RICE. The name by which rice was known to the ancient Greeks and Ro mans was oryza, and has been adopt ed by modern botanists as the generic name of the plant yielding that invalua ble grain. The genus oryza belongs to the class herandria, order dygynia ; and has ten glumes to a single flower, and two palea, nearly equal, adhering to the seed. It affords many varieties, of which the most common is the oryza sativa, or the English rice. This plant is raised in immense quantities in India, China, and most eastern countries ; in the West In dies, Central America, and the United States, and in some of the southern countries of Europe. It, in fact, occupies the same place in most intertropical re gions as wheat in the warmer parts of Europe, and oats and rye in those more to the north. Forming, as it does, the principal part of the food of the most ci vilized and populous eastern nations, it is more extensively consumed than any other species of grain. It is light and wholesome, but it is said to contain less of the nutritive principle than wheat. When rough, or in its natural state in the husk, it is called paddy. There is an immense variety in the qualities of rice. That which is principally exported from Bengal has received the name of. cargo rice. It is of a coarse reddish cast, but is sweet and large-grained, and is pre ferred by the natives to every other sort. It is not kiln-dried, but is parboiled in earthen pots or caldrons, partly to de stroy the vegetative principle, so that it may keep better, and partly to facilitate the process of husking. Patna rice is mot e esteemed in Europe than any other sort of rice imported from the East. It is small-grained, rather long and wiry, and remarkably white. But the rice raised on the low marshy grounds of Carolina is unquestionably very superior to any brought from any part of India.
The produce of lands naturally or arti ficially irrigated is, as far as rice is con cerned, from five to ten times greater than that of dry land having no com mand of water; and hence the vast im portance of irrigation in all countries *ere this grain is cultivated. But it is worthy of remark, that owing to the not unfrequent occurrence of severe droughts, there is a greater variation in the crops of rice than in those of any other species of grain. Those who, like the Hindoos,
depend almost entirely on it for subsist ence, are consequently placed in a very precarious situation. There can be no doubt that famines are at once more fre quent and severe in Hindostan than in any other quarter.
A few years ago, England was princi pally supplied with cleaned rice from Carolina. To that country the exports of Carolina rice have been much re duced. An improved method of sepa rating the husk, which throws out the grain clean and unbroken, has recently been practised in England ; and as the grain when in the husk is found to pre serve its flavor and sweetness better dur ing a long voyage than when shelled, large quantities are now imported rough from Bengal and the United States.
The rice of Carolina, analyzed by Braconnot, was found to be composed of starch 85.07, of gluten 3.50, of gum 011, of uncrystallizable sugar 0.29, of a color less rancid fat like suet 0.13, of vegeta ble fibre 4.8, of salts with potash and lime bases and 5.0 of water.
The plant, in a wild state, has been found growing in the Northwest ter ritory : in all that country the wild rice is found growing in the lakes and streams.
Some of the seed of this indigenous plant was distributed in in 1849. It has been furnished by Professor Randall, of Cincinnati, who has lately come from the Minnesota territory.
It is considered by him superior in taste, and far more nutritious than the southern rice ; it grows abundantly as an indigenous production, and can be cultivated to almost any extent in the rivers and lakes that abound in that territory. After the rice is ready for gathering, the tops are tied up in small sheaf's as it stands growing in the, water, and then the Indian in his canoe passes through it and beats off the seed into his canoe, by bending over the canoe the tops so that the seed may fall aright. An Indian squaw will gather from five to ten bushels per day. It will grow in water, we are informed, from six inches to five feet deep, when it finds a muddy soil. Its stalk, and the branches or ears that have the seed, are described as re sembling oats, both in appearance and manner of growing, the stalks being full of joints and rising from one half to four feet above the level of the water.