The Punta Gorda herald. [volume] (Punta Gorda, Fla.) 1893-1958, 1918-01-31
RAISE MORE RICE
Great Food Crop Neglected in
This State
Imports From Japan and China
Gould Be Stopped

The last report of the Florida
state department Of agriculture
shows that rice was grown in thir
ty-seven counties with a totaI
yield of 35, 442 bushels, or an aver
age of less than a thousand bush
els to county, with a value
placed at $50, 100.
The December crop report OF
1.-THE United States department oil
agriculture shows that rice is
grown in eleven states. Florida
with 1,153 acres being at the bot
tom of the list. Louisiana leads
with about a half million acres,
followed in turn by Texas, Arkan-
sas and California, the total pro-
duction of the country being a.
bout one billion pounds, compared
to seventeen billions in Japan,
where it is not only used for food,
but beer, wine and starch are
made from it, while the straw is
used for weaving hats and as feed
for live stock In connection with
soy beans, rice is served in many
ways, as oil, as milk made by mix
ing meal with water, as bread, etc.
The beans with rice make well bal
anced rations. Soy beans grow in
Florida, yet last year the United
States imported several million
dollars worth of soy bean oil from
Japan and China.
Rice is one of the greatest food
crops of the earth. To supply A
merican needs in 1916 the United
States imported mostly from ia
pan and China over six million
dollars worth, all of which could
have been grown in Florida. Rice
grain is not used for stock feed,
but the by-products from the mills,
in chaff meal, bran and polish, are
used in states where it is grown ON
a commercial basis. Rice meal
has the same value as cornmeal
for pigs, while rice polish is fine
powder of high nutritive value for
stock feed, being unusually rich
in nitrogen and potash.
Rice is mostly grown by irriga-
ton, but upland varieties are the
kinds common to Florida, yet
there is plenty of land in the state
to grow it by the overflow system.
with the urgent need of food in
the world, little more attention
to the rice crop of Florida is wor-
thy of consideration, says the state
marketing bureau.
Rice is extensively used in Flor
ida, no day passing in most fami-
lies of the state that it does not APP
pear on the table in some form,
and yet large part of it is
brought in from other states, right
in the face of the possibilities of
home production. Unless a state
is able to feed itself-that is when
there are not abundant natural re-
sources, as coal, iron, etc,-and
sell its surplus it must trail along
In mere hand to mouth existence.
"Florida is a country of great
opportunities and possibilities, but
we are not doing all we should and
can do" says the marketing bu-
reau. 1--WE boast of our genial
climate and of the chance of grow
ing something in every month, We
grow pineapples by the carload
but that does not prevent the sale
IN our stores of canned pineapples
from Hawaii and from the Straits
Settlements in the far off Indian
ocean. And canned pumpkin and
okra and sweet potatoes and many
score products-all easily and
freely raised here-from the short
season states north of the Ohio and
Potomac are to be found in our
stores, tribute to the high cost of
living, in the form of tin cans
glass bottles and extensively
printed labels and posters to adj