a difference
of management; that the Carolina rice was husked with an instrument
that broke it more, and that less pains were taken to separate the
broken from the unbroken grains, imagining that it was the broken
grains which dissolved in oily preparations; that the Carolina rice
costs somewhat less than that of Piedmont; but that being obliged to
sort the whole grains from the broken, in order to satisfy the taste of
their customers, they ask and receive as much for the first quality of
Carolina, when sorted, as for the rice of Piedmont; but the second and
third qualities, obtained by sorting, are sold much cheaper. The
objection to the Carolina rice then, being, that it crumbles in certain
forms of preparation, and this supposed to be the effect of a less
perfect machine for husking, I flattered myself I should be able to
learn what might be the machine of Piedmont, when I should arrive at
Marseilles, to which place I was to go in the course of a tour through
the seaport towns of this country. At Marseilles, however, they
differed as much in account of the machines, as at Paris they had
differed about other circumstances. Some said it was husked between
mill-stones, others between rubbers of wood in the form of mill-stones,
others of cork. They concurred in one fact, however, that the machine
might be seen by me, immediately on crossing the Alps. This would be an
affair of three weeks. I crossed them and went through the rice country
from Vercelli to Pavia, about sixty miles. I found the machine to be
absolutely the same with that used in Carolina, as well as I could
recollect a description which Mr. E. Rutledge had given me of it. It is
on the plan of a powder mill. In some of them, indeed, they arm each
pestle with an iron tooth, consisting of nine spikes hooked together,
which I do not remember in the description of Mr. Rutledge. I therefore
had a tooth made, which I have the honor of forwarding you with this
letter; observing, at the same time, that as many of their machines are
without teeth as with them, and of course, that the advantage is not
very palpable. It seems to follow, then, that the rice of Lombardy (for
though called Piedmont rice, it does not grow in that county but in
Lombardy) is of a different species from that of Carolina; different in
form, in color and in quality. We know that in Asia they have several
distinct species of this grain. Monsieur Poivre, a former Governor of
the Isle of France, i