7570. RICE, Italian.—[further continued].
At Marseilles I hoped
to know what the Piedmont machine was, but I
could find nobody who knew anything of it. I
determined, therefore, to sift the matter to the
bottom, by crossing the Alps into the rice
country. I found their machine exactly such
a one as you had described to me in Congress
in the year 1775. There was but one conclusion,
then, to be drawn, to wit, that the rice
was of a different species, and I determined
to take enough to put you in seed. They informed
me, however, that its exportation in the
husk was prohibited, so I could only bring off
as much as my coat and surtout pockets would
hold. I took measures with a muleteer to run
a couple of sacks across the Apennines to
Genoa, but have not great dependence on its
success. The little, therefore, which I brought
myself, must be relied on for fear we should
get no more; and because, also, it is genuine
from Vercelli, where the best is made of all
the Sardinian Lombardy, the whole of which is
considered as producing a better rice than the
Milanese. This is assigned as the reason for
the strict prohibition.—
To E. Rutledge. Washington ed. ii, 178.
Ford ed., iv, 407.
(P.
1787)
