After planting his rice the farmer has little or nothing to do until his crop begins to ripen, when all hands have to turn out to drive off the birds. There are immense flocks of a diminutive little bird, with gray and red wings, and about the size of a canary, and sings almost as sweetly. They are beautiful little creatures, but great rice-eaters, and would soon destroy a whole crop if not driven away. Men, women and children have all to turn out to guard off these, and other rice-eating birds, until the harvest is gathered.
The rice crop is harvested about the first of January, with a kind of primitive sickle, and bound into small sheaves. It is then collected by means of a nondescript ox-cart into one place, where they intend to thresh it. The threshing floor is levelled off on the ground, as in Scripture times, and a bamboo pole is set up in the centre, upon the top of which a few heads of the best rice have been tied, as a kind of first fruit-offering to the spirits. The sheaves are then placed around in a circle, and a number of oxen are driven around abreast upon it. When threshed, the rice is collected into a heap and winnowed with a large fan. The threshing is frequently done at night, and I have seen the banks of some of the rivers illuminated for miles with fires around the threshing floors. The crops are generally abundant, and the labors of the husbandman abundantly rewarded.
The native mills for hulling the rice are small basket affairs turned by band, but there are now in operation four steam rice-mills, built and owned by Europeans, and which clean on an average about four thousand piculs of cargo rice daily.
Bangkok is one of the greatest rice ports in the world, and vast quantities are shipped every year to China, Europe, California and other places.
Cotton grows well, and the quality is good, but is not raised in any quantities. A few Hainan Chinese have located up the country, and are raising cotton, but all they raise is shipped in junks to the island of Hainan.
Some little Indian corn is raised, but not as a business; it is generally used when soft. Vegetables of various kinds are also raised in considerable quantities, such as sweet potatoes, turnips, cabbage, beans, peas, cucumbers, squashes and egg-plants.
All tropical fruits are also abundant, such as oranges in great variety, shaddocks, plantains, mangos, mango-stines, jack-fruit and bread-fruit. The king of fruits to the natives however, is the durien, a large fruit about the size of a man's head, with a prickly shell. Inside the shell there are a number of lobes, each having a large seed, surrounded with a white pulpy substance, resembling custard highly flavored with garlic. To most Europeans the smell of the fruit is very offensive, resembling that of a spoiled egg. When a boat load of the fruit is passing up the river, even before the shell is broken, it can be smelled at a great distance. Strange to say however, after a few contacts most Europeans become extremely fond of the fruit, notwithstanding the smell. It is however, like most acquired tastes, the end gained scarcely justifies the effort in obtaining it.
The palm is there also in considerable variety. The palmyra, the cocoanut, the nypa, the date, and the areca palms, all figure to some extent.
Amongst the woods the teak is most valued for ship building, and quantities of it are shipped every year to China and Europe for that purpose. Rosewood is also abundant, and a variety of other red woods. Sapan wood is largely exported to China for dyeing purposes.
There is scarcely anything so generally used and so universally prized as the bamboo. It grows in clumps to the height of about seventy-five feet; and when full grown is about six or eight inches in diameter at the butt. It also grows in joints, and is hollow except at the joint. The houses of the poorer classes are all built of this. Their baskets, boxes, buckets, boat covers, and nearly all the utensils used by the poorer classes, are made of it. It is to all appearances a "sine qua non" in the country.