Rice [pp. 502-511]

RICE.
lands are of great size and vigor-principally of tupelo gum, ash and
cypress. The undergrowth of cane, and numerous perennial or
annual vines and water grasses, serving in summer to make a dense
thicket. The earth, always saturated with water, is rendered firm
only by its close and deep mat of roots of every description, and but
for this, would be a quagmire in its natural state, and the more so in
proportion to the excess of decomposed vegetable matter in the
marshy soil. Also, according to the large quantity and excess of
vegetable matter, will be the subsequent sinking of the land, after
draining and cultivation. The excess of vegetable matter in any
soil, over and above all that is chemically combined with the soil, is
liable to rot and waste away. And such must be the case, sooner or
later, on all tide marshes, the drying and cultivation of which produces the commencement of rotting, which the before continual wet
state of the earth prevented.
All the tide swamps are not capable of being properly subjected to
rice culture. There must be a sufficient "pitch of tide," or ordinary
variation between the levels of high and low tides, to enable the lands
to be, at any desired time, either quickly flooded, or as quickly to
have the overflowing water discharged. The latter object is opposed
more and more by the freshets the higher the rivers are ascended, so
that the upper tide lands are from this cause too precarious for rice
culture. Again, salt or even brackish water is fatal to rice; and
therefore the usually fresh water tide-lands near the sea are as much
in danger of" salts;" that is, of the water, when needed for flowing
the crop, being contaminated by salt, owing to a dry season and a
scant supply of river water from above. Thus, omiting the upper
tide lands, too much endangered by the river being swollen by rains,
and the lower lands, too much endangered by salt tides in dry seasons, there remains on all the rivers but an intermediate body of
tide lands fit and safe for rice culture.
THE GENERAL MODE OF EMBANKING, DRAINING AND CLEARING
TIDE-SWAMPS FOR RICE CULTURE.*
)N HEN a body of new tide swamp on the Waccamaw or Peedee
was to be brought under rice culture, the first process has been to
cut down and clear off all the trees and under-growth of bushes,
cane (or reeds), &c., along the course designed for the outer embankment, for the width of about 50 yards, or such distance as would
prevent the subsequent cutting down of the remaining large trees
injuring the works. In making this clearing, care is taken to leave
untouched a margin next to the river-side; which ought to be, but
rarely has been, as wide as from 50 to 80 feet, varying according to
the irregularity of the water-line. The trees, &c., cut from the
cleared space, are moved inward among the standing trees, or far
* For the substance and for all that may be of any value in the following statement
and description of rice culture and management, I am indebted to verbal information,
which I derived in conversation with practical and judicious rice planters, and principally from Dr. Edward Heriot and John H. Allston, Esq., in regard to the subject in
general, and as to the more usual modes of culture and management of Rice; and to
Messrs. Stephen Ford and S. C. Ford in regard to "Leggett's" and the "All-Water"
plans of flooding and cultivation, as practised on Black river.
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