News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-12-16
A RICE PLANTATION.
The Manner in Which The Fields are FIeOd-
ed-A Picturesque sight.

As soon as the germ root pushes out
underneath the grain in search for food,
minute point is visible above the
ground, reaching up for light and air.
This is the embryo stalk, and corresponds
with the germ root. The plant is now
in the proper stage for forcing, and the
stretch water should be put on at once
The water IS at first turned on deep, en-
tirely covering the surface of the squares,
and the young plant, drinking in the
life-giving fluid, commences to rear its
head aloft and reach up for light and
air. The river water is seldom clear
always more or less tinged with mud
and the tender shoot battles manfully
with its semi translucent covering to
bask in the comforting rays of the sun.
After the rice has become sufficiently
stretched, or few inches high-a period
extending through from two to ten days
the water is Stacked down to what is
kno En as ''slack- water gauge" so as to
show the tops of the plant and gle it
necessary air and sunshine. If the plant
is longer than the water is deep, which
is generally the case, it floats its upper
leaves on the surface in long, waving
lines across the squares-a siugularly at
tractive and beautiful picture. 1t sell
dom happens, however, that the whole
plantation is under the same treatment
at the same time, for, with 500 or 900
acres to SOW, it is a difficult matter in
early spring, with frequent Interruptions
from rains and bad weather, to seed down
so large an acreage in time for utilizing
any one spring tide for flowing. A large
plantation will run five or six grain
drills at once and put in sometimes sixty
five or seventy acres daily; but even
with as rapid work as this it is impossi-
BILE to get all in contemporaneously.
Consequently it is a common thing to
see perhaps one-fourth of the squares
under the stretch water, another fourth
under charge of the gun squad;'' wait
ing for the tender point to shoot; an
other series under the sprout water and
the remainder in process of planting, all
at once. This necessarily adds greater
interest and diversity to the process and
prospect.
Sometimes, too, the rice comes up
mixed with ''volunteer;" this is the
product of the grain shaken out during
the previous harvest and scattered |
broadcast over the land. This can gen
orally be removed by the hoe, but where
it is very thick sometimes necessitates
replowing and seeding, thus throwing
late a portion of the crop. This volun
teer rice is hardy and prolific and eX
ternally similar to white rice, but the |
to it is that the berry is red |
and greatly reduces the grade of rice |
with which it is mixed, besides totally |
uniting it for seed. TO destroy this |
tare the fields are sometimes
thrown into dry crops for year or two
or kept under water for like time.
1t will be remembered that each square |
is under separate control and, except |
where two or more are temporarily united
by the check banks washing through,
can be flowed and drained independently
at the pleasure of the planter. A walk
over the banks of plantation at this
period is replete with interest; at every
step the ''fiddlers, scurrying from nm
der your feet and ducking into their
holes, each one, as he disappears, wav
ing aloft in defiance his sproportionate
Yonder are small squads of
negroes il twos and threes. dragging
with long wooden rakes the floating
trash and stubble bio En by the wind in
masses against the lee banks and Diling |
i on the pathways Over there the rat |
tie of the grain drills is heard seeding |
Gown the few belated squares. Here Is
the trunk-m1nder with his assistant hard |
at work repairing a leak. On the canal
bank is the overscer in consultation with |
the planter on his daily visit to the fields,
his little sailboat rocking at the wharf
down by the quarter. Attention is called
to a defective trunk or DANGEROUS
bank; stretch water, tomorrow, must
be turned on number six and number
eight, and sprout water let off from
seventeen and twenty-three. The long
cord of the submerged thermometer is
drawn in hand over hand, its reading
carefully taken and the mean tempera-
ture of the water for the month in the
Overseer's handy notebook is compared
with that of last year and dependent
operations deduced and determined.
rom the high and dry squares on the
further side comes the casual pop of the
musket, while flocks of DAVIS and hungry
crows circle overhead, awaiting their
to settle down on g
sprouting grain. Everything works in
its appropriate groove and little is left
to chance.
The stretch water is held at the slack
gauge from twenty to forty days, when
the "dry root" and the leaves cores
ponding to it have put out. The am
phibious and pampered plant has now
had enough of its stimulating though
strictly temperance beverage and is
ready for period of 'prohibition' or
dry growth