Cassell's dictionary of cookery

and serve very hot, piling them on a dish in the form of a pyramid. The flavour of the croquettes may be varied by the addition of five or six pounded bitter almonds, or by the substitution of a pod of vanilla, broken in halves, or a Uttle cocoa-nut, pounded, for the lemon-rind. Both lemon-rind and vanilla should be taken out of the rice when it is left to cool. The croquettes may be enriched also by the introduction of a spoonful of jam or marmalade into the centre of each ball. The jam must be entirely covered with the rice. It should be remembered that unless the rice is boiled till it is quite thick and dry it wiU be difficult to form it into croquettes. Time to fry, five to seven minutes. Sufficient for five or six persons. Rice, Cultivation of.— The following is the mode of rice culture in Carolina : — It is sowed as soon as it conveniently can be after the vernal equinox, from which period until the middle and even the last of May is the usual time of putting it into the ground. It grows best in low marshy land, and should be sown in furrows twelve inches asunder; it requires to be flooded, and thrives best if six inches imder water; the water is occasionally drained off, and turned on again to overflow it, for three or four times. When ripe the straw becomes yellow. and it is either reaped with a sickle, or cut down with a scythe and cradle, some time in the month of September, after which it is raked and bound, got up loose, and threshed or trodden out, and winnowed in the same manner as wheat or barley. Husking it requires a different and particular operation, in a mill made for that purpose. This mill is constructed of two large flat wooden cylinders, formed like mill-stones, with channels or furrows cut therein, diverging in an oblique direction from the centre to the circumference, made of a heavj' and exceedingly hard timber, called lightwood, which is the knots of the pitch-pine. This is turned with the hand, like the conunon hand-mills. After the rice is thus cleared of the husks it is again winnowed, when it is fit for exportation. " In Europe the cultivation of rice is confined to the most southern regions. It is most extensively carried on in the plains of Lombardy, and in Valentia, in Spain. Attempts have been made to cultivate it in more northern parts of Europe, but without success. Marshy situations, where there is always the same abundance of water, are not so suitable to rice, as those in which the supply of water is regulated according to the season and the growth of the plant. " In China rice is generally sown pretty thickly on very wet land, and afterwards transplanted to the land which it is finally to occupy. The plants tiller or spread at the root very much, so that each sends up several or many stalks. The rice grounds are carefully kept clear of weeds, although often so wet that a man cannot walk in them without sinking to the knees. In many parts of China, and in other warm countries it is common to obtain two crops of rice in a year." SIC (745) RIC