RICE A yellow field that waves like wheat, but at nearer view looks more like oats, comes to harvest, sometimes twice a year, in the warm countries of the globe, especially in the regions near the sea. This is the rice crop, that feeds nearly half of the human race. Rice does well even with poor tillage, on poor soil; and better when given the careful culture that a good farmer puts upon a "money crop," one he grows to sell.
The rice plant is a grass, with long, narrow leaves, and wiry stems from two to five feet high. In India and Australia wild rice is found growing to-day on the edges of marshy sloughs and along rivers. From these wild grasses the natives gathered the seeds with care thousands of years ago, and, gradually, to the wild supply was added the harvest of patches sown with the gathered seed and improved by cultivation. Other regions got the seed, and so the crop spread eastward through what is now the great Chinese Empire, Japan, Siam, and the islands between India and Australia.
The culture of rice in the valley of the Euphrates was described by historians who wrote centuries before the Christian Era. Rice is mentioned in the Talmud. The Moors established it in Spain. It was grown on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea; with especial success in Italy. The boy Columbus might have seen thousands of acres of rice growing in the marshy lands about Genoa and Pisa, as he wandered about, dreaming of that far-off India he hoped to reach by a new route. His expeditions opened the way for the rice industry in Mexico and Central America. In 1647 the English attempted to grow rice in the swamps owned by the Virginia Colony, but that was out of its natural habitat — too far north.
The introduction of rice into the South was an accident, though it must surely have come. In 1694 a sailing vessel, bound for England from Madagascar, encountered a gale off the coast of South Carolina and was obliged to put into the port of Charleston for repairs. Here the captain found the Governor to be an old acquaintance. During their exchange of visits a bag of rice was brought ashore, and the Governor had it sown on a piece of swampy land he owned. The crop was a good one, and the planters of the neighbour hood went enthusiastically into rice culture. A dozen years later seventeen shiploads of rice left the port for England — the beginning of our export trade in this grain.
The Carolinas, Louisiana, and (lately) Texas, are the rice-growing states. Japan, Hawaii, and Mexico ship rice to American markets. The spread of rice culture was rapid under the slavery system in the South, but the Civil War almost ruined it. Slowly and steadily it has revived, and now is a great and growing agricultural in dustry.
The centuries of cultivation have developed many kinds of rice adapted to different soils, different regions, different modes of culture. Over two thousand varieties are listed. No
other grain has as many. If no other record existed to prove the antiquity of the domestication of the wild species, the multitude of varieties would be proof enough. Most of them must be grown on level fields that can be flooded. But there are varieties that need the same treatment as wheat.
These are called " upland," or "hill" rice. The "wet" rice includes all the varieties that must have water about the roots, or they die of thirst.
The famous "Carolina gold" variety was de veloped by a planter who went into his fields at harvest time and selected for seed the best heads with the longest kernels he could find. Year after year he persevered. The variety was thus "fixed." Many great plantations of the Far East send to the Carolinas for seed, rather than grow the short-grained native sorts, for the Carolina rice greatly increases the yield. Japan has a famous rice called Kiushiu, in great demand for seed in other countries. Its kernel is short and broad, and does not break in the mill as does the long grained rice.
The Chinese Empire has a tremendous popu lation, but few large cities. The people are thickly distributed over the country, where they live on what can be raised on little farms — we would call them mere patches of land. The failure of crops means famine. Rice is the princi pal crop. No wonder the wise Emperor, Chin nong, in the year z800 B.C., established the annual ceremonial of the sowing of the "five holy plants," that the people should keep in mind that these stood always between them and famine.
A field attached to the Temple of Earth and Heaven, at Peking, is worked into perfect condition in anticipation of the ceremony. The "Son of Heaven," as the Emperor is called, plows four furrows, with a wonderfully ornamented plow, kept in the temple for this purpose. Then the princes, the high dignitaries, and the court atten dants, down the scale of rank, take turns at the plow. Forty laborers, deserving of the honor, are allowed to finish the task of preparation. Then the Emperor sows the rice, himself; princes sow millet, wheat, barley and beans. These grains are tended with especial care as they grow, and harvested by officials of high rank. The crops of each grain are stored in the temple, and used on special occasions in making offerings to the spirits of the dead ancestors of the ruling Emperor.
Viceroys in the outlying provinces of the Empire enact the same ceremony, so the people are all reached by its influence.
China's population of 400,000,000 is more than five times that of the United States. In spite of all efforts, the people cannot raise all the rice they need. The exportation of this grain has for centuries been forbidden. Little Japan, with 50,000,00o population, exports quantities yearly.
The United States uses twice as much rice each year as it produces.