A Short Story of Rice Culture

A Short Story of Rice Culture By John Q. Adams As we leave the city of Honolulu be- hind, and traverse the beautiful Nuuanu valley, we come within a half dozen miles to an elevation of coolness1 and wonderful scenery, culminating at the famous Pali. a high, narrow mountain pass where old warrior Kamehameha more than a hundred years ago met an opposing force, fought a grim battle at the edge of a tremendous cliff, and cast enough of his opponents down this to insure peace overtures' from the remainder. From this vantage point, one may gaze at the most entrancing sea and land view to be had. Clinging peril- ously to the frowning face of the sheer cliff, a winding road takes you to the low- lands on Oahu's windward shore, and for miles one winds along among banana plants, taro "lois." rice fields and other and varied Garden of Eden plots. As our subject is rice, we shall pass up all else, and hold to our topic. At Kaneohe village, a quaint cluster of Oriental huts, we emerge upon a lovely setting which is very striking to the new- comer. We see tiny squares of bog-land sustaining a luxurious growth of what we take to be grain, which it closely resembles. From each separate tiny stock develops a head of white kernels, the aggregate wher- ever rice is grown forming the staff of life for more than half the inhabitants of the earth. Just now it has turned brown and stands ready for the reaper (sickle) . Twice each year is the process of planting and garnering repeated in Hawaii — truly a fruitful land and crop. We of the States think of grain, gang plows, drills and combined harvesters as associated together in natural sequence. Here the rice is grown without any of these assistants. We see employed the pa- tient, plodding hand-methods in vogue from biblical days until now. A dun-hued carabao, rolling-fat, with horns widely sweeping towards its shoul- ders, can now and then be seen demurely drawing a flimsy wooden pronged stick through deep, quivering mud, for rice thrives best in a slough habitation. The scantily-clad owner is jerked from side to side as he succeeds in extricating in turn each foot from the slimy quagmire. Often- times he is mud-plastered to the waist. Sometimes the plowing is done with several inches of water covering the mud, and then we wonder at the plowman's ability to follow the last scratch made. Possibly he and the carabao have sufficiently de- veloped the sense of touch not to be under the necessity of depending upon that of sight, only. But the silt retains its rich- ness. Then the planting! The seed has previously been sprouted in a bed to a height of about six inches. This is lifted out by the handful, the tops clipped, and each separate stalk stuck in the mud and spaced exactly as our grain is sown — rows just wide enough to admit the small Ori ental foot betwixt, and the stalks an inch or so apart. The rows are kept trim and straight, but the progress of transplanting. as may be surmised, is painfully slow, but perfectly efficient. Within a few weeks the slough is a solid field of waving green, and for a couple or three months now the lot of the planter is an easy one. With the appearance of the heads, how- ever, he leads a hectic life. He is distracted by the coming of flocks of the diminutive rice-bird, as well as the depredations of the omnipresent sparrow. These proceed to make it a dawn-to-dusk battle of wits as to who shall do the harvesting. Some times honors are about equally shared, but generally the more intelligent mind of the man 'insures his triumph. Both are fight- ing for bread, and the owner brings strategy into play. In the center of his field he erects a small platform, say five feet in height, over which he stretches a piece of canvas against sun and rain. From this crude central radiate a number of wires

1042 IMPROVEMENT ERA to all parts of the field, on the end of each a bell or kerosene can containing a few rocks. From his vantage point on the platform he watches all day, and, at the appearance of birds in any part of his domain, he simply jerks the wire leading to the invaded sector, and a great noise fright- ens the puzzled birds! He also sets up, all over the field, some of the most hideous scarecrows imaginable, and, as these mon- sters flutter and wriggle and signal and gesture, small wonder it is that the feath- ered vandals view the menace from far-off trees. Or, as is more frequently the custom, the owner, shouldering an ancient muzzle- loader, walks about his field all day as a sentinel upon the dikes, and time after time we have watched him level his noisy but harmless musket, seen the puff of white, heard the sharp report, and away with a whirr has gone the flock of rice-birds. He carries his powder flask, and full set of re-loading apparatus along, so in a moment is going again, ready for the next sortie. Eternal vigilance is the price of rice, as well as liberty; so the man wins. As the straw takes on the dull brown, betokening maturity, along comes the sickle brigade of two or three neighbors working conveniently together, and the bunches are bound by hand with a few straws, as our ancestors used to do it. It is not left long in the shock, as there is too much rain here, and the field is too wet, so it is carried by hand generally, to the threshing floor. Many of these are by the side of the main highway of Oahu, so one can watch the proceedings from the car as one drives along. A cement floor about thirty feet square, with its sides raised a few inches, receives possibly 100 bundles. Over this horses are driven in a circle as in horse-power days. Just now thresh- ing is going on all over, and we saw this week in one place four scraggy ponies tied together with a rope, stepping warily over uneven bundles, as one Chinese stood in the center holding the rope, and another cracked a whip over the backs of the horses, and two more Chinese were stirring up the straw with two-pronged forks. In the friendly trade-wind the chaff is cleared away, and then the rice is said to be in the "paddy." It is a golden brown in its last husk, which is not further molested until it gets to the mill later on. It is now scraped into small ridges on the cement floor, and sunned and dried, being churned about constantly to make the drying thorough. Suppose at this stage a dark cloud appears to windward. The man in charge always has his eye on the weather, and with the first indication of an apporachnig shower, he sounds the alarm, and several men rush to his aid By shovel, hoe or a board used as a scraper and horse-drawn, the layer is quickly heaped into a golden pyramid, and covered with a big tarpaulin. It may be only a passing dash of Hawaii's "liquid sunshine." or it may be a prolonged heavy fall of rain but no chance is taken, for frequent soaking would spoil the grain. And, as this drying process goes on, chickens wan- der on the scene, quite overcome at man's generosity in laying out such a banquet for them. They are suddenly bidden to beat a hasty retreat by a long whip crack- ing sharply overhead. Some of the fowls get too accustomed to this to be bluffed, so are pushed away. Finally, the patient rice grower, having fought his way through all these obstacles, sees the few dollars which are his compen- sation, and we inquisitive Occidentals see a most interesting bit of life transplanted from the Orient. — Laie, Oahu, T. H. Take care of your habits and your health will take care of itself. Cheerfulness is the bravery born of wisdom. Persons with narrow minds are not responsible for the words they utter in fits of anger. Broad-minded people seldom give way to anger. The person with a dwarfed brain should never be censured — it is a case for pity — Dorothy C. Retsloff.