labor, and in others by a rude machine, called a pecker mill.  Now, in 1852, the hoeing, the pickings, and the cutting with the sickle remain unchanged; but the lands are better drained, and in the turning the plough has superseded the hoe; the trenching, when, necessary, is done by animal power; the rice, when cut, is carried in on a flat and wagon, then threshed and milled by machinery, so perfect that it is difficult to imagine how it can be surpassed.

It is one hundred and fifty-nine years since the introduction of rice into Carolina, and there are grounds for supposing that our people have accomplished more during that period, in the cultivation and preparation of this grain, than has been done by any of the Asiatic nations who have been conversant with its growth for many centuries.  We had the rare opportunity, a few years since, of seeing a Chinese book on rice planting, which contained many engravings.  The language we could not read, but we comprehended a sufficient number of the engravings to institute a comparison between their system and our own, and the result was, in our method of irrigation we were their equals, while in economy of cultivation, and in the preparation of the grain for market and for use, we are greatly their superiors.  Again, some six or seven years since the East India Company, of London, sent an agent to this country to procure American cotton seed, gins, and overseers, for the purpose of testing the practicability of raising cotton by our method in India.  This agent, Captain Bayles, when in Savannah, was heard to say that he had especial directions from the Company to inform himself minutely of our system of rice culture.  Here, then, was an embassage from the banks of the Ganges, a spot where rice has been cultivated probably for twenty centuries, to inquire into the method of cultivation and preparation, of a people amongst whom the grain had no existence one hundred and sixty years ago.”

The following is the mode of culture for rice in Carolina:—­It is sowed as soon as it conveniently can be after the vernal equinox, from which period until the middle, and even the last of May, is the usual time of putting it in the ground.  It grows best in low marshy land, and should be sowed in furrows twelve inches asunder; it requires to be flooded, and thrives best if six inches under water; the water is occasionally drained off, and turned on again to overflow it, for three or four times.

When ripe the straw becomes yellow, and it is either reaped with a sickle, or cut down with a scythe and cradle, some time in the month of September; after which it is raked and bound, or got up loose, and threshed or trodden out, and winnowed in the same manner as wheat or barley.

Husking it requires a different and particular operation, in a mill made for that purpose.  This mill is constructed of two large flat wooden cylinders, formed like mill-stones, with channels or furrows cut therein, diverging in an oblique direction from the centre to the circumference, made of a heavy and exceedingly hard timber, called lightwood, which is the knots of the pitch pine.  This is turned with the hand, like the common hand-mills.  After the rice is thus cleared of the husks, it is again winnowed, when it is fit for exportation.