to be added, for the double purpose of washing out the alkali and for drawing off the starch from the other matters.  The mixture is to be well stirred up and then allowed to rest about an hour for the fibre to fall down.  The liquor holding the starch in suspension is to be drawn off and allowed to stand for about 70 hours for the starch to deposit.  The waste liquor is now to be removed, and the starch stirred up, blued (if thought necessary), drained, dried, and finished in the usual way.[44] Rice is imported into this country in bags of 11/2 cwt., and tierces of 6 cwt., not only for edible purposes, but, when ground into flour, for cotton manufactures, in aiding to form the weaver’s dressings for warps.  Rice-meal is commonly used for feeding pigs.

Imported. 
British                           Retained for home
Plantation.        Foreign.      consumption of all kinds. 
Bags.             Bags.                Bags.
1843           136,319          35,125              60,965
1844           127,876          69,112             126,733
1845           173,794           5,713             114,933

Tons.            Tons.                 Tons.
1847           38,736           3,033               28,375
1848           21,226           4,631               15,468
1849           19,397           1,410               14,961

Total imported.          Re-exported.
1849                  976,196 cwts.          290,732 cwts.
"   in the husk      31,828 qrs.
1850                  785,451 cwts.          248,136  "
"   in the husk      37,150 qrs.
1851                  714,847 cwts.          345,677  "
"   in the husk      31,481 qrs.
1852                  989,316 cwts.          414,507  "
"   in the husk      23,946 qrs.

The quantity of rice retained for home consumption, by the corrected returns, in 1850, was 401,018 cwts. and 35,119 quarters; in 1851, 399,170 cwts. and 31,481 quarters; in 1852, 574,809 cwts. and 23,946 quarters.  The aggregate imports range from 40,000 to 80,000 tons annually, of which about 500 to 800 tons are in the husk.

Among culmiferous plants and legumes used in the East, are the Panicum italicum, P. miliaceum, Eleusine coracana (the meal of which is baked and eaten in Ceylon under the name of Corakan flour), and Paspalum of several varieties.  The pigeon pea (Cytisus Cajan), and a very valuable and prolific species of bean, called the Mauritius black bean (Mucuna utilis), growing even in the poorest soil, is cultivated in India and Ceylon. Sorghum vulgare is the principal grain of Southern Arabia, and the stems are also used extensively for feeding cattle.  The plant bears its Indian name of joar, or juri, and is cultivated throughout Western Hindostan.  Job’s tears (Croix lachryma) is another cereal grass, native of the East Indies.

MILLET.

Millet of different kinds is met with in the hottest parts of Africa, in the South of Europe, in Asia Minor, and in the East Indies.  It is a small yellowish seed, growing in dense panicles or clusters, the produce of a grassy plant with large and compact seeds, growing to the height, in India, of seven or eight feet.