CHAPTER II - RICE AND ITS CULTURE

Summary

Although nineteen-twentieths of all the rice raised in the United States is grown within a district of narrow limits, on the sea-coast of the Carolinas and Georgia, the crop forms a not unimportant item among the total productions of the country. The crop of 1849 was supposed to be more than two hundred and fifteen million pounds, and the amount exported was equal, in value, to one-third of all the wheat and flour, and to one-sixth of all the vegetable food, of every kind, sent abroad. The exportation of 1851 was exceeded in value, according to the Patent Office Report, only by that of cotton, flour, and tobacco.

Rice is raised in limited quantity in all of the Southern States, and probably might be in some at the North. Rice has been grown on the Thames in England, and is extensively cultivated in Westphalia, Lombardy, and Hungary, in a climate not differing, materially, from that of Southern Ohio or Pennsylvania. Travellers have found a variety of rice extensively cultivated among the Himalayan mountains, at an elevation but little below the line of constant snow. It is true that a hot climate is necessary for a large production; but these facts contradict the common assertion, that rice can only be grown under such circumstances of climate as must be fatal to any but negro labor.