18. When ripe, wheat, barley, oats, and peas, are cut down with the sickle, cradle, or scythe; while hemp and flax are pulled up by the roots. The seeds are separated from the other parts of the plants with the flail, or by means of horses or oxen driven round upon them. Of late, threshing machines are used to effect the same object. Chaff, and extraneous matter generally, are separated from the grain, or seeds, by means of a fanning-mill, or with a large fan made of the twigs of the willow. The same thing was formerly, and is yet sometimes, effected by the aid of a current of air.
19. When the corn, or maize, has become ripe, the ears, with the husks, and sometimes the stalks, are deposited in large heaps. To assist in stripping the husks from the ears, it is customary to call together the neighbours. In such cases, the owner of the corn provides for them a supper, together with some means of merriment and good cheer.
20. This custom is most prevalent, where the greater part of the labour is performed by slaves. The blacks, when assembled for a husking match, choose a captain, whose business it is to lead the song, while the rest join in chorus. Sometimes, they divide the corn as nearly as possible into two equal heaps, and apportion the hands accordingly, with a captain to each division. This is done to produce a contest for the most speedy execution of the task. Should the owner of the corn be sparing of his refreshments, his want of generosity is sure to be published in song at every similar frolic in the neighborhood.
21. Maize, or Indian corn, and potatoes of all kinds, were unknown in the eastern continent, until the discovery of America. Their origin is, therefore, known with certainty; but some of the other productions which have been mentioned, cannot be so satisfactorily traced. This is particularly the case with regard to those which have been extensively cultivated for many centuries.
22. The grasses have ever been valuable to man, as affording a supply of food for domestic animals. Many portions of our country are particularly adapted to grazing. Where this is the case, the farmers usually turn their attention to raising live stock, and to making butter and cheese. Grass reserved in meadows, as a supply of food for the winter, is cut at maturity with a scythe, dried in the sun, and stored in barns, or heaped in stacks.
23. Rice was first cultivated in the eastern parts of Asia, and, from the earliest ages, has been the principal article of food among the Chinese and Hindoos. To this grain may be attributed, in a great measure, the early civilization of those nations; and its adaptation to marshy grounds caused many districts to become populous, which would otherwise have remained irreclaimable and desolate.
24. Rice was long known in the east, before it was introduced into Egypt and Greece, whence it spread over Africa generally, and the southern parts of Europe. It is now cultivated in all the warm parts of the globe, chiefly on grounds subject to periodical inundations. The Chinese obtain two crops a year from the same ground, and cultivate it in this way from generation to generation, without applying any manure, except the stubble of the preceding crop, and the mud deposited from the water overflowing it.
25. Soon after the waters of the inundation have retired, a spot is inclosed with an embankment, lightly ploughed and harrowed, and then sown very thickly with the grain. Immediately, a thin sheet of water is brought over it, either by a stream or some hydraulic machinery. When the plants have grown to the height of six or seven inches, they are transplanted in furrows; and again water is brought over them, and kept on, until the crop begins to ripen, when it is withheld.
26. The crop is cut with a sickle, threshed with a flail, or by the treading of cattle; and the husks, which adhere closely to the kernel, are beaten off in a stone mortar, or by passing the grain through a mill, similar to our corn-mills. The mode of cultivating rice in any part of the world, varies but little from the foregoing process. The point which requires the greatest attention, is keeping the ground properly covered with water.
27. Rice was introduced into the Carolinas in 1697, where it is now produced in greater perfection than in any other part of the world. The seeds are dropped along, from the small end of a gourd, into drills made with one corner of the hoe. The plants, when partly grown, are not transferred to another place, as in Asia, but are suffered to grow and ripen in the original drills. The crop is secured like wheat, and the husks are forced from the grain by a machine, which leaves the kernels more perfect than the methods adopted in other countries.