260 ANALYSIS OF A WORK 



sutficiently obvious, without the printed description. They com- 

 prise varieties of ploughs, harrows (square and diagonal), scarifiers, 

 bush-hurdles (some loaded with stones), rollers of different kinds 

 for smoothing or dibbling the ground, hoes, spades, shovels, rakes, 

 breast-ploughs, sickles, bill-hooks, choppers, slicers, bamboo 

 stages for drying corn, instruments for separating the corn from 

 the husk,* mills moved by two mules, baskets, tubs, and vessels 

 of many sorts, and winnowing machines. Of the last I have 

 already remarked in my work on China, " They have a winnowing 

 machine exactly like ours, and there seems to be the best evidence 

 for the fact that we borrowed this useful invention from them. A 

 model was carried from China to Holland, and from Holland the 

 first specimen reached Leith." 



Sect. XXV. — XXX. Six sections are devoted to all those 

 vegetable productions which are the subject of planting or culti- 

 vation. It may be remarked, incidentally, that the importance of 

 eight of these is indicated by their names constituting eight out of 

 the two hundred and fourteen roots\ of which the whole written 

 language of China is compounded, viz.. Rice, Bamboo, Wheat, 

 Millet, Bean, Onion, Hemp, and Cucurbitaceous plants. They 

 were, in fact, the original materials of food, lodging, and clothing, 

 as derived from the earth. 



The two first of the above six sections treat of the principal 

 sorts of Grain and Pulse constituting the materials of food. The 

 third comprises the different species of Cucurbitaceous plants, 

 of which the Chinese possess a great variety and make much use. 

 The fourth is on various culinary vegetables, chiefly of the Onion 

 and Leek tribes. The two last enumerate and describe the 

 principal fruits of China, as the Leechee, the Longan, the Myrica 

 described by Mr. Fortune at Chusan, the Grape (little cultivated 

 in comparison with Europe), the great variety of Oranges, Citrons, 

 &c. &c. I had occasion in another place to notice that the Chinese 

 do not cultivate their fruits with quite the care and skill that 

 they bestow on their flowers ; and the practice of planting their 

 fruit-trees on the banks of streams and canals, though it has been 

 found favourable to the trees, renders the fruit the object of 

 depredation, and causes its being gathered immature. 



Sect. XXXI.— XXXIV. These four sections are devoted to 

 Tsdn Sang — " Silkworms and Mulberry- trees " — that is, the 



* There is do representation of a flail, 

 t These were all classified in a paper printed by the Philological Society. 

 — Proceedings, vol. i., p. 59. 



