Rice field

“ The rice-fields are usually very small and of all shapes. A quarter of an acre is a good-sized field. The rice crop planted in June is not reaped till November, but in the meantime it needs to be “puddled” three times, i.e. for all the people to turn into the slush, and grub out all the weeds and tangled aquatic plants, which weave themselves from tuft to p. 37tuft, and puddle up the mud afresh round the roots. It grows in water till it is ripe, when the fields are dried off. An acre of the best land produces annually about fifty-four bushels of rice, and of the worst about thirty. ”

“ On the north coast of Ceram every owner of a rice-field begins planting by making six holes in the middle of the field and depositing rice-seed in them. When the crop is ripe, the rice which has sprouted from these six holes must be the first to be reaped and the first to be eaten by the owner at the common harvest-feast of the village. When all the owners of the fields have thus partaken of the rice that was first planted and first reaped in their fields, the other villagers may help themselves to rice out of the pot. ”

“ Every rice field is a shallow lake, with countless thousands of tiny fish darting here and there among the rice stalks. Every ditch teems with fish, and every hollow in every field is a well stocked aquarium. ”

“ The rice plant is described as a native of India from which country it has spread over a great part of the world especially in Asia where it forms the principal portion of the food of the inhabitants. A failure of the rice crop is most disastrous as has been experienced too painfully by the natives of India during the late famine in that region. "A rice field produces a much greater quantity of food than the most fertile corn fields. Two crops in the year, from thirty to sixty bushels each, are said to be the ordinary produce of an acre." ”

“ The first working of the rice fields after the transplanting, as we saw it in Japan, consisted in spading between the hills with a four-tined hoe, apparently more for loosening the soil and aeration than for killing weeds. After this treatment the field was gone over again in the manner seen in Fig. 166, where the man is using his bare hands to smooth and level the stirred soil, taking care to eradicate every weed, burying them beneath the mud, and to straighten each hill of rice as it is passed. Sometimes the fingers are armed with bamboo claws to facilitate the weeding. ”

“ The young rice is taken from the nursery patch, where it has been sown thick some time previously. When the rice-field is ready—a sloppy, muddy, embanked little quagmire—the ryot gets his bundle of young rice-plants, and shoves in two or three at a time with his finger and thumb. These afterwards form the tufts of rice. Its growth is very rapid. Sometimes, in case of flood, the rice actually grows with the rise of the water, always keeping its tip above the stream. If wholly submerged for any length of time it dies. There are over a hundred varieties. ”

“ Before many days, the young plants are growing, tall and green, and the field makes a beautiful appearance as the wind sweeps across it. In about five or six months the green has turned to a rich yellow; the rice is then ripe and ready for the harvest. Again the men, women, and children go out to the fields armed with sickles to gather in the precious crop. ”

“ When we were taken to the rice field, the weather was very hot, and the ground was yet muddy and wet. The ploughs were to be dragged through the wet soil, and the young rice had to be cleaned of weeds, by the hand, and hilled up with the hoe.
It is the common opinion, that no stranger can work a week in a rice swamp, at this season of the year, without becoming sick ”

“ More ancient music, more ceremonial, and the gods having been called upon to return to high heaven, the laden platters were gravely removed, and the rice planting in the adjoining field began. To the sound of drum the young men and women in special costumes strode through the wicket into the mud of the paddies, and, under the supervision of the director of the prefectural agricultural experiment station in a silk hat, planted out the tufts of rice seedlings in scrupulously measured rows. ”

“ It makes me quail to think of the necessity of setting my small human powers in opposition. The rice-field banks are about three feet above the level of the river at high water, and each field has a very small flood-gate (called a trunk) , which opens and closes to let the water in and out; but when a gale or freshet comes, all the trunk doors have to be raised so as not to strain the banks, and the water in the fields rises to the level of the river outside. ”

“ It is not alone where rice is grown that cultural methods are made to conserve soluble plant food and to reduce its loss from the field, for very often, where flooding is not practiced, small fields and beds, made quite level, are surrounded by low raised borders which permit not only the whole of any rain to be retained upon the field when so desired, but it is completely distributed over it, thus causing the whole soil to be uniformly charged with moisture and preventing washing from one portion of the field to another. ”

“ Wherever paddy fields are practicable there rice is grown. In the three main islands of Japan 56 per cent of the cultivated fields, 11,000 square miles, is laid out for rice growing and is maintained under water from transplanting to near harvest time, after which the land is allowed to dry, to be devoted to dry land crops during the balance of the year, where the season permits.
To anyone who studies the agricultural methods of the Far East in the field it is evident that these people, centuries ago, came to appreciate the value of water in crop production as no other nations have. ”

“ Hour after hour they move about on the slimy bottom of the flooded field, inhaling the marshy exhalations, baked in the noon-tide blaze, pulling up with aged or childish hands the obstructive weeds, or otherwise preparing in spring for the autumn crop of rice. ”

“ Francisco used to go with his father and uncles to the rice fields, where he would watch the carabao while the men worked. A great deal of hard labor is necessary to raise a crop of rice. First, the seed must be sown in a plot of ground called a seed bed, where it is left alone for five or six weeks until the plants have grown several inches high. During this time the men are busy plowing the field and getting the ground ready for the second planting. ”

“ The mud is made very fine, and as deep as this mode of cultivation, will stir it. The rice has been sown in nurseries, and when from a foot to fifteen inches high it is pulled up, bound into bundles of approximately one hundred plants each, and taken, usually in boats, to the prepared field, where it is all transplanted by hand. Often81 the root is divided, so that from one grain there come to be grown several bunches of rice. In appearance a rice field looks very much like a field of oats. ”

“ The purchase of Cherokee does more credit to my heart than head, and it is very doubtful if I shall ever pay off the mortgage. I have lost two entire crops by freshet, and the land is now under water for the third time this winter, and, though I have rented 125 acres, it is very uncertain if I can get the half of that in. March is the month when all the rice-field ploughing should be done. The earliest rice is planted generally at the end of March, then through April, and one week in May. Last season I only got in fifty acres 6 of rent rice and ten of wages ”

“ It is time for my harvest to begin, but for some reason the rice is ripening very slowly, and I fear the first field at Casa Bianca will not be ready to cut before the 14th of this month. It has never quite recovered from the salt water and is not as fine as last year. At Cherokee one field of rice is very fine, the other not very good; but the corn is of the best, and so are the peas. A splendid crop. In July I took up thirty acres of very well-drained land, enclosed it with an American wire fence, and planted some of it in cow-peas preparatory to planting alfalfa this autumn. ”

“ I believe these lands would make a great deal if we understood the cutting and curing of hay, for the grass grows most luxuriantly if the land is ploughed and left, but the curing of hay is unknown to the rice-field darky. 68
Our uplands are very fertile and adapted to any crop, it seems. Last year a few tried cotton and did very well without any commercial fertilizer. The only trouble is the nice cultivation cotton requires. ”

“ This makes it more and more difficult to get the rice harvested; no one but one of African descent could spend his nights in the rice-field, where the air is heavy with the moist malaria, so it is his opportunity. The shooting of rice-birds has almost gone out, for the bird minders are so careless. They shoot into the rice and so destroy as much as the birds, almost; now blank cartridges are almost entirely used to scare the birds. Going round the field one day with Marcus, I said, with great relief: "I'm so glad not to see a single bird to-day." ”

“ For the reaping of the rice crop, the man to whom it belongs collects a few assistants in the same way, the women also sometimes joining in the work. The stems of the plants are cut near the ground, and are tied up in little sheaves, which are collected first at some of the junctions of the earthen ridges in the field. The whole are removed afterwards and built into larger stacks at the side of the field, near a flat threshing-floor of hard earth, surrounded by a fence in which a few trees are planted as a shade. ”

“ The reader will hardly be prepared to believe that it takes nearly twice as long to mature a rice crop under a tropical sun, as it does to grow a field of oats in the northern latitudes, especially in America. The rice is sown in the nursery in May or June, and the ripened grain is not harvested before the last of December or in January. It is all cut with a sickle. I have never seen any one harvesting with any other instrument in Southern Asia. The grain is always threshed under the feet of cattle, and winnowed by hand. ”

“ And just as the last tint had been used up and I knew there must be some repetition, the clouds split and a ray of pure sunlight shot through the clear air and lit up a field of growing rice with living green of a still newer hue, an unearthly concentrated essence of emerald which was comparable to nothing but sprouting rice in rain-washed sunlight. Whether this be on the hot coastlands of Java, in tiny sod-banked terraces far up on the slopes of Dehra Dun, or in the shadow of [100] Fuji itself, makes no manner of difference. The miracle of color never fails. ”

“ I never have had a field hand-whipped turn out over twenty bushels to the acre, and I have seldom had one threshed in the mill until these last very bad years turn out under thirty.
All of this made me determine to try planting mill-threshed rice this year. I planted a small portion in a bowl of water on cotton, which is the approved way of trying seed, and nearly every single seed germinated and shot up a fine healthy leaf. So I felt no hesitation about it; and I began with my wages field, putting half a bushel more to the acre in case there should be some grains cracked in the mill. ”

“ She then goes straight to her own home, taking with her the rice, which is her fee. Next day the owner goes down to the field with his friends and sows a little patch first, praying that his crop may be as close as elephant grass, as spreading as a rubber tree and free from weeds. ”

“ The men and women work together in the field, and in many places we saw them standing almost knee deep in mud, cutting the grain with old fashioned hand-sickles. The rice is tied in bundles somewhat smaller than our wheat sheaves, and hung over poles or laid along the edge of a terrace to cure. If the threshing is delayed the grain is stacked, not as we stack wheat and oats in the United States, but in little columns with the heads of the sheaves tied to a pole in the center. Sometimes the stacks are built around a living tree. ”

“ Cultivation of the soil there is none. Fire clears the jungle, and the ashes manure the soil; the ground is then superficially scratched, and rice is sown. Nothing more is done. Every seed germinates; the paddy ripens, and, where one basketful is sown, five hundred basketfuls are gathered. And the field lies untouched till again covered with jungle. Thus is the heathen rewarded five-hundred-fold in accordance with the law of Nature which gives blessing to the labour of the husbandman inversely as he deserves it. ”

“ Cherokee, April 4.
I am worrying as to how I am going to get seed rice. Some hands want to plant a field of rice, and it seems to me I ought not to be behind them in faith. If they are willing to risk their work, I ought to be willing to risk the seed rice. ”

“ No one who has not spent days out of doors, with all the pretty sights and sounds which nature so lavishly provides, can know the exhilaration I feel. After trying everything for lunch I have settled on a closely covered dish of rice, which is most satisfying and is very little trouble to eat. If only the field did not smell so terribly! My good Chloe has put up a large supply of rice and broiled ham to-day, so I am able, after I finish, to offer a part to any one who looks dejected or tired. "Would you like some of my dinner, Ancrum? Well, bring your bucket cover." ”

“ Though the sun is fiery, I feel more cheerful than I have for a good while. The field of rice is fine, Marcus says,—"Miss, I put my flag on dat fie',"—and insists it will make over forty bushels to the acre. I don't throw cold water on his enthusiasm, but I know it will not. However, the rice is tall, and the golden heads are long and thick. I count a few heads and find 200 grains on one or two, and am almost carried away with Marcus's hope, but will not allow myself to think how much it will make. ”