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.

28. Cotton is cultivated in the East and West Indies, North and South America, Egypt, and in many other parts of the world, where the climate is sufficiently warm for the purpose. There are several species of this plant; of which three kinds are cultivated in the southern states of the Union—the nankeen cotton, the green seed cotton, and the black seed, or sea island cotton. The first two, which grow in the middle and upland countries, are denominated short staple cotton: the last is cultivated in the lower country, near the sea, and on the islands near the main land, and is of a fine quality, and of a long staple.

29. The plants are propagated annually from seeds, which are sown very thickly in ridges made with the plough or hoe. After they have grown to the height of three or four inches, part of them are pulled up, in order that the rest, while coming to maturity, may stand about four inches apart. It is henceforth managed, until fully grown, like Indian corn.

30. The cotton is inclosed in pods, which open as fast as their contents become fit to be gathered. In Georgia, about eighty pounds of upland cotton can be gathered by a single hand in a day; but in Alabama and Mississippi, where the plant thrives better, two hundred pounds are frequently collected in the same time.

31. The seeds adhere closely to the cotton, when picked from the pods; but they are properly separated by machines called gins; of which there are two kinds,—the roller-gin, and the saw-gin. The essential parts of the former are two cylinders, which are placed nearly in contact with each other. By their revolving motion, the cotton is drawn between them, while the size of the seeds prevents their passage. This machine, being of small size, is worked by hand.

32. The saw-gin is much larger, and is moved by animal, steam, or water power. It consists of a receiver, having one side covered with strong wires, placed in a parallel direction about an eighth of an inch apart, and a number of circular saws, which revolve on a common axis. The saws pass between these wires, and entangle in their teeth the cotton, which is thereby drawn through the grating, while the seeds, from their size, are forced to remain on the other side.

33. Before the invention of the saw-gin, the seeds were separated from the upland cottons by hand,—a method so extremely tedious, that their cultivation was attended with but little profit to the planter. This machine was invented in Georgia by Eli Whitney, of Massachusetts. It was undertaken at the request of several planters of the former state, and was there put in operation in 1792.

34. In the preceding year, the whole crop of cotton in the United States was only sixty-four bales; but, in 1834, it amounted to 1,000,617. The vast increase in the production of this article has arisen, in part, from the increased demand for it in Europe, and in the Northern states, but, chiefly, from the use of the invaluable machine just mentioned.

35. Sugar-cane was cultivated by the Chinese, at a very early period, probably two thousand years before it was known in Europe; but sugar, in a candied form, was used in small quantities by the Greeks and Romans in the days of their prosperity. It was probably brought from Bengal, Siam, or some of the East India Islands, as it is supposed, that it grew nowhere else at that time.

36. In the thirteenth century, soon after the merchants of the West began to traffic in Indian articles of commerce, the plant was introduced into Arabia Felix, and thence into Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, and Morocco. The Spaniards obtained it from the Moors, and, in the fifteenth century, introduced it into the Canary Islands. It was brought to America, and to the West India Islands, by the Spaniards and Portuguese. It is now cultivated in the United States, below the thirty-first degree of latitude, and in the warm parts of the globe generally.

37. Previous to the year 1466, sugar was known in England chiefly, as a medicine; and, although the sugar-cane was cultivated, at that time, in several places on the Mediterranean, it was not more extensively used on the continent. Now, in extent of cultivation, it ranks next to wheat and rice, and first in maritime commerce.

38. The cultivators of sugar-cane propagate the plant by means of cuttings from the lower end of the stalks, which are planted in the spring or autumn, in drills, or in furrows. The new plants spring from the joints of the cuttings, and are fit to be gathered for use in eight, ten, twelve, or fourteen months. While growing, sugar-cane is managed much like Indian corn.

39. When ripe, the cane is cut and brought to the sugar-mill, where the juice is expressed between iron or stone cylinders, moved by steam, water, or animal power. The juice thus obtained is evaporated in large boilers to a syrup, which is afterwards removed to coolers, where it is agitated with wooden instruments called stirrers. To accelerate its cooling, it is next poured into casks, and, when yet warm, is conveyed to barrels, placed in an