The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1884-12-24

is commonly, winch is quickly detected
in the rough rice by brokers and millers,
and materially affects it's value. For the
above reason also, while reapers may be,
and in some instances are, successfully
used in some Of the lowland rice fields,
the reapers with binders attached can
never be of service in this industry.
The above reason also accounts for the
superiority. of rice straw as forage over
that OF the straw from oats or any of the
other cereals. The sooner the rice is
harvested after the heads are fully ma
tured, the better for the farmer, for two
reasons particularly, viz first, the green
er the straw when cut, the better the
forage when cured, and, second, the
sooner the first growth is cut the better
it will be for the second growth from the
stubble, which will furnish fine and
rich fall pasturage for mich COWS or
stock, with a good rain or two after har-
vest. The harvest should be done with
a yiewlto the mode of threshing. If the
crop is small and is to beicleaned by
some manual process, it should be cut,
laid and bundled as evenly and straight
as possible, taking care to have the heads
all one way, which will save much time,
trouble and loss in the threshing, if by
hand. This can, without doubt, best be
done with the sickle. Some use a era
die by cutting across the rows, which
will do very we'll in case the rice is to be
either tramped out, whipped or failed
out, or run through thresher. The
usual mode in this vicinity, where far
mers have heretofore raised but small
patches for home use, is to whip over
into a barrel, or over a framework of
three or four horizontally arranged sticks
or bars for the purpose, which is te-
dious and imperfect mode. There is not
yet enough rice raised hereabouts to JUS
tify any one in buying a thresher. use
altogether a broom corn seed cleaner,
double geared, which does the work
rapidly, effectively, and without break
ing the grain. then run it through an
ordinary wheat fan.
There is another material difference
between rice and other cereals in their
preparation for market. Rice should
never be threshed Immediately after
harvesting, but should be well stacked
or slowed away for at least fifteen days,
in order to undergo a sweating course,
which it invariably does when stacked,
the effect of which, it is said, materially
hardens and whitens the grain !; hence
the lowland planters always leave their
rice stacked for from two to four weeks
before threshing. The last or lower
grains on the heads are those which in
dictate whether or not the crop is good
one and the heads well filled.
l have endeavored, with this crop, to
ascertain definitely what can be pro-
duced per acre i'll upland rice with a good
ordinary yield. | selected three good
average rows, having what deemed
full stand, and measured off an acre in
length-209 feet. These three rows cut
myself, yielding thirty two average bush
els; these threshed by themselves, and
find they yielded forty-seven pounds of
clean, rough RICE Taking the rows at
three feet apart, would give sixty-nine
rows to the acre; three rows yielding
forty-seven pounds would give fifteen
and two-third pounds per row, and six
ty-nine rows at fifteen and two-third
pounds per row would give 1851 pounds
per acre.
Rice is never measured by the bushel,
but is known, quoted and sold only by
the pound, clean, or by the barrel of 1852
pounds in the rough; but in order to
compare the average yield per acre with
other cereals, i took 2 bushels of my Hon
duras rice, measure well shaken, to the
railroad agent at the depot here, and had
him weigh it; it returned just forty-two
pounds to the bushel. This rice, how
ever, is extra fine and extra clean, and
| therefore, place the average weight at
forty pounds to the bushel, or four BUSH
els to the barrel of 1852 pounds. Now,
taking the yield Of pounds per acre, as
above, gives us twenty-seven bushels of
rice per acre, worth from $1.10 to 81 .15
per bushel. Now, let us compare this
with the great staple product of the
North and West, wheat. According to
the Agricultural Reports for 1883, the
average yield per acre of wheat in the
United States was fraction over twelve
bushels. This year the yield is reported
as being $1,000, 900 bushels in excess of
last year, (the largest crop ever made in
the United States,) which raises the
average fraction over thirteen bushels
per acre. The average yield per State of
of the best wheat lands is thirty to
thirty-fve bushels. How will this yield
of wheat at fifty-five to sixty-fve cents
per bushel compare with my yield of
rice at 10 to $1.l5 per bushel, saying
nothing of the superior rice straw as a
forage? The land on which l made
this rice would not have made third of
a bale of cotton to the acre. How does
rice compare with cotton? Why will it
not pay farmers to raise rice in the face
of the facts, as well or better than it pays
the Western farmers to raise wheat
Why not far better than cotton ?-T. A.
F., 1rcola, La, in Times Democrat.
-@s~--
c+~oxrhar~r, MorLotinoe in Enuland