Rice harvest

“ The rice lands are kept flooded in this way until the crops are nearly ripe, when the water is no longer necessary. It is also necessary, or at least advantageous, to go over the ground once or twice during the summer, and stir the soil up well amongst the roots, at the same time removing any weeds which may have sprung up. If the weather is wet, the fields retain the water for a considerable time, and then it is not an uncommon sight to see the natives wading nearly up to the knees in mud and water, when they are gathering in the harvest. ”

“ This rice must be gathered at harvest time, as it is cheaper at that time, and can be obtained more easily and with less hardship to the natives, if sent in sacks from the districts having the best crops and where it is easiest to obtain it. And every year the rice in storage can be renewed with ease and profit, by selling it and buying other new rice at the season for it. ”

“ The seed is sown in beds, usually by strewing very thickly the corn in the ear. From these beds the plants, when 12 or 14 days old, are removed into the fields and thinly set by the hand. They are then kept constantly immersed in water until within a fortnight of the harvest, when it is drawn off to facilitate the ripening of the grain.
The fourth mode of cultivating rice is by forcing a crop by artificial irrigation, at any time of the year; thus, in one field, in various plots, the operations of sowing, ploughing, transplanting, and reaping may be seen at the same period. ”

“ The natives in the same lofty localities find no deficient returns in the crops of rice, which they raise in the ravines and hollows, into which the earth from above has been washed by the periodical rains; but the cultivation of rice is so entirely dependent on the presence of water, that no inference can be fairly drawn as to the quality of the soil from the abundance of its harvest. ”

“ Rice is the staple production of the low land in this part of the country during the summer months, and the oil plant is cultivated extensively on the same land in winter and spring, being in seed and ready to harvest by the time for sowing the first crop of rice. Large quantities of the trefoil which I have noticed before are also grown here, and for the same purposes; indeed, the agricultural productions, both of the low lands and on the sides of the hills, are really the same as those formerly described on the island of Chusan. ”

“ The rice however, manages to grow, and keep head above water, and so long as it can do this it is all right. The water keeps up until the rice is out in heads, and then it begins to subside until harvest, when the ground is generally quite dry. I have rode in my boat for a whole day, directly over the rice fields, when the rice was coming out in heads, and found the water in many places four feet deep, but the heads of the rice were waving in the wind majestically above it. The best quality of rice is raised by transplanting. ”

“ The skill of the Chinese husbandman is also manifested in the arrangement and irrigation of his rice lands. The centre and south of China rice is the staple commodity; and it is well known that rice will not thrive unless supplied with water. From the preparing of the ground for the seed, almost to the reaping of the harvest, the rice fields must be overspread with water. ”

“ It is universally agreed that rice alone can operate the necessary transformation, and as the rice must be of the finest quality procurable, each family preserves the best stalks from the harvest and lays them up in anticipation of a death. ”

“ Men generally pull up the plants, and convey them to the fields, where women up to their knees in mire separate the plants, and place them in holes at a regular distance of about five inches from one another. They are left for some days to take root, when the grounds are again irrigated. The rice grows to the height of somewhat more than a yard, and after four months is ready for harvest. ”

“ When the inundation is very great, they take advantage of it to fill their little reservoirs, that they may provide against the drought and supply the rice with the moisture which it requires.
They are also accustomed to sow the rice close to their villages, and then transplant it into their fields when it has risen to the height of six inches. This is the business of the women, who also weed it. The men get in the harvest which is very abundant. ”

“ Áman rice is much more extensively cultivated than áus, and in favourable years is the most valuable crop, but being sown in low lands is liable to be destroyed by excessive rainfall. Harvest takes place in December or January. Áus rice is generally sown on high ground. The field is ploughed when the early rains set in, ten or twelve times over, till the soil is reduced nearly to dust, the seed being sown broadcast in April or May. As soon as the young plants reach 6 in. in height, the land is harrowed for the purpose of thinning the crop and to clear it of weeds. ”

“ Every one believes that she takes care of the rice in the barn and even multiplies it not uncommonly.
When the Tomori of Central Celebes are about to plant the rice, they bury in the field some betel as an offering to the spirits who cause the rice to grow. The rice that is planted round this spot is the last to be reaped at harvest. At the commencement of the reaping the stalks of this patch of rice are tied together into a sheaf, which is called "the Mother of the Rice" (_ineno pae_) , and offerings in the shape of rice, fowl's liver, eggs, and other things are laid down before it. ”

“ Harvest comes at the beginning of the cold weather. Of many varieties of rice, kauk-kyi, which supplies practically all the crop for export is the most important. In Upper Burma, besides rice grown on fields watered by rainfall, great quantities are raised on irrigated land. In dry districts, a winter crop, mayin, is sown in the cold season on the edges of meres and on marshy depressions and reaped in the early rains. In the hills is practised a wasteful form of cultivation known as taungya. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now, my flats are loaded, and I must start on my twelve-mile drive to the pine-land. As soon as I can have the flats unloaded I must send them back for the hands to harvest their rice. I do not pretend to overlook this. I try to put them on their mettle to do the best possible. Some respond, but the majority just poke along, doing as little as possible each day, so as to have longer time to strip the rice from the 38 straw, and carry it home in bags, so that when it comes to mill, there is not enough to pay their rent. ”

“ Even after harvest-time is over, abundance of food is procured by these gleaners from among the stubble in the rice-fields, in which thousands of ears lie buried, this supply being still further increased by the incredibly rapid growth of innumerable weeds, that spring up in all directions when the rice is cut, and soon furnish a rich banquet of quickly ripened seeds. ”

“ It argues for the industry of a tropical race that they should grow this troublesome grain at all, the grain that demands more back-breaking toil and constant attention from planting to harvest-time than any other grain which grows. It would seem discouraging to rice-cultivation, too, when in old times the natives were taxed according to the area of their rice-lands only, and mulcted of a fifth of their rice when it was harvested—all in this happy land, where they might sit under the breadfruit- and banana-trees and doze at their ease, while those kindly fruits dropped in their laps. ”

“ Into the harvest-field is often brought a large wooden tub about four feet in diameter by three feet high, and the reaper, having cut an armful of rice, takes it by the straw end and threshes the ears five or six times with great force over the side, so that the grain falls into the tub, which, when thus filled, is replaced by an empty one and taken to the threshing-floor, where the contents are thrown up by shovels-full into the air, the breeze blowing the chaff to one side and the winnowed rice falling in a heap by itself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Cartloads of their slender stems, two to four inches in diameter at the base and twenty or more feet long, were moving along the generally excellent, narrow, seldom fenced roads, such as seen in Fig. 223. On the borders and pathways between rice paddies many small stacks of straw were in waiting to be laid between the rows of transplanted rice, tramped beneath the water and overspread with mud to enrich the soil. The farmers here, as elsewhere, must contend against the scouring rush, varieties of grass and our common pigweeds, even in the rice fields. ”

“ Two crops of rice are commonly grown each year in southern China and during the winter and early spring, grain, cabbage, rape, peas, beans, leeks and ginger may occupy the fields as a third or even fourth crop, making the total year's product from the land very large; but the amount of thought, labor and fertilizers given to securing these is even greater and beyond anything Americans will endure. How great these efforts are will be appreciated from what is seen in Fig. 50, representing two fields thrown into high ridges, planted to ginger and covered with straw. ”

“ Since that time select Japanese species, chosen for superior milling qualities, have been widely introduced, as the market prejudice in favour of head rice made the large percentage of broken rice a heavy handicap to the farmers. Hundreds of varieties have been tested by the state and federal agricultural experiment stations. A strong tendency to run to red rice (hardier, but not so marketable) has been a second great difficulty to overcome.
Irrigation is almost entirely confined to rice farms. In the prairie region there is abundant water at depths of 100 to 400 ft. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The upland rice requires much more care and labour in its cultivation. The land must be ploughed three or four times, and all the turf and lumps well broken up by the harrow.
During its growth it requires to be weeded two or three times, to keep the weeds from choking the crop. ”

“ The rice plant requires an abundance of water in the soil, and thrives best on land subject to overflow for a portion of the year, or which is artificially flooded. Rice is most largely grown in India, China, Japan and Egypt—India alone producing nearly thirty million bushels per year. The rice grown in this country is confined to eight states, with an area of 174,173 acres in 1879, and a yield of 110,131,373 pounds, averaging 632 pounds per acre. ”

“ When we look to the large tracts of plain, not subject to such an immense flow of feculous moisture, but seeming merely as reservoirs for the retention of local rains, we shall then see, that the superior sweetness of the rice produced about Backergunge, Dacca, Hajygunge, Luricool, Mahomedpore, Comercolly, Jessore, &c., is to be attributed solely to the superior fatness of the soil, on which the most luxuriant crops of cotton, and of esculents, are raised during the dry season. ”

“ By skilful use of fertilisers he has been able to raise good crops of rice on the same land during fifteen or twenty centuries. On the other hand, not only is the population increasing at the rate of half a million annually, but in proportion to the growth of general prosperity and the distribution of wealth, the lower classes of the people, who used formerly to be content with barley and millet, now regard rice as an essential article of food. ”