Paddy (rice)

“ Extensive small-farmer paddy-rice farming.
Rice provides a good and equitable rural income. In most respects paddy-rice farming appears to be sustainable because annual flooding brings in nutrients, but it has all the potential problems of monoculture and rice rust (a fungus similar to wheat rust) on a small farm near Anyama. ”

“ To all mankind the privileges of this great second{8} deliverance are offered; and let us remember that, like the Israelites, we are but strangers and pilgrims here, hastening on to a land of promise.”
6th.—Mary asked Colonel Travers to-day why rice is called paddy in the East Indies. He told us that the wet lands capable of being cultivated for rice, are called, in the province of Malabar, padda land; and thence has the name paddy been given to the grain before the husk is beaten off. It is cultivated in all the low grounds which are periodically overflowed ”

“ The flail is not used for threshing rice but is employed for barley. Another common way of knocking out grain is by beating the straw over a table or a barrel. There are all sorts of cheap hand-worked threshing machines. After the threshing of the rice comes the winnowing, which may be done by the aid of a machine but is more likely to be effected in the immemorial way, by one person pouring the roughly threshed ears from a basket or skep while another worker vigorously fans the grain. The result is what is known as paddy rice. ”

“ Males wear brass finger and toe-rings, sometimes of silver. Some adorn their necks with wreaths of beads, from fifteen to thirty in number. Females wear ear-ornaments known as kātumani, which are rings of metal wire, four or five in number. Males generally allow their hair to grow, the face alone being now and then shaven. The Urālis eat rice for six months of the year, and subsist on roots, fruits, and other forest produce during the remaining half. A large portion of the paddy (rice) that the Urālis gather by cultivation goes to the low country in exchange for clothing and salt. ”

“ The yield from seed varies from 40 to 100 grains of crop to one seed, 50 grains being a good average. A family of five persons will consume about 250 pounds of rice per month. It is used in almost every native dish, and takes the place of bread. The paddy, or unhulled rice, is to feed horses, cattle, and fowls. ”

“ It is because more than half the paddies are always under water that rice cultivation is so laborious. Think of the Western farm labourer being asked to plough and the allotment holder to dig almost knee-deep in mud. Although much paddy is ploughed with the aid of an ox, a cow or a pony, [73] most rice is the product of mattock or spade labour. There is no question about the severity of the labour of paddy cultivation. For a good crop it is necessary that the soil shall be stirred deeply. ”

“ When the ground is ready for planting, the whole population turns out, and, being supplied with the young shoots in bundles, of which tally is kept, proceed to plant each individual shoot of paddy by hand.
Ankle-deep in the soft mud of the paddy-fields stand long rows of bare-legged men, women and children, each in a stooping position, holding against the body with the left hand a large bundle of rice-plants, incessantly and rapidly seizing a shoot with the right hand, and plunging it into the black slime with the forefinger extended. ”

“ Four months more are needed for the ripening of the grain, during which the fields are kept clear of weeds, the natives wading back and forth through the mud in their task. After cutting and heaping, the paddy is made into stacks. In six weeks more the grain is separated from the straw by treading or by the use of the flail, or by causing ponies to trot over it. It may be said that there is nothing in nature more beautiful than a valley of green ripening rice in the midst of verdant hills. In the flood of rich color beneath my eyes, I have gazed upon such a scene with inexpressible delight. ”

“ As we rolled along, on both sides of the railroad as far as the eye could see were immense fields of wheat and barley, paddy, tobacco, mustard, the castor-oil plant, millet, maize, the poppy, indigo and sugar-cane. Wheat and barley are not sown broadcast as with us, but in drills a few inches apart: both grains [Pg 608] are consumed in the country—little or none is exported. The paddy resembles rye or wheat when growing, the rice-kernels being contained in husks at the top of the spires. ”

“ Water is only retained in the field until the ears are half ripe, otherwise they would ripen indifferently and be destroyed by vermin. A variety of coast paddy, called "moottoo samboo," was introduced into the Kandian province in 1832, which was found to produce a more abundant crop, by one third, than the native. It is of six months growth.
In Kashmir rice is the staple of cultivation, and the practice adopted there is thus described by a writer in my "Colonial Magazine," vol. ”

“ Their daily maintenance is supplied to them by their masters themselves. Every morning the master's agent summons them to his house, and takes them away to work in the fields, in ploughing, drawing water from wells, and in short doing the whole of the cultivation. In the evening a certain quantity of paddy (unhusked rice) is distributed to them as wages. ”

“ Suan, another rice-like cereal, not cultivated, grows spontaneously in the paddy fields. Pulses of different sorts, oilseeds, fibres, sugar-cane, tobacco, spices and vegetables also form crops of the district. ”

“ He then takes a handful of paddy (unhusked rice) from a quantity placed in front of him, and, after counting, decides, upon the chance of one or two grains remaining in the end after each of them is removed, whether some one in the house is not attacked by, or liable to the attack of some evil spirit. ”

“ To the north, rice makes way for millet, the great supplementary food of Korea. Elsewhere paddy-fields abound, and the people have become adepts in the principles of irrigation and the art of conserving water. Rice is sown in May, transplanted from the nurseries to the paddy-fields in June, and gathered in October. In times of drought, when it is necessary to tide over the period of distress, the fields are used for barley, oats and rye which, ripening in May and cut in June, allows a supplementary crop to be taken from the fields. The fields are then prepared for the rice. ”

“ Except in Pálkonda, double crops of paddy are rare, the wet-fields being either utilized, after the paddy has been removed, for growing gingelly, green gram, or a multiplicity of garden crops and vegetables, usually with the help of wells; or being sown with ragi during the south-west monsoon and then with paddy with the north-east rains later on. The paddy is of very numerous varieties, differing from taluk to taluk, and it is not possible to point to any one kind as being universally the most popular. ”

“ On the afternoon of the third day Paddy wandered alone to a little creek by the loch, and, sitting down on a fallen tree, sank her chin in her hands and gazed across the water with a whole world of yearning longing in her eyes at the thought of leaving it all and returning to the streets, and chimney-pots, and smuts. So rapt was she that she did not hear some one approach over the moss and stand silently beside her—some one who saw the yearning, and read it aright with mingled feelings of regret and gladness. ”

“ It’s all very well for you with your ivory and roses, you look well in anything. I don’t think it was at all fair for you to have everything nice while I am burdened for life with a sallow skin and a snub nose. Cream flannel would be nearly as bad as brown holland for me, and when I wear brown holland you can’t tell where the dress ends and I begin,” and the corners of Paddy’s mischievous mouth were momentarily drawn down in great disgust.
“You could wear bright-coloured ties,” suggested Eileen, “and have one of every colour you wanted.” ”

“ A dark-eyed girl, enjoying the scrimmage immensely, rescued one from the gutter, while the man with her succeeded in getting three from various directions, and when Paddy at last turned to thank them, a lovely colour in her cheeks and a bewitching roguishness in her eyes, she found herself face to face with Lawrence Blake and his companion, each offering her a tomato. ”

“ It is, we are happy to say, a becoming and prominent feature in Paddy's character; for, to do him justice in his virtues as well as in his vices, we repeat that he cannot be surpassed in his humanity to the lonely widow and her helpless orphans. He will collect a number of his friends, and proceed with them in a body to plant her bit of potato ground, to reap her oats, to draw home her turf, or secure her hay. ”

“ In the afternoon he meant to go and look for her by the loch; he believed she would be waiting for him—and if not, well he would go to the Parsonage and claim her.
He went over the interview in his fancy, detail by detail, as it might be, as he would like it to be.
Paddy would be shy, that was a delicious thought to him. He had known too many of the women who meet a man half-way without the slightest qualm, and practically thrust his first kiss upon him, thinking of it only as one of many to follow. How different it would be with Paddy! ”

“ From this she was somewhat suddenly and forcibly awakened by the apparition of a stalwart form, not in the least ethereal or dream-like, with a gun on his shoulder and two brace of snipe in his hand. He had, moreover, emerald green on his stockings, a tan waistcoat, and a pale green tie instead of a terra cotta one that had raised such objections in the morning; and whatever Paddy or anyone else might like to say, he formed as pleasing a picture of a typical young Briton as any one need wish. ”

“ Each is singular from the fact that it represents wholesome food long before arrival at maturity.
Then as a medicine plant the papaw is of great renown. The peculiar properties of the milky juice which exudes from every part of the plant were noticed two hundred years ago. The active principle of the juice known as papain, said to be capable of digesting two hundred times its weight of fibrine, is used for many disorders and ailments, from dyspepsia to ringworm and ichthyosis or fish-skin disease.
By common repute the papaw tree has the power of rendering tough meat tender. ”

“ This is a mean village on the left bank, about eighteen miles from Katha; it is close to a low range of hills, and occupies part of a plain, which is adapted for paddy cultivation. Near the village to the North, is a small jeel, covered to a great extent with a large Scirpus, Jussiæa, Azolla, Salvinia, etc. Water-fruits are abundant; round this paddy is cultivated, and they appear to cut it at this time. Low ground near the jeel is covered with a low, handsome Stravadium or Barringtonia, as well as a Xanthophyllum, resembling exceedingly in appearance a Leguminosa: the wood is hard. ”

“ The papaw has the family name, custard-apple, from its unusual fruit, whose flesh is soft and yellow, like custard. The shape suggests that of a banana. The fruits hang in clusters and their pulp is enclosed in thick dark brown skin, wrinkled, sometimes shapeless, three to five inches long. Dead ripe, the flesh becomes almost transparent, fragrant, sweet, rather insipid, surrounding flat, wrinkled seeds an inch long. The fruit is gathered and sold in local markets from forests of these papaws which grow under taller trees in the alluvial bottom lands of the Mississippi Valley. ”

“ The carrying home of the paddy thus reaped is mostly done by the men, who can carry very heavy loads on their back, though the women help in this work to some extent. The next thing is to separate the grain from the little tiny stems to which it is still attached. This is done by the men. The grain is placed on a large square sieve of rattan or cane, fixed between four posts in the verandah of the Dyak house, and the men tread on it and press it through the sieve. The paddy that falls through is taken and stored in the loft in large round bins made of bark. ”

“ What your riv'rince would have me be afther."
"Why, then," says his rev'rence, "you sin-blinded owl,
Give back to the man that you stole from his fowl:
For if you do not, 'twill be worse for your sowl,
Paddy O'Rafther."
Says Paddy, "I ask'd him to take it—'tis thrue
As this minit I'm talkin', your riv'rince, to you;
But he wouldn't resaive it—so what can I do?"
Says Paddy, nigh choken with laughter.
"By my throth," says the priest, "but the case is absthruse;
If he won't take his hen, why the man is a goose:
'Tis not the first time my advice was no use,
Paddy O'Rafther." ”

“ The fruit is ripe in July, and is an oval, yellowish, fleshy berry, containing twelve or more seeds, each surrounded by a pulpy outer coat or aril. The rhizome, as met with in commerce, occurs in cylindrical pieces 2 or 3 in. long and about 1/4 in. in diameter, of a chocolate or purplish-brown colour, smooth, and slightly enlarged where the juncture of the leafy stem is indicated by a circular scar on the upper and a few broken rootlets on the under side. The odour is heavy and disagreeable, and the taste acrid and bitter. ”

“ Any time at all that ale or wine are wanting, come here and draw. Farewell, now; go to sleep, and come again to me to-morrow night."
Paddy went to bed, and it wasn't long till he fell asleep.
On the morning of the day on the morrow, Paddy went home, and brought his wife and children to the big house, and they were very comfortable. That night Paddy went down to the cellar; the little man welcomed him and asked him did he wish to dance?
"Not till I get a drink," said Paddy.
"Drink your fill," said the little man; "that barrel will never be empty as long as you live." ”