CHINESE HUSBANDRY. 257 



XVIII. — Analysis of a Chinese Woek on Husbandey and 

 Botany. By Sir John Francis Davis, Bart., K.C.B., 

 F.R.S., Fellow of the Horticultural Society. 



(Presented to the Society with the original work.) 



During the four years passed by me in China, as Governor of 

 Hongkong, I had frequent communications with an accomplished 

 Italian, Monsignor II Conte di Besi, Bishop inpartihus mfidellum. 

 His long residence in the country (I had known him there in 

 ]b34) and his knowledge of the language, joined to the new 

 facilities and immunities afforded by our Treaties, had enabled 

 him to procure valuable Chinese books, among which was a work 

 which he was good enough to present to myself. It relates to 

 the whole system of national husbandry, and treats at the same 

 time largely of botany, being entitled Noong-CMng Tseuen-shoo, 

 literally "D^ Pie Rusticd liber completissimus" In a Chinese 

 sense the title is certainly not misapplied. 



Subsequent leisure has enabled me to examine it with some 

 attention; and as the methodical arrangement of the work, 

 together with the incidental notices, appeared to be sufficiently 

 illustrative of the state of Chinese knowledge on an important 

 subject, it occurred to me that a short analytical summaiy of the 

 whole might be considered within the scope of the objects pursued 

 by the Horticultui'al Society. 



The work is divided into sixty sections, and contained in 

 twenty-four of those brochures which constitute the form of all 

 Chinese books. A covering of handsome green silk distin^juishes 

 this book from ordinary ones, and the printing and paper are of 

 the best description. Some hundreds of coloured woodcuts 

 illustrate the various objects described in the work. 



Sect. I. — III. The three first sections treat of the origin and 

 early history of husbandry, commencing with what is to be found 

 in the classical writers, and then proceeding to cite generally what 

 has been said later on the subject. " Men," it is observed, 

 " lived entirely on flesh until the time of Shin-Noong, ' the divine 

 husbandman,' who taught tbem to stuchj the seasons and cultivate 

 the earth." This plainly refers to the pastoral state as preceding 

 the agricultural, and the first lessons of the Chinese, as of all 

 other early nations, consisted of what Virgil calls 



" Arvorum cultus, et sidei-a ccelL" 



