The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-01-23
GREAT BOOM IN
 RICE TRADE OF
 UNITED STATES


 States are sending out of the eoun- try ten times as much domestic rice as in the year before the war and receiving thirty times as much money for it. The exports or rice in the 10 months ending with October 1919 the latest available figures, are 282.- 100000 pounds against 2s,420.oo0 pounds in the 10 months ending with October 1913. the year immediately preceding the war. The value of the rice exported in the 10 months end ing with October 1919 is stated by the Government at s2s,1s2,o00 against $se3.0oo as the value of the rice ex- ported in the corresponding months of 1918.
 This tremendous increase fin the ex- port of rice, says a statement by The National City Bank of New York. Is due in part to an increased produc ton and In greater part to grow ing recognition abroad of the value and availability of American rice, for the selling price has trebled while the quantity Of exports was so enormously increasing. The export prices of American rice in the latest months of 1919 for which figures are available averaged 10 cents per pound against 8 1-2 cents per pound in Septem per and October 1913, being thus about three times as much per pound in 1919 as in the months immediately preceding the war.
 Meantime production on our rice farms has rapidly increased, the crop of 1919 having been, according to the latest estimates of the Department of Agriculture, 44,000,0o0 bushels against 23,5o0,000 bushels in 1914, having thus nearly doubled since the ! beginning of the war and the farm value of the crop is now approximate ly $100,e 100000 against S22,0oO, ,00d in 1914, and S17,O00,000 in 1910. The quantity produced in 1919 is nearly double that of 1914 but the quantity exported is ten times as much as in 1914:
 Meantime with this large exporta. tion of rice and the high prices at home of other cereals the quantity consumed in the United States has greatly increased as is evidenced not only by the increased home produc- tion but by corresponding increases in importation. The quantity of rice imported in the fiscal year 1913 was 222, 100000 pounds and 364,0o0. .000 pounds in the fiscal year 1919, and the value s6.000,00o in 1913 and $1e,- 900, ,00G- in 1919.
 The United States is the chief rice producing country of the Occident though about nine-tenths of the rice crop of the globe is produced in the Orient. Our product which now runs at considerably over a billion pounds q year Expressed in terms of hulled , rice) is nearly double that of Italy, four times that of Spain and ten times that of Brazil. the other rice I sl --1-- uA..sz al world.
 production in the Occident and our increase of more than 100 per cent in production in the last decade has grown out of a system peculiar to this country of producing rice in a l manner which modern machinery can be utilized in planting, cultivattng and harvesting, instead of the crude | methods by which it is produced in 1 that great rice growing section of the world, the Orient. Rice can only l flourish on wet land, 80 wet that or 1 dinary farm machinery cannot be ! used upon it. But few years age 1 it was discovered that certain lands 1 in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and elsewhere were so constituted with relation to soil. climate and water
 
 with the usual agricultural machin. cry, the rice also planted by machin- | cry, the lands then flooded from | nearby streams or artesian wells ant j the water drained off as the rice ap. 1 breaches maturity, and ordinary ! reaping and threshing machines used l in harvesting the crop. This revolu. l ionized rice growing in the United 1 States, and was in fact a new devel opment in world production, for 1T 1 no other country. has this method i been practiced. The producing ares was expanded from the Carolinas ant Georgia to the Mississippi Valley, Ar
 kansas, and Texas and recently cer tain areas in California, and the an
 nual production enormously in l creased
 It msut be admitted however, tha
 our biggest rice crop of considerabl, | over 1000, 900 pounds per annun
 is trifle when compared with tha of some of the Occidental countries
 where rice is the chief article o food for very dense population l Siam for example, produces owe 5000, o00so00 pounds of rice a yea
 against our 1000, 100000 pounds; tn
 Dutch East Indies 100000, co l pounds; Japan 17,000.000,000, an, i India 7e,ooO,oo0,000 pounds, whil
 China, which has no official figure of her crop may equal or possibl
 exceed India in production, bringin
 the worlds total crop to approximate ly 100000, 900 pounds a year. Tn
 worlds production of rice is nearl
 as great in quantity as the world
 production of wheat. The rice pro
 duction in favorable years is nearl
 or perhaps quite 200,00o,o0o, o,OG
 pounds. while the number of pound
 of wheat grown even in high recor
 years is but about 240,oO0,00O
 pounds each. year.
 BOABDIL'S MOTHER.