In the Gulf states the fields are plowed in the winter, and the rice is sown between the first of April and the middle of May. Sometimes the seed is sown broadcast, as wheat is, and sometimes it is planted in regular drills or trenches about twelve inches apart. The Japanese sow the seed in gardens, and when the plants are eight or ten inches high, they are pulled up and transplanted to the fields. The men work right in the water, for the fields are flooded at the time. In our country the farmer floods the field as soon as the seeds are planted, allowing the water to remain five or six days. When the young blade of rice is a few inches high, the field is again flooded. After the second leaf appears on the stalk, the water is turned on and left for twenty or thirty days. After the land dries the crop is hoed. The fields are irrigated from time to time, until about eight days before the harvest, which generally occurs in August. When full grown, the stalks are from one to six feet in height, with long, slender leaves. The kernels grow much as those of wheat and oats do. On account of the fields being so wet, rice, in most countries, is cut by hand. In China and Japan small curved sickles are used, and the grain is bound up in very small bundles. In Louisiana and some other parts of the South, regular harvesters are used. They have very broad wheels. Why? After the grain has been bound into bundles, these are set up in double rows to dry. This is called _shocking_ the rice. The grain is then put through a thrashing machine, to separate it from the straw. [Illustration: FIG. 23.--Harvesting Rice.] Rice kernels are covered by a husk. Before the husk is removed the grain is often called _paddy rice_. Removing the hulls or husks is called _hulling_. The hulling machine is a long tube into one end of which the rice is poured. Within the tube are ribs which revolve rapidly. As the kernels pass between these the hulls are taken off. If you were passing through a Chinese village, you might hear sounds like those produced when a man pounds with a mallet on a great piece of timber. On searching for the sounds, you would find that they came from the rice mill. The mill consists of a portion of a log hollowed out and placed upright. In the hollow a quantity of rice is held. A piece of timber, fastened to a pivot, extends in a horizontal position with one end over the mill. To this end another timber is fastened in an upright position. A Chinaman gets on to the end of the long timber which is farthest from the mill. This raises the end with the upright. He then jumps off and the upright falls, striking upon the rice. In this way the hulls are worn off. After hulling, the grain is carefully screened, in order to remove the hulls, the broken and very small kernels, and the _rice flour_. This latter makes good cattle food.