The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom Part 42

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 was.h.i.+ng to get rid of the must, which acc.u.mulates 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.

Pa.s.sing 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, j.a.pan, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 princ.i.p.al 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 d.y.k.es 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 a.s.sume 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 s.p.a.ce 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 quant.i.ties, 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 ma.s.ses 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 ash.o.r.e 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 quant.i.ty 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 gra.s.s, 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.

The rice of Bengal, by the exercise of some care and skill, has recently been so far improved as nearly to equal that of the Carolinas. Dr. Falconer has introduced into India the numerous and fine varieties of rice cultivated in the Himalayas; of these some of the best sorts were at his suggestion distributed to cultivators along the Doab ca.n.a.l.

A species of hill rice grows on the edge of the Himalaya mountains.

The mountain rices of India are grown without irrigation, at elevations of 3,000 to 6,000 feet on the Himalaya, where the dampness of the summer months compensates for the want of artificial moisture.

The small reddish a.s.samese rices, which become gelatinous in boiling, and the large, flat-grained, soft, purple-black Ketana rice, of Java and Malacca, shown at the Great Exhibition, were curious.

The fertility of the province of Arracan is very great, its soil being fit for the culture of nearly all tropical productions; rice, however, is alone cultivated to any great extent; the low alluvial soil which extends over the whole country, from the foot of the mountains to the sea, being admirably suited for its growth. About 115 square miles are under culture with rice. The export trade in rice of the district, is seen by the following statistical return; and it gives employment to from 400 to 700 vessels, aggregating 60,000 to 80,000 tons.

QUANt.i.tY OF PADDY AND RICE EXPORTED FROM AKYAB, THE PORT OF ARRACAN.

-------+---------+-------+---------+---------------------------------- | | | |Average price per 100 baskets | | | Total | of 12 seers, in Rupees |Maunds of|Maunds | value +------------------+--------------- | Paddy |of rice| Rupees | Rice | Paddy -------+---------+-------+---------+------------------+--------------- 1831-32| 380,600| 28,970| 130,591| 15.4 to 16.6 | 8 to 9 1832-33| 502,740|175,560| 232,915| 16 17 | 7.5 8 1833-34| 555,540|418,950| 430,830| 19 20 | 9 10 1834-35| 127,050|260,650| 176,717| 18 19 | 8 9 1835-36| 783,870|548,460| 354,791| 10 11 | 5 5.8 1836-37|1,737,841|641,010| 666,732| 10.8 12 | 5 6 1837-38|1,621,566|248,783| 650,385| 21 23 | 9 10.8 1838-39|1,364,100|332,380| 821,168| 24 25.1 | 8.8 11.12 1839-40|2,033,698|529,961|1,121,311| 21.8 23 | 9.8 10 1840-41|2,212,068|446,941|1,131,087| 20 21.8 |10 11 1841-42|1,265,388|270,000| 553,014| 19 20 | 8 9 1842-43|1,310,900|393,900| 472,889| 14 15 | 7.8 8 1843-44| 848,922|707,780| 633,710| 17 18 | 7 8 -------+---------+-------+---------+------------------+---------------- (" Colonial Magazine," vol. vi., p. 348.)

EXPORT OF RICE FROM MOULMEIN

Baskets Value 1840 67,318 38,708 1841 11,175 6,900 1842 64,055 40,034 1843 35,635 35,289 1844 71,822 44,529 1845 149,815 73,034 1846 193,267 101,465

--(Simmonds's "Colonial Magazine," vol. xii., p. 462.)

From Tavoy and Mergui rice was also exported, equal in value to 41,000 rupees, in 1846; 100 baskets of 12 seers each, are equal to 30 Bengal maunds. The basket of rice named above, is equal to 55 lbs. English.

Paddy means rice in the husk--rice, the grain when unhusked--a distinction to be kept in mind.

The daily average consumption of rice in a family of five, is rated in the Straits' settlements at three and a quarter chupahs.

The Burmese and Siamese are the grossest consumers of rice. A common laboring Malay requires monthly 30 chupahs, or 56 pounds of rice, value 3s. 9d. or 4s. The Burmese and Siamese about 34 chupahs, or 64 pounds. Rice land in Penang yields a return which cannot be averaged higher than seventy-five fold--or nearly thirty guntangs of paddy for each orlong (1-1/3 acres); but it has been considered advisable to rate it here at sixty fold only.

The rice land of Province Wellesley gives an average return of 117 fold; the maximum degree of productiveness being 600 guntangs of paddy to an orlong of well flooded, alluvial land, or 150 fold, equal to 300 guntangs of clean rice, weighing nearly 4,520 English pounds. The present average produce has been very moderately estimated at 470 guntangs the orlong of paddy. The quant.i.ty of seed invariably allotted for an orlong of land is four guntangs. In Siam forty fold is estimated a good average produce. At Tavoy, on the Tena.s.serim coast, the maximum rate of productiveness of the rice land was, in 1825, and is still believed to be, nearly the same as the average of Siam; while their _average_ was only twenty-fold.--(Low, on "Straits Settlements.")

Rice in Cochin-China is the "staff of life," and forms the main article of culture. There are six different sorts grown; two on the uplands, used for confectionery, and yielding only one crop annually; the other sorts affording from two to five crops a year; but generally two, one in April and another in October; or three when the inundations have been profuse.

The late Dr. Gutzlaff stated, at a meeting of the Statistical Society of London, that the population of China was about 367,000,000, and the returns of the land subject to tax as used in rice cultivation there, gave nearly half an acre to each living person; and he further stated that in the southern and well watered provinces, it is anything but uncommon to take two crops of rice, one of wheat, and one of pulse, from the same land in a single season. Rice is the only article the Chinese ever offer a bounty for; the price fluctuates according to the seasons, from one and three-quarter dollars to eight dollars per picul. Siam and the Indian Islands, particularly Bali and Lombok, supply the empire occasionally with large quant.i.ties.

The price of rice in China varies according to the state of the ca.n.a.ls leading to the interior; if they are full of water the prices rise; if on the contrary they are low, prices fall in proportion at the producing districts. The amount of consumption is controlled, in a considerable degree, by the cost of transit; when this is cheap prices rise from the general demand; but when land-carriage to any extent has to be resorted to, they fall; it raises prices so much at any great distance, that rice must be used very sparingly, from its enhanced price. It is obvious that if the waters are sufficiently high to allow a boat to pa.s.s fully loaded, she does so at an expense of nearly 50 per cent, less than she would do, if, from want of water, she could only take half the quant.i.ty; when transport is cheap every one obtains a full supply; when it is dear the rice districts have more than they can consume.

At home we are so much accustomed to the facilities of transit offered by railroads, ca.n.a.l boats, &c., that we do not readily take into consideration, that in China, except by water, all articles are conveyed from one place to another on men's shoulders. Taking the population of Canton at the usual estimate of a million, and allowing to each a catty a day, the quant.i.ty of rice required for one day's consumption alone in that city would be 10,000 piculs, of 133 lbs.

each = 1,340,000 lbs.

Java is the granary of plenty for all the Eastern Archipelago; and the Dutch East India Company occupies itself in this culture with solicitude, well persuaded that a scarcity of rice might be fatal to its power. Ordinances to encourage and increase this branch of agriculture, have been promulgated at different times by an authority called to watch over the physical well-being of many millions of inhabitants.

As an evident proof that the culture of rice, of which it would be difficult to fix the quant.i.ty produced annually, increases considerably, I may mention that the exportation from Java, in 1840, was 1,488,350 piculs of 125 Dutch lbs.

Rice is cultivated in Java in three systems. The name of _sawah_ is given to the rice fields, which can be irrigated artificially; _tepar_, or _tagal_, are elevated but level grounds; and _gagah_, or _ladang_, are cleared forest grounds. The two last only give one crop; a second crop may be obtained from the _sawah_, which then most commonly consists of _katjang_, from which oil is extracted, in _kapus_ or fine cotton, and in _ubie_, a kind of potato.

There are, says Mr. Crawfurd, two distinct descriptions of rice cultivated throughout the Indian islands, one which grows without the help of immersion in water, and another for which that immersion is indispensably requisite. In external character there is very little difference between them, and in intrinsic value not much. The marsh rice generally brings a somewhat higher price in the market. The great advantage of this latter consists in its superior fecundity. Two very important varieties of each are well known to the Javanese husbandman, one being a large productive, but delicate grain, which requires about seven months to ripen, and the other a small, hardy, and less fruitful one, which takes little more than five months. The first we constantly find cultivated in rich lands, where one annual crop only is taken; and the last in well watered lands, but of inferior fertility, where two crops may be raised.

Both of these, but particularly the marsh rice, is divided into a great number of sub-varieties, characterised by being awned or otherwise, having a long or round grain, or being in color black, red, or white. The most singular variety is the _O. glutinosa_, of Rumphius. This is never used as bread, but commonly preserved as a sweetmeat. The rudest, and probably the earliest practised mode of cultivating rice, consists in taking from forest lands a fugitive crop, after burning the trees, gra.s.s, and underwood. The ground is turned up with the mattock, and the seed planted by dibbling between the stumps of trees. The period of sowing is the commencement of the rains, and of reaping that of the dry season. The rice is of course of that description which does not require immersion.

The second description of tillage consists also in growing mountain or dry land rice. This mode is usually adopted on the common upland arable lands, which cannot conveniently be irrigated. The grain is sown in the middle of the dry season, either broadcast or by dibbling, and reaped in seven or five months, as the grain happens to be the larger or the smaller variety.

The culture of rice by the aid of the periodical rains forms the third mode. The grain being that kind which requires submersion, the process of sowing and reaping is determined with precision by the seasons. With the first fall of the rains the lands are ploughed and harrowed. The seed is sown in beds, usually by strewing very thickly the corn in the ear. From these beds the plants, when 12 or 14 days old, are removed into the fields and thinly set by the hand. They are then kept constantly immersed in water until within a fortnight of the harvest, when it is drawn off to facilitate the ripening of the grain.

The fourth mode of cultivating rice is by forcing a crop by artificial irrigation, at any time of the year; thus, in one field, in various plots, the operations of sowing, ploughing, transplanting, and reaping may be seen at the same period.

The fertile, populous, and industrious countries of the Eastern Archipelago export rice to their neighbours. The most remarkable of these are Java, Bali, some parts of Celebes, with the most fertile spots of Sumatra, and of the Malay Peninsula. Rice is generally imported to these western countries from those farther east, such as the Spice Islands. Java is the princ.i.p.al place of production for the consumption of the other islands, and the only island of the Archipelago that sends rice _abroad_. The rice of the eastern districts is generally superior to that of the western. The worst rice is that of Indramayu, which is usually discolored. The subdivision of the province of Cheribon, called Gabang, yields rice of fine white grain, equal to that of Carolina. The rice of Gressie preserves best.

All Indian rice is cla.s.sed, in commercial language, into the three descriptions of table rice, white rice, and cargo rice. From the limited demand for the first, it is only to be had in Java, in small quant.i.ty. For the same reason the second is not procurable in large quant.i.ty, unless bespoken some time before-hand; but the third may be had at the shortest notice in any quant.i.ty required. Java rice is inferior in estimation to that of Bengal or Carolina in the markets of Europe.

The following statistics show the extent and progress of the culture in Java:--

In 1840. In 1841.

--------- ---------- No. of Residencies in which rice is cultivated 18 18

" Regencies 69 68

" Districts 414 414