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 be fore being brought to market. Special milling machinery is required for re moving the inner skin of the rice grain, and a large quantity of the grain is badly broken in the process, being sala ble only as broken rice or rice flour. Good Indian rice has the following com position: Moisture, 13.50 per cent.; ni trogenous matter, 7.41; starch, 78.10; fatty or oily matter, 0.40; ash, 0.59. Rice contains a smaller amount of ni trogenous 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 val uable 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 quantity and is used in laundries and 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 wild rice or Indian rice of North Amer ica, 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 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.