lOO 



The Journal of Heredity 



A CHINESE FARM 



China is better known for iier urban arts, many of which are parasitic in character, than she is 

 for her agriculture. We do not often consider how her teeming cities and crowded market 

 places are supplied with food. There are no large tracts of land cultivated as a unit, as is 

 done under our extensive methods. Each farm is worked by the farmer and his family, who 

 themselves do most of the work, as there are very few draft animals. This picture was taken 

 from the wall of Nanking, looking toward the city. (Fig. 1) 



Nevertheless all human minds need 

 constant reminding, so a consideration 

 of the "philosophical people" may here 

 be made. For forty centuries the 

 Chinese have been followers of their 

 philosophy of peace and industry; they 

 are always practising and preaching 

 peaceful justice — a noble idea which 

 was gradually recognized by the lead- 

 ing thinkers of the world. Their filial 

 piety, friend.ship, loyalty, and amiable 

 character are perhaps unsurpassed. 

 But most foreigners are familar only 

 with the Chinese merchants abroad, 

 and consequently they draw misleading 

 observations and conslusions. The 

 writer does not mean to state that such 

 merchants do not represent the Chi- 



nese, but he only wants to make it clear 

 that they represent only one class of 

 Chinese. Students of biology and 

 sociology agree that city life is detri- 

 mental to human physique and moral- 

 ity, so there is no wonder that even the 

 Chinese gamble or fight "tong wars." 

 It must be remembered that most of 

 them are deprived of home life, and have 

 al)solutely no such pleasure and re- 

 freshment under the category of "social 

 life." Yet the Chinese merchants in 

 the Philippines, Hawaiian Islands, the 

 United States, or elsewhere on the 

 globe, morally are second to none. It 

 seems to the writer that the reason why 

 the Chinese are often hated, despised 

 and ridiculed by those who are not well 



