Rice, the chief food, perhaps, of one-third of the human race, possesses the advantage attending wheat, maize, and other grains, of preserving plenty during the fluctuations of trade, and is also susceptible of cultivation on land too low and moist for the production of most other useful plants.  Although cultivated principally within the tropics, it flourishes well beyond, producing even heavier and better filled grain.  Like many other plants in common use, it is now found wild [it is to be understood that the wild rice, or water oat (Zizania aquatica), already referred to, which grows along the muddy shores of tide waters, is a distinct plant from the common rice, and should not be confounded with it], nor is its native country known.  Linnaeus considers it a native of Ethiopia, while others regard it of Asiatic origin.

The chief variety of this cereal is cultivated throughout the torrid zone, wherever there is a plentiful supply of water, and it will mature, under favorable circumstances, in the Eastern continent, as high as the 45th parallel of north latitude, and as far south as the 38th.  On the Atlantic side of the Western continent, it will flourish as far north as latitude 38 degrees, and to a corresponding parallel south.  On the Western coast of America, it will grow so far north as 40 or more degrees.  Its general culture is principally confined to India, China, Japan, Ceylon, Madagascar, Eastern Africa, the South of Europe, the Southern portions of the United States, the Spanish Main, Brazil, and the Valley of Parana and Uruguay.

In 1834, 29,583 bags of rice were shipped from Maranham, but I am not aware what have been the exports since.

At the Industrial Exhibition in London, in 1851, there were displayed many curious specimens and varieties of rice, grown without irrigation, at elevations of three thousand to six thousand feet on the Himalaya, where the dampness of the summer months compensates for the want of artificial moisture.  Among these American rice received not only honorable mention for its very superior quality, but the Carolina rice, exhibited by E.I.  Heriot, was pronounced by the jury “magnificent in size, color, and clearness,” and it was awarded a prize medal.  The jury also admitted that the American rice, though originally imported from the Old World, is now much the finest in quality.

This grain was first introduced into Virginia by Sir William Berkeley, in 1647, who received half a bushel of seed, from which he raised sixteen bushels of excellent rice, most or all of which was sown the following year.  It is also stated that a Dutch brig, from Madagascar, came to Charleston in 1694, and left about a peck of paddy (rice in the husk), with Governor Thomas Smith, who distributed it among his friends for cultivation.  Another account of its introduction into Carolina is, that Ashley was encouraged to send a bag of seed rice to that province, from the crops of which sixty tons were shipped to England in 1698.  It soon after became the chief staple of the colony.  Its culture was introduced into Louisiana in 1718, by the “Company of the West.”