The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1875-04-24
RICE.

The cultivation Of rice in these islands, under
the stimulus of free trade for our crop in the
markets Of California and Oregon, will be likely
TO increase very considerably. The duty of two
and-a-half cents per pound heretofore imposed on
our rice in San Francisco has made it difficult for
our planters to make a living, and its removal will
be to them a real boon. There are, throughout
the islands, some eighteen plantations, nine of
these being on the island Of Oahu, and Dearly all
are owned or managed by Chinese. The esti-
mated crop from these for the current year is
$500 tons of paddy. That the production, under
the spur Of better prices through reciprocity,
will be doubled or trebled inside of two or three
years, may reasonably be expected. There are
large tracts where water can be laid on that are
unsuited to cane, but which are just the thing for
rice. Wherever taTo has formerly been ~cultiva-
ted, the prospects are good for rice. A sPecula-
tive feeling already prevails in the matter Of rice
lands, and we hear Of twenty dollars an acre as
being demanded for a lease of patches that a year
ago were not considered worth five. The average
crop is from $500 to 5000 pounds of paddy to the
acre.
The great advantage in the cultivation of rice
over that Of sugar consists in the fact that IN the
latter case the planter is encountered at the out
set with the heavy cost Of a mill and machinery
to manufacture his crop for market, whereas the
rice grower can readily dispose of his after meet
inc the moderate expense of threshing. The
prospective increase in the culture of rice in the
other islands and in the outer districts of Oahu,
will probably lead ere long to the establishment
of a steam cleaning and polishing mill in this city.
Besides the cultivation of the ordinary rice,
which REQUIRES a warm climate and abundance of
water, there is grown in China a very superior
ouick-ripening rice adapted for cool and high al
titudes and a dry soil, which may eventually be
introduced here. 1t is known as the Imperial
rice, and is thus spoken of by one of the Chinese
EmperOrs, in his memoirs:
"I was walking, on the first day of the sixth moon, F.
in some fields where Rice was sown which was not
expected to yield its harvest till the ninth. I hap
pened TO notice a Rice plant which had already come
into ear; it rose above all the rest, and was already
ripe. 1 had it gathered and brought to me-; the grain
was very fine and full, and I was induced to keep it
for an experiment, and see whether it would, in the
following year, retain this precOcity; and, in fact, it
did. All the plants that proceeded from it came into
ear before the ordinary time, and yielded their har-
vest in the sixth moon. Every year has multiplied
the produce of the preceding; and now, for thirty
vears. il has been the Rice served on my table. The
| grain is long, and of a rather reddish color, but of a
sweet perfume and very pleasant favor. 1t has been
named Ya-ni, or Imperial Rice, because it was in
my garden that it was first cultivated. It is the only
kind that can ripen north Of the Great Wall, where
the cold begins very early and ends very late. But
in the provinces Of the South, where the climate Is
milder and the soil more fertile, it is easy to obtain
two harVests a year from it; and it is asHset conso-
lation to me to have procured this advantage for my
people,
NJ. Hue observes: "The Emperor Tkhan-hi did
render in fact an immense service to the population
Of Mantchuria, by encouraging the culture Of this
new kind Of Rice, which succeeds admirably in dry