A gentleman from the United States, named Colvin, proposes to establish the cultivation of rice in the colony of Demerara.  This is no new experiment, rice having been already grown with success in several parts of the colony—­for instance, in Leguan, up the Canje Creek, and elsewhere; and some of it is of superior quality, preferable, indeed, to that imported.  If Mr. Colvin’s object be not merely to demonstrate the practicability of rice being grown in British Guiana, but to promote its cultivation on such a scale as may tend to render it in time one of the staples of the colony, he is deserving of support, and I hope that his efforts will be crowned with complete success.

The editor of the Gazeta, a local paper, has been shown some sprigs of rice raised near Matanzas, in Cuba, the smallest of which contains at least three hundred grains, perfectly opened, and of a larger size than is usually produced on the island.  He observes that this phenomenon is not limited to a certain number of sprigs, but that the whole crop is similar—­that this excess of production is to be attributed to the extraordinary abundance of rain this year.  “Here we have a specimen,” says the editor, “of the enormous production that could be raised in our fields of this excellent and nutritious grain, if it were cultivated in places contiguous to the rivers, where it could be flowed during drought.”

The experiment of cultivating rice in France appears to have succeeded perfectly.  A piece of ground of 100 hectares in extent (250 acres) was sown with rice last year in the lands of Arcachon, near Bordeaux, and the crop proved a highly satisfactory one.  The seed is sown about the middle of April, and almost immediately appears above ground.

Rice may be kept a very long period in the rough—­I believe a lifetime.  After being cleaned, if it be prime rice, and well milled, it will keep a long time in this climate; only when about to be used (if old) it requires more careful washing to get rid of the must, which accumulates upon it.  Some planters—­the writer among the number—­prefer for table use rice a year old to the new.  The grain is superior to any other provisions in this respect.  If a laborer in the gold diggings, or elsewhere, takes with him two days’ or a week’s provisions, in rice, and his wallet happens to get wet, he has only to open it to the sun and air, and he will find it soon dries, and is not at all injured for his purpose.  Rough rice may remain under water twenty-four hours without injury, if dried soon after.

Passing eastward, rice begins to be found cultivated in Egypt, becomes more general in Northern India, and holds undisputed rule in the peninsulas of India, in China, Japan, and the East India islands—­shares it in the west coast of Africa with maize, which, on the other hand, is the exclusively cultivated corn plant of the greatest part of tropical America, with only some unimportant exceptions.  On the coast of Africa rice ripens in three months; they put it under water when cut, where it keeps sound and good for some time.