"What an interesting ride we've had!" said Fred, as they passed near a rice-field where the young plants were just pushing above the ground. "I might get tired of looking at these rice-fields after a while, but don't see any signs of it yet."
"What I would like to see," Frank responded, "is a string of fields with all the different kinds of rice growing side by side. How many do you suppose there are?"
"I can't tell, I'm sure."
STACKING RICE IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
"One of the books we bought says there are more than thirty kinds of rice grown in the Philippine Islands, all quite distinct in color, form, and weight of the grain. They are divided into two classes—mountain rice and aquatic rice; but the mountain variety can be treated just like the aquatic rice, and it will grow."
"Mountain rice," Fred continued, "grows on the higher ground, where it is not liable to inundations from the rivers, but the aquatic rice needs a great deal of water, and the fields must be very moist all the time it is growing, or till it gets near ripening. It is like the rice raised in the United States, and in Japan and China; and the rice-swamps of Luzon are probably just as unhealthy as those of the Southern States of America, that we used to hear so much about."
"Do all the kinds of rice yield the same?" Frank asked.