The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-04-27
RICE CULTURE.
Some Important Suggestions to North
Carolina Rice Producers-How to I'm
prove h Quality and Quantity of the


The government crop report credits
North Carolina with the production of
2, 900, 900 bushels of cleaned rice in 1899.
In 1893 the crop was nearly 1000, 900
bushels; in 1887 it was at it's NAHUM
9,000,0 900 bushels. These reports TAX
into consideration only the marketed
crop. To these figures must be added
the amount consumed at home and
kept for seed. In the year 1899 there
were imported into the United States
for consumption no less than 204,0 OO,-
900 pounds of rice worth nearly 81, 00O,-
600. The market price of Carolina un-
cleaned rice in 1899 was SIPS per push
Ell. The average yield on irrigated
lands was less than forty bushels per
acre. The per cent of the crop mill
ing whole heads was between so and
60 per cent.
There seems room for very great i'm
provement in the care and methods of
rice culture in this state.
. The North Carolina department of ag
riculture has reports of rice growing
on irrigated land in India and other
ASiatic countries in which the average
yield reduced to American units
amounts to seventy and eighty bushels
per acre of rough rice or paddy" The
most esteemed variety of rice in India
is our Carolina white seed. Rice fields
are always manured in oriental coun-
tries. Night soil, stable manure and
oil cake are the usual Lime
is used in many regions, but except
where the land inclines to be peaty
and sour lime is injurious to the quail
ity of the grain.
North Carolina rice growers should
experiment with cotton seed meal and
potash, and to a very slight extent with
acid phosphate.
The fixed cost of making a rice crop
on irrigated land is so great that only
in maximum crops is there much pro-
fit. No one with good rice Ian and
fair b should be satisfied with a
yield of less than sixty bushels of paddy
per acre.
Rice more than any other cereal crop
requires careful selection of seed.
Unless the m~erchantable crop is of a
uniform size of grain there is great
loss in milling. By careful annual Sc
lection of the CLASSY, tough seeds for
the seed crop, the succeeding mer-
charitable crop can be made to yield
each year a higher per centage of whole
heads. Finally by the careful selection
of the seed crop and growing it each
yCol dpoh Z tdllu Vi 1dHu hIlONH &c
be free from red rice this weed can be
kept out of the main crop. 1t is custo-
mary to grow a crop especially fol
seed only every third year; but it will
prove much more profitable in the end
to grow the seed crops every year an6
thus keep the standard up to the high
est mark. Rice growers should once
for all get rid of the notion hat red
rice is a degenerate white rice. 1t is
a distinct species, to be delt with as
any other weed.
Rice growers and merchants should
endeavor to educate consumers out OF
the idea rice must be polished before il
is fit for consumption. The polishing o.
rice is an unnecessary, wasteful anG
wicked perversion Of labor. The chic.
food value-the protein or flesh form,
ing part-of rices as we'll as the oil anG
f1avoring principle are combined il
the outer portion of the grain which
is ground away in the polishing pro,
cess. Rice polish is worth much NOR,
Tor food for man or beast than tn,
primest, polished e rice of tn,
grocer.
There are now on the market severa
rice decorticators suitable for farm
use and for grist mills. These ma
chimes sell for from $50 for a hand pow
er machine, which will clean 200 to 40
pounds per day, to $500 for a powe
machine which will clean from one t.
two tons daily. Those interested ar
recommended to send for catalogue t
the George Squier Manufacturer;
Company, Buffalo, n. Y, and the En-
gleberg Company, Syracuse. n. Y.
GERALD MCCARTHY,
Botanist. n. c. Dept Agriculture