been stirred up under water, about 160 liters of seed being used to the hectare (1.84 bushels to an acre). During germination and the first few days of vegetation the water is only 2 or 3 centimeters (about an inch) in depth, but this depth is increased as the plant develops until it amounts to 20 centimeters (nearly 8 inches). As the rice grows the weeds invade the beds, so that weeding must be frequently done from the 1st of June to the end of August. The commonest grasses infesting the rice beds are barnyard grass (Panicum crus-galli) and a Spanish grass called "goose-tongue" (Potamogeton fluitans), which entangles the stalks of the rice. When this latter grass is very thick the only remedy is to let the field lie fallow for a year, with frequent workings.

The crop ripens about the middle of September. In fields still cov ered by water the stalks are cut by the sickle and carried away for thrashing, but in dry fields they are dried in the sun upon the stubble. Thrashing is done by treading out by oxen, mules, or horses upon floors of beaten clay, and the grain spread in the sun to dry, after which it is taken to the mills at Tortosa and Vinaroz. Spanish paddy weighs about 50 to 55 kilograms to the hectoliter (about 39 to 43 pounds per bushel) and yields, under the cleaning process used, 63 per cent of white rice.

The above-mentioned yield of 60 to 70 hectoliters per hectare above mentioned as being obtained in the first years of cultivation can not be kept up without renovation of the soil by fertilizers. After the first three or four seasons it begins to lessen each year, even upon the best cared for fields, and finally drops to 28 and 30 hectoliters (32 to 343 bushels per acre). When this occurs fertilizers must be used, or the field must be allowed to lie fallow or must be improved by "colmatage," i. e., the deposit of alluvial matter from the river, or a greater yield than 30 hectoliters can not afterward be counted upon.

If the maximum yield of 70 hectoliters should be maintained, valued at 14 francs per hectoliter, or 980 francs per hectare ($76.54 per acre), there will be a net profit of 494 francs per hectare ($42.63 per acre), which is considered a good return. With a yield of 35 hectoliters, or half as much as the above, the profit is almost nothing, and without fertilizers a yield of 28 or 30 hectoliters results in actual loss. This is the principal cause of the crisis in the Delta. Certain well-to-do proprieters understand this and maintain superior fields by the use of Peruvian guano, but unfortunately the majority of the farmers lack capital with which to buy fertilizers.

In Valencia, says Mr. Mertens, in Consular Report No. 105, May, 1889, rice is sown in March, and the seedlings are transplanted in the Asiatic manner, when from 20 to 30 centimeters high (8 to 12 inches), which is in May or June, and the crop is gathered in August or September, the rice then having an average height of 1 meter (39.37 inches). About 25 per cent of the crop is shipped to Cuba, the rest being consumed in

RICE.

the country itself. In bad harvest years foreign rice is imported, although foreign rice always finds market at Valencia when prices range lower than that of the home production. There are about 120 rice mills in the province, most of them being worked by water power.

Many other countries produce rice in small quantities for home consumption, but the foregoing are the chief producers or those of most interest. It is unfortunate that many countries, such as Portugal, for example, where the mode of cultivating rice might prove instructive, do not publish any account of their proceedings.

TABLE IV.-Production of rice in the United States.

360

130,019, 123 3, 951, 119

North Carolina.

South Carolina'.

Texas

Virginia

178

3

United States

162, 406

RICE SOILS OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

By MILTON WHITNEY, M. 8.

IDLE LAND.

There are at present in South Carolina, and doubtless the same conditions hold in other rice-growing States, thousands of acres of the finest rice lands which have been abandoned and are now lying idle. The conditions which have led to this are interesting to a student of social science, and while they are discouraging to many of the present owners of the land they undoubtedly offer certain advantages to intelligent and well-to-do planters who have sufficient capital to invest in rice culture. The cultivation of rice is a very expensive undertaking, and, as a rule, it can be carried on much more economically on a large scale than on a small scale, and probably for the production of no other purely agricultural crop are capital and strict business methods so necessary as for the production of rice by the method of water-culture.

The principal cause which has brought about the existing conditions of things and has caused the abandonment of so much rice land, is the lack of capital, due to the heavy losses sustained by the planters during the late war. Not only did the war leave the planters without working capital and without means to employ labor, but during their absence the freshets had broken the dikes and filled up the canals and ditches so that it would have required a considerable outlay of money to have put the rice plantations in their former condition. When the cottonplanter returned to the plantation after the war he could begin on a much smaller scale, with perhaps only a few acres under cultivation and one or two mules to work the crop, gradually increasing and extending his operations as the profits on his crops came in. The rice planter could not begin in this small way, for the dikes must all be repaired and the canals and ditches put in order before it would be safe or prac ticable to cultivate any single field on the plantation.

The rice lands had to be mortgaged, and these mortgages increased from time to time to secure the most pressing needs of support, and these mortgages are still held in the Charleston banks, no one caring to foreclose and get property which is practically unimproved and for which there is no sale, as there is very little local capital in the State to invest in the improvements which would be necessary to restore the land to a

condition fit and safe for cultivation. Lands, which were formerly worth $200 or $300 per acre, are now worth no more than $20 or $30, and where the dikes have been washed away and the canals and ditches filled up and the lands abandoned they can often be purchased for $1 per acre. Planters who purchased only a few years ago, while land values were still high and crop prices good, giving mortgages for part of the purchase money, have been unable, owing to the subsequent aud unlooked for decline in land value and in market value of the crop, resulting from the wonderful advances in industrial lines and the cheapening of the freight rates from all over the world, to pay the interest on the debt and maintain the plantation in good condition. More money has been raised to meet current expenses, and finally the heavy mortgage has been such a burden that it could not be longer borne and the lands are abandoned and thrown on to the market. There is, therefore, no lack of the best rice lands in the State with good water facilities, which can be purchased for a merely nominal sum.

INEFFICIENT LABOR.

Another fact which has brought about the present condition of af fairs and explains in part why so much of the rice land is abandoned, is the scarcity and inefficiency of the negro labor, by which practically all of the field work has been done. The phosphate industry along the coast in South Carolina and in Florida has drawn large numbers of these negroes away from the rice fields, attracting them by higher wages and what they consider a more independent life. It is difficult to secure enough labor to handle the crops, and the negroes who remain on the plantations are not as steady, as efficient, or as reliable as the older generations were before the war. With the phosphate works almost in sight of their dwellings, and an abundance of fish and game, and a mild climate, making it easy to live, they are so irresponsible that it is difficult to control the labor. They are very unwilling to work in the ditches and canals, and it is almost impossible to keep the ditches and canals clean and of a proper depth by the available negro labor. Formerly such work was done in the fall and winter seasons, and the dikes, ditches, and canals were repaired and put in order for the next year's crop. It is difficult and expensive to control the labor to do this work now, and the canals are not as wide nor as deep as for merly, and the drains can not be kept open for the proper distribution.

of water.

It is very expensive to keep up the dikes so as to secure the crops from freshets. Formerly the State helped build and maintain these dikes, upon the height and stability of which along the river fronts these rice lands very largely depend, but now it is left to the individual planters and there is more disaster from freshets. There is opportunity here for the introduction of improved machinery which would do away with much of this inefficient labor. Small steam dredging machines

or steam shovels could be used to build up and repair the dikes, to widen and deepen the cavals, and even to clean out the larger drains. The machinery could be mounted on large flats, similar to those used for transporting the crop from the field, and two or three men with such dredges could do the work of a large number of laborers, and do it better and more quickly, under the conditions which prevail, than it could be done with shovels. These dredges could be owned by the larger planters, or they could be owned by an individual or a stock company who would contract with the planters to do a certain piece of work or to maintain the dikes, canals, and ditches in a certain specified condition.

Machinery could also be used in the preparation of the land and in the cultivation and harvesting of the crop. It must be understood that these rice lands are perfectly level, and are divided usually into rectangular fields of about 20 acres, with low dikes or embankments around each, sufficiently broad on top for a horse, and often for a cart or wagon, to travel on. There is no reason why steam machinery should not be used on these fields under the peculiar conditions of rice culture, especially as, unlike many other staple crops, rice culture is more economical on a large scale than on a small scale. It is not at all unusual to find plantations of 10,000 acres, with perhaps half of this amount of land available for rice culture, in a narrow strip along the river front from half a mile to a mile wide.

It is therefore quite possible for anyone starting in with sufficient capital to secure the finest rice lands at a very low price and by the introduction of improved methods, and especially by the introduction of improved machinery, to be largely independent of the scarcity and inefficiency of the labor.

LOW PRICE OF RICE.

Another condition which has tended to discourage the present owners of these abandoned lands is the low price of rice, due to the competition from abroad, made possible by the splendid facilities for transportation in the introduction of steam. This has acted in all branches of agriculture. Wheat brought a good market price while all required for home consumption had to be raised within hauling distance by teams, but this marvelous improvement in the means for transportation, which makes it cheaper to bring a barrel of flour from the far West to New York than to haul it up from the cars to your dwelling after it arrives, has opened up vast areas in the West for the production of wheat, and the home producer is no longer protected by the cost of transportation from a distance, and the price of wheat has fallen as low as 65 and 70 cents per bushel. The same causes have operated to lower the price of rice by bringing into competition the far off Eastern countries. There has been a revolution in industrial lines which has, from time to time, demoralized agriculture, and with her slow methods it is taking a long