48 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. X. 



River in the north-eastern part of Kansu Province: "There is now 

 going on a curious process of agriculture which shows how little the 

 Chinese understand saving of labor. The farmers dig up a large patch 

 of the surface of each field, cart it back to their farm-yards and there 

 let the clods of earth dry, when they take a mallet (or a stone hammer 

 with an eye drilled through it in which to fix a long handle) , and reduce 

 it all to powder; with this is then mixed what manure they have been 

 able to collect on the road, and this top dressing is laboriously carted 

 back and spread over the field from which nine-tenths of its component 

 parts were a few days before quite as laboriously taken away." 



Even the modern iron mattock has clearly preserved in shape and 

 perforation its relationship to its stone predecessor. It is of the same 

 rectangular form with straight edge, and a wooden handle standing 

 vertically against its surface is stuck through the hole. 



This subject is of great significance for the history of agriculture. 

 Everywhere in Eastern Asia we can observe two principal and distinct 

 methods in the cultivation of cereals, which are often employed side by 

 side in the same geographical area, but then as a rule by representatives 

 of different tribes differentiated as to the degree of their culture. The 

 one method bears a close resemblance to our process of gardening, 

 except that broadcast sowing obtains, and the hoe or mattock is almost 

 the only tool utilized in it (hoe-culture). The other method identical 

 with true agriculture is based on the principle of the plough drawn by 

 cattle, on the laying-out of fields in terraces and the appliance of arti- 

 ficial irrigation. There is a sharp line of demarcation between hoe- 

 culture and plough-culture, each being a well-defined sphere in itself, 

 the latter not having developed from the former. The aspect of the 

 development of the two stages is of a purely historical character, as 

 far as Eastern Asia is concerned. There, the Chinese are the represent- 

 atives of plough-culture, and so are the great groups of Shan and Burmese 

 tribes, in short the entire stock comprised under the name Indochinese 

 because of their affinity in language; the, aboriginal tribes gradually 

 pushed back by the Chinese in their onward march towards the south 

 and designated by them with the generic name Man, as well as the 

 Mon-Khmer or South-east-Asiatic group (Schmidt's Austronesians) , 

 were originally only representatives of hoe-culture. In many localities, 

 they received the plough from their more powerful conquerors and 

 adopted with it their methods of tilling; in others, they have still pre- 

 served their original state, as may be seen from numerous reports, 1 



1 This subject deserves a special monograph. Many intricate problems, as the 

 domestication of cattle, the history of the wheeled cart which appears only in the 

 stage of plough-culture and is absent in hoe-culture, the history of rice-cultivation 

 and terraced fields, are here involved, which could be discussed only at great length. 

 I can make here only these brief allusions, in order to define the historical position 

 of the stone mattock. 



