Peeps at Many Lands: Siam/Chapter 14
Rice is the most important crop grown in Siam. It is almost the sole food of everyone, from the King to the poorest peasant. Horses, cattle, dogs, and cats are fed on it; beer and spirits are made from it; it is eaten boiled, fried, stewed, and baked, in curries, cakes and sauces; it is used at all festivals in connection with certain superstitions; and both the opening and the closing of the season of cultivation are marked by special holidays. A rich man invests his money in rice-fields; the law courts spend most of their time settling quarrels about the ownership of rice-land; and when a man has nothing else to talk about, he talks about the next rice crop, just as in England we talk about the weather. Most of the boats passing up and down the river carry rice; most of the big steamers that leave the port are taking this valuable and important food product to other lands.
The whole of the land in the country is supposed to belong to the King, but anybody who wishes to plant rice may go into the jungle and clear a space of ground by burning down the long grass and the trees. For this land the farmer pays no rent, and after a time he can claim it as his own. He pays to the Government, however, a tax upon the land which he cultivates. The farms are small, averaging about eight acres: such a farm will comfortably support a family of four or five.
When the ground has been cleared, the farmers wait for the rain, which falls in torrents, and in due course makes the ground soft enough to permit of ploughing. The plough is made of wood, and consists of a bent stick stuck in a pointed wooden block. The plough cuts a shallow furrow about two inches deep and five or six inches wide. It is drawn by buffaloes, formidable-looking beasts with immense spreading horns, which sometimes measure as much as eight or nine feet from tip to tip, measured round the curve.
When the field has been ploughed, it is harrowed with a square harrow made of bamboo and provided with a number of straight wooden teeth. The result of ploughing and harrowing the wet ground is to churn it up into a kind of porridgy mess of slimy grey mud.
Rice can only be grown where there is abundance of moisture. In Siam the peasants depend for their water-supply upon the heavy rains, and then upon the rise of the rivers after the rains have ceased. The floods not merely provide water, but when they subside they leave behind them a deposit of mud so rich and fertile that manuring is not necessary,
There are forty different kinds of rice, of which about six are widely cultivated in Siam. The natives divide all the known varieties into two classes, which they call "field rice" and "garden rice."
Field rice is grown in places where there is an exceptionally heavy rainfall. The seed is scattered broadcast on the fields, and left to grow without much more attention. As the water rises, the rice grows at the same pace, and so always keeps its head above the surface. The rate of growth of one variety is almost unbelievable. Plants have been known to grow as much as a foot in twelve hours, and the final length of the stalk is often as much as ten feet.
Garden rice is carefully sown and tended. The seeds are first sown as thickly as they can grow, in well-watered patches. They soon sprout, and grow rapidly. When they are a few inches high they are pulled up and made into bundles of a hundred or so, neatly tied together. The mud is removed from the roots by a skilful kick which is given to the bundle as it is drawn from the soil. The bundles are taken to the fields by men, women, and children, and transplanted in long rows. The fields have been covered with water and trampled into a thick mud by the hoofs of the buffaloes. The young shoots are handed to the women and girls, and they push the roots down into the soft mad, working very cleverly and rapidly. A good worker can plant an acre in this way in about three days.
The method of reaping the rice depends on the state of the fields. If the floods have gone, the rice is reaped with the sickle and bound into sheaves. The sheaves are dried in the sun and then taken away in buffalo-carts or in bullock-wagons. But if the fields are still under water, the people row out in boats and canoes, cut off the ripe heads with a sickle, and drop them into small baskets placed in the bottom of the boat. The reapers are very careless, and drop much of the ripe grain into the water. The rice is dried in bundles, placed on frames that have been erected in the fields. The birds are kept away by boys, who are armed with long whips. On the end of the lash they stick a pellet of mud. When they crack the whip the mud flies off, and so clever are they at this form of slinging that they rarely miss the bird at which they aim. When the water has all gone from the fields, the long stalks that have been left standing are burned.
The threshing is done by buffaloes on a floor which is specially prepared by covering it with a paste made of soil, cow-dung, and water. After a few days the plaster sets into a hard, firm covering to the ground. A pole is fixed in the centre, and two buffaloes, yoked side by side, are made to walk round and round the pole, all the while treading the grain under their feet. The threshing takes place on moonlight nights, and is the occasion of much merriment. The children never dream of going to bed. They play in the heaps of straw, or dance round the big bonfires to the sound of fiddles, tom-toms, and drums. Their parents chat and joke the long night through, and in the shadows the red ends of their cigarettes gleam unceasingly. while the pale green fire-flies flit to and fro, and seem to wonder what it is all about. When the threshing is over, the farmer gives a feast to his neighbours to celebrate the event. His heaps of grain are spread evenly over the threshing floor, the straw is piled up in little stacks, and around all is twined the usual white thread to keep away the evil spirits.
To winnow the rice, it is thrown into the air by means of a wooden spade, or poured from one wide, shallow basket to another. The wind blows through the mixture of grain and chaff and carries the chaff away. The grain is stored in large baskets made of cane and plastered outside with mud. The rice is usually milled at home. The grain is placed in a big hollow in a block of wood. There is a long lever, bearing at one end a heavy wooden hammer. A girl jumps on the other end of the lever and so lifts the hammer. She hops off again, and the hammer falls upon the rice in the hollow block and smashes it up. For hours the women and girls jump patiently on and off the long handle, and in any small village you can hear the steady thump, thump, thump of the hammers from morning to night.