224 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



higher latitude or elevation. This effect has, how- 

 ever, been greatly exaggerated. It has been recently 

 computed that the heat lost in the process of eva- 

 poration by the sun's rays an inch-fall of rain would 

 be sufficient to reduce the temperatuie of the soil, 

 to a depth of ten inches, no less than 99 degrees ! 

 The more porous the soil, the more rapid is the evapo- 

 ration ; and consequently we have an explanation why 

 crops upon gravelly subsoils become most affected in 

 the early spring months, and at the same time arrive 

 at a remedy in relieving them from surjilus water by 

 drainage. The radiation of heat from a surface coming 

 into contact with vajtour discharges the heat at the im- 

 mediate point of contact, and explains the cause of hoar 

 frost when the thermometer shows, at a few inches from 



the surface, no frost actually existing. The drainage of 

 land, therefore, by lessening the amount of evaporation 

 from the surface, consequently lessens the discharge 

 of heat from its surface, and thereby benefits vege- 

 tation. 



The third point to be referred to, is the injury sus- 

 tained by plants whenever mineral substances, entering 

 into combination with water stagnant in the soil, 

 rise to the surface, and becnrae injurious to vegeta- 

 tion. This more especially takes place upon soils 

 highly charged with peroxide of iron, which most soils 

 in a greater or less degree contain, especially those 

 wherever the subsoil is of a red colour. To such an 

 extent does this frequently exist, as to tinge the water 

 passing through it with this red colour, and its deposit. 



AGRICULTURE IN CHINA. 



HONGKONG, Novembeu, 1857. — A revisit to the 

 scenes of the Canton River has impressed me still more not 

 only with the extraordinary beauty of the scenery upon its 

 banks, but also with the singular geological formation of 

 the country. Upon a first view, especially if the attention 

 is absorbed by warlike operations, one does not observe the 

 general coincidence in character between the district of the 

 Pearl River and that of the Yang-Tse. We are struck 

 rather by the points of difference. In the one the eye meets 

 at every point ranges round-topped granite hills; in the 

 other the vision wanders unchecked over a dead flat. Yet 

 both are enormous deltas of alluvial soil, through which the 

 internal waters descend in one large river and a thousand 

 streams. In the north the deposits were spread upon the 

 level bed of a great sea, and silted it up into a solid plain ; 

 in the south the rich mud was brought down into an archi- 

 pelago of granite islets, drove out the sea, and produced a 

 region of rich valleys intersected or dominated by granite 

 mountains. The crops we see upon the banks of the Pearl 

 and upon the banks of the ^V■angpo owe their luxuriance to 

 the same alluvial qualities of the soil. On the Canton 

 River they are just now gathering their second crop of rice, 

 the bananas are still clustered upon the trees, and the 

 patches of sugarcane look green and reedy. I should have 

 been glad of an opportunity of examining the agriculture of 

 the south more nearly. Three Englishmen at Hongkong 

 resolved, in the spirit of Chevy Chase chivalry, to hunt, or 

 rather to shoot for three days upon the enemy's territory. 

 I was to have accompanied them, but was drawn away by 

 the more imperative duty of accompanying the reconnais- 

 sance up the river. On my return I foiind they had accom- 

 plished their vow. Bristing with revolvers and accompanied 

 by five Coolies to each man, they bad landed at Mirs Bay, 

 passed through several villages, beat with pointers and 

 beaters the hills overhanging the battlements of a walled 

 city, and, in spite of angry looks and muttered maledictions, 

 had returned with whole skins and a bag of 16 pheasants 

 and some quail. 



The best way to see the agriculture of a country is to 

 shoot over it. A landlord who shoots over his estate knows 

 the rotation of crops in every field, and his tenant will not 

 wisely be too persistent in his straw crops. With a view 

 to this same sort of minute acquaintance with the agricul- 

 ture of the flowery land, I employed some of my enforced 

 leisure at the north in little expeditions after the China 

 pheasants. I used to take a Soochau boat, and go away up 

 the rivers and creeks, some 20 or 30 miles, and anchor off 

 some likely spot for the night. Next morning my servant 

 went to the nearest village and hired three peasants with 

 long bamboos, and we went forth scouring the country. 

 There is no name law in China. The land is free to all, and 

 consequently the result was not great sport. Moreover, 

 every inch of ground was covered by some standing crop, 

 and I had no dogs. Hospitable as the Shanghai folk are, 

 they do not like lending their dogs, and I sighed in vain 

 for my faithful four-footed friends. The only resource was 

 to try whether the habits of the wild pheasant of China, 



which has cost no one a guinea to preserve, are the same as 

 those of their more costly brethren of England, I used to 

 steal in early morning, and again just before sundown, to 

 the sides of the bamboo plantations. The ground round 

 these plantations, which are always attached to houses, is 

 cultivated in lands, like allotment grounds in England — a 

 land of cotton, another of peas, a third of indigo, a fourth 

 of white turnips, and so on. But in China, as in England, 

 the pheasants are not easy to approach at feeding time. I 

 seldom got a shot at less than 70 yards, and if I brought 

 down my bird " a runner" he was lost to me and my heirs 

 for ever. The fields were all alive with sharp-eyed indi- 

 genes, who watched the course of the wounded game, and 

 followed it up when I was gone. In the daytime I had a 

 very numerous following of spectators, and I shot many 

 birds of curious plumage for their amusement and for the 

 satisfaction of my own curiosity. It was very critical shoot- 

 ing. It was scarcely possible to point your gun without 

 finding a Chinaman at the end of your barrels; and if you 

 peppered one of these spectators or cotton-pickers by acci- 

 dent, you would be bound up in bamboo thongs and sent to 

 Shanghai in a cage. Altogether, therefore, the October 

 shooting in China is not quite worth following for itself 

 alone. But for the exercise, and as an excuse for exploring 

 the countr3', it is greatly to be cultivated, and the birds, 

 when you do get them, are very handsome. All the cocks 

 have the white ring round their necks, and, strangely 

 enough, the cocks get up more freely before you than the 

 hens. 



After investigation carried on with these opportunities, I 

 am convinced that England has nothing to learn from China 

 in the art of agriculture. It is true the Chinese have no 

 summer fallows; but then they have nostiff clays. They have 

 no couch grass, no thistles contending for the full possession 

 of the land, as we see in Wales ; no uninvited poppies, no 

 straggling stalky crops, the poverty-stricken covering of an 

 exhausted soil. At rare intervals we see a large rich-coloured 

 cock's-comb flaunting himself among the cotton ; but, gene- 

 rally speaking, there is not a leaf above the ground which 

 does not appertain to the crop to which the field is appro- 

 priated. Rice and cotton are the staples of the great dis- 

 trict of which I am now speaking. These crops often ex- 

 tend in unbroken breadth over tracts of thousands of acres. 

 The peas, and wheat, and indigo, and turnips, and bringalls 

 lie in patches round the villages. The ground is not only 

 clean, but the soil is so exquisitely pulverized that after a 

 week's rain I have sometimes looked about in vain for a 

 clod to throw into a pond to startle the water-fowl. 



We may be accustomed to mark the course of agriculture 

 throughout the breadth of our own land— the light loams 

 of our Lincolnshire wolds, the turnip and barley lands of 

 Norfolk, the strong flats of Suffolk ; then westward to the 

 rich pastures of Leicester, the mixed dairy and arable farms 

 of Derbyshire, across the coalfields to the successive and at- 

 tenuating oat crops on the shores of Bala, and down the 

 valley of the Tivey— yet we shall see nothing hke the cul- 

 tivation of this great plain of China, 



