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.

A bushel of rice will weigh about sixty or sixty-six pounds, and an
acre of middling land will produce twenty-five bushels.

Various machines have been contrived for cleaning rice, of which one
secured by patent to Mr. M. Wilson, in 1826, and thus described by Dr.
Ure, may be regarded as a fair specimen:--It consists of an oblong
hollow cylinder, laid in an inclined position, having a great many
teeth stuck in its internal surface, and a central shaft, also
furnished with teeth. By the rapid revolut