at a certain height in the several compartments of the rice field, and the seedsman goes to work.  The rice that is to be used as seed must have been kept in the husk; it is put into a sack, which is immersed in the water until the grain swells and shows signs of germination; the seedsman, walking through the inundated field, scatters the seed with his hand, as usual; the rice immediately sinks to the bottom, and many even penetrate to a certain depth in the mud.  In Piedmont, where the sowing takes place at the beginning of April, they generally use about fifty-five pounds of seed per acre.  The rice begins to show itself above the surface of the water at the end of a fortnight; as the plant grows, the depth of the water is increased, so that the stalks may not bend with their own weight.  About the middle of June this disposition is no longer to be apprehended; the rice is not so flexible as it was, so that the water can be drawn off for a few days to permit hoeing; after which the water is again let on, and maintained to the height of the plant.  In July it is usual to top the stalks, an operation which renders the flowering almost simultaneous.

Rice generally flowers in the beginning of the month of August, and a fortnight later the grain begins to form.  It is at this period especially that the stalks require to be supported, and this is effectually done by keeping the water at about half their height.  The rice field is emptied when the straw turns yellow.  The harvest generally takes place at the end of September.  In the Isle of France rice is cultivated in very damp soils, upon which a great deal of rain falls, but which are not flooded, as in other tropical countries:  but the process is not so certain nor the crop so great, as when inundation is employed.  In Piedmont the usual return of a rice field is reckoned at about fifty for one.  At Munzo, in New Granada, the paddy fields which are not inundated, under the influence of a mean temperature of 26 deg. centrigrade (79.0 deg.  Fahrenheit), yield 100 for 1.—­(Simmonds’s “Colonial Magazine,” vol. xi., p. 92.)

The rice now grown about New Orleans is as sweet, if not sweeter, than that imported from South Carolina, but it is deficient in hardness and brightness when ready for market, a defect owing entirely to two causes, neither of which is beyond the control of the planter.  The one cause is the mode of culture, it being generally grown without due attention to the seed—­seeded at too late a period of the season, and allowed to become rare-ripe upon the stalk.  The other cause is the very imperfect mode of its preparation for market; this being invariably accomplished by the primitive pestle and mortar, or the old-fashioned “pecker mill.”  The same seed is planted in the same soil from year to year, a system which, it is generally conceded, will deteriorate the quality and production of any grain crop.  A very large proportion of the rice grown in Carolina is prepared