |3,460,833| | 93,398
-----------------+-----+----+-----------+---------+------------+----------

Nos. 2 and 3 were sown with long grain rice, the others with small
grain. These plantations were all on the river Waccamaw. The expenses
of a well supplied rice plantation may be stated at 33-1/3 per cent. on
the net income.

A gentleman from the United States, named Colvin, proposes to
establish the cultivation of rice in the colony of Demerara. This is
no new experiment, rice having been already grown with success in
several parts of the colony--for instance, in Leguan, up the Canje
Creek, and elsewhere; and some of it is of superior quality,
preferable, indeed, to that imported. If Mr. Colvin's object be not
merely to demonstrate the practicability of rice being grown in
British Guiana, but to promote its cultivation on such a scale as may
tend to render it in time one of the staples of the colony, he is
deserving of support, and I hope that his efforts will be crowned with
complete success.

The editor of the _Gazeta_, a local paper, has been shown some sprigs
of rice raised near Matanzas, in Cuba, the smallest of which contains
at least three hundred grains, perfectly opened, and of a larger size
than is usually produced on the island. He observes that this
phenomenon is not limited to a certain number of sprigs, but that the
whole crop is similar--that this excess of production is to be
attributed to the extraordinary abundance of rain this year. "Here we
have a specimen," says the editor, "of the enormous production that
could be raised in our fields of this excellent and nutritious grain,
if it were cultivated in places contiguous to the rivers, where it
could be flowed during drought."

The experiment of cultivating rice in France appears to have succeeded
perfectly. A piece of ground of 100 hectares in extent (250 acres) was
sown with rice last year in the lands of Arcachon, near Bordeaux, and
the crop proved a highly satisfactory one. The seed is sown about the
middle of April, and almost immediately appears above ground.

Rice may be kept a very long period in the rough--I believe a
lifetime. After being cleaned, if it be prime rice, and well milled,
it will keep a long time in this climate; only when about to be used
(if old) it requires more careful washing to get rid of the must,
which accumulates upon it. Some planters--the writer among the
number--prefer for table use rice a year old to the new. The grain is
superior to any other provisions in this respect. If a laborer in the
gold diggings, or elsewhere, takes with him two days' or a week's
provisions, in rice, and his wallet happens to get wet, he has only to
open it to the sun and air, and he will find it soon dries, and is not
at all injured for his purpose. Rough rice may remain under water
twenty-four hours without injury, if dried soon after.

Passing eastward, rice begins to be found cultivated in Egypt, becomes
more general in Northern India, and holds undisputed rule in the
peninsulas of India, in China, Japan, and the East India
islands--shares it in the west coast of Africa with maize, which, on
the other hand, is the exclusively cultivated corn plant of the
greatest part of tropical America, with only some unimportant
exceptions. On the coast of Africa rice ripens in three months; they
put it under water when cut, where it keeps sound and good for some
time.

Rice is now the staple commodity of Bourbon, and it produces about
26,000 quintals annually. It forms, together with maize and mandioc,
the principal article of food amongst the negroes and colored people.

_The Bhull rice lands of Lower Sind_.--Like all large rivers which
flow through an alluvial soil, for a very lengthened course, the Indus
has a tendency to throw up patches of alluvial deposit at its mouth;
and these are in Sind called _bhulls_, and are in general very
valuable for the cultivation of the red rice of the country. These
_bhulls_ are large tracts of very muddy swampy land, almost on a level
with the sea, and exposed equally to be flooded both by it and the
fresh water; indeed on this depends much of the value of the soil, as
a _bhull_ which is not at certain times well covered with salt water,
is unfit for cultivation. They exist on both sides of the principal
mouths of the Indus, in the Gorabaree and Shahbunder pergunnas, which
part of the province is called by the natives "Kukralla," and was in
olden days, before the era of Goolam Shah Kalora, a small state almost
independent of the Ameers of Sind. On the left bank of the mouths of
the river these _bhulls_ are very numerous and form by far the most
fertile portion of the surrounding district. They bear a most dreary,
desolate, and swampy appearance--are intersected in all directions by
streams of salt and brackish water, and are generally surrounded by
low dykes or embankments, in order to regulate the influx and reflux
of the river and sea. Yet from these dreary swamps a very considerable
portion of the rice consumed in Sind is produced; and the Zemindars,
who hold them, are esteemed amongst the most respectable and wealthy
in Lower Sind.

To visit a _bhull_ is no easy matter. Route by land there is none, and
the only way is to go by boat, in which it is advisable to take at
least one day's provisions and water, as the time occupied in the
inspection will be regulated entirely by the state of the tide and
weather. Very difficult is it too, to land on any of these places, the
mud being generally two or three feet deep, and it is only here and
there that a footing can be secured, in the embankment surrounding the
field.

Let me now describe the mode of cultivating these anomalous islands,
floating as it were in the ocean, and deriving benefit both from it
and the mighty river itself, whose offspring they are. Should the
river during the high season have thrown up a _bhull_, the Zemindar
selecting it for cultivation, first surrounds it with a low bund of
mud, which is generally about three feet in height. When the river has
receded to its cold weather level, and the _bhull_ is free of fresh
water (for be it remembered, that these _bhulls_ being formed during
the inundation, are often considerably removed from the river branches
during the low season), he takes advantage of the first high spring
tide, opens the bund and allows the whole to be covered with the salt
water. This is generally done in December. The sea water remains on
the land for about nine weeks, or till the middle of February, which
is the proper time for sowing the seed. The salt water is now let out,
and as the ground cannot, on account of the mud, be ploughed,
buffaloes are driven over every part of the field, and a few seeds of
the rice thrown into every footmark; the men employed in sowing being
obliged to crawl along the surface on their bellies, with the basket
of seed on their backs; for were they to assume an upright position,
they would inevitably be bogged in the deep swamp. The holes
containing the seed are not covered up, but people are placed on the
bunds to drive away birds, until the young grain has well sprung up.
The land is not manured, the stagnant salt water remaining on it being
sufficient to renovate the soil. The rice seed is steeped in water,
and then in dung and earth for three or four days, and is not sown
until it begins to sprout. The farmer has now safely got over his
sowing, and as this rice is not as in other cases transplanted, his
next anxiety is to get a supply of fresh water; and for this he
watches for the freshes which usually come down the river about the
middle and end of February, and if the river then reaches his _bhull_,
he opens his bund, and fills the enclosure with the fresh water. The
sooner he gets this supply the better, for the young rice will not
grow in salt water, and soon withers if left entirely dry.

The welfare of the crop now depends entirely on the supply of fresh
water. A very high inundation does not injure the _bhull_ cultivation,
as here the water has free space to spread about. In fact the more
fresh water the better. If, however, the river remains low in June,
July, and August, and the south-west monsoon sets in heavily on the
coast, the sea is frequently driven over the _bhulls_ and destroys the
crops. It is in fact a continual struggle between the salt water and
the fresh. When the river runs out strong and full, the _bhulls_
prosper, and the sea is kept at a distance. On the other hand, the
salt water obtains the supremacy when the river is low, and then the
farmer suffers. In this manner much _bhull_ crop was destroyed in the
monsoons of 1851 and 1852, during the heavy gales which prevailed in
those seasons. The rice is subject to attacks also of a small black
sea crab, called by the natives _Kookaee_, and which, without any
apparent cause, cuts down the growing grain in large quantities, and
often occasions much loss.

The crop when ripe, which, if all goes well will be about the third
week in September, is reaped in the water by men, either in boats, or
on large masses of straw rudely shaped like a boat, and which being
made very tight and close, will float for a considerable time. The
rice is carried ashore to the high land, where it is dried, and put
through the usual harvest process of division, &c.: and the _bhull_ is
then on the fall of the river again ready for its annual pickling.

The process of preparing the field for rice culture, in the Kandian
country, Ceylon, is very simple.

When the paddy is to be cultivated in mud, a piece of ground is
enclosed in a series of squares or terraces, by ridges raised with mud
and turf; a quantity of water is directed into the field from an
adjacent stream or tank, and is allowed to remain on it for fifteen
days; at the expiration of this time the field is ploughed with a yoke
of buffaloes, which operation is repeated at the end of fifteen days
more, when, by the rotting of the weeds and other matter, the field
has become manured. After another interval of fifteen days the field
is again ploughed and the broken ridges are repaired. Eight days after
the field is harrowed, and subsequently rolled or levelled; and when
the water has been let out the seed is sown, having in most instances
been previously made to germinate, by being spread on platforms and
kept wet.

The water is turned in during night, to prevent crabs and insects from
destroying the seedlings, and let out during the day; and this they
continue to do till the plants attain the height of one foot. Water is
only retained in the field until the ears are half ripe, otherwise
they would ripen indifferently and be destroyed by vermin. A variety
of coast paddy, called "moottoo samboo," was introduced into the
Kandian province in 1832, which was found to produce a more abundant
crop, by one third, than the native. It is of six months growth.

In Kashmir rice is the staple of cultivation, and the practice adopted
there is thus described by a writer in my "Colonial Magazine," vol. x.
p. 130. It is sown in the beginning of May, and is fit to cut about
the end of August. The grain is either sown broadcast in the place
where it is intended to stand till it is ripe, or thickly in beds,
from which it is transplanted when the blade is about a foot high. As
soon as the season will admit after the 21st of March, the land is
opened by one or more ploughings, according to its strength, and the
clods are broken down by blows with wooden mattocks, managed in
general by women, with great regularity and address; after which water
is let in upon the soil, which for the most part of a reddish clay, or
foxy earth, is converted into a smooth soft mud. The seed grain, put
into a sack of woven grass, is submerged in a running stream until it
begins to sprout, which happens sooner or later, according to the
temperature of the water and of the atmosphere, but ordinarily takes
place in three or four days. This precaution is adopted for the
purpose of getting the young shoots as quickly as possible out of the
way of a small snail, which abounds in some of the watered lands of
Kashmir, but sometimes proves insufficient to defend it against the
activity of this destructive enemy. When the farmer suspects, by the
scanty appearance of the plants above the water in which the grain has
been sown, and by the presence of the snail drawn up in the mud, that
his hopes of a crop are likely to be disappointed, he repeats the
sowing, throwing into the water some fresh leaves of the Prangos
plant, which either poison the snails or cause them to descend out of
the reach of its influence. The seed is for the most part thrown
broadcast into about four or five inches of water, which depth is
endeavoured to be maintained. Difference of practice exists as to
watering, but it seems generally agreed that rice can scarcely have
too much water, provided it be not submerged, except for a few days
before it ripens, when a dried state is supposed to hasten and to
perfect the maturity, whilst it improves the quality of the grain. In
general the culture of rice is attended with little expense, although
dearer in Kashmir than Hindostan, from its being customary in the
former country to manure the rice-lands, which is never done in the
latter. This manure, for the most part, consists of rice straw
rejected by the cattle, and mixed with cow-dung. It is conveyed from
the homestead to the fields by women, in small wicker baskets, and is
set on the land with more liberality than might have been expected
from the distance it is carried. Many of the ripe lands are situated
much higher than might be thought convenient in Hindostan, and are
rather pressed into this species of culture than naturally inviting,
but still yield good crops, through the facility with which water is
brought upon them from the streams which fall down the face of the
neighbouring hills. In common seasons the return of grain is from
thirty to forty for one, on an average, besides the straw.