AGRICULTURE 51 



In the cultivation of rice, the patience, ingenuity, and 

 incredible industry of the Chinese are particularly well exempli- 

 fied. The terraced fields, necessary to ensure a flow of water, 

 whether it be on a seemingly flat plain or on a steep hillside, 

 meet the eye of the traveller on all sides. It is little short of 

 marvellous when one reflects on the skilful way in which the 

 entire rice-belt in China is terraced, and the enormous amount 

 of time and labour involved in the undertaking indicate what 

 a hard task-master necessity has been. In matters of irrigation 

 the Chinese are past masters. They have not yet succeeded 

 in making water run uphill, but with their various contrivances 

 they lift it bodily from streams and ditches and convey it long 

 distances to wherever it is needed. The number of devices for 

 irrigation purposes is almost legion, and though simple in prin- 

 ciple and efficacious in results they are intricate in detail. 

 Some are operated by hand, others by the foot, and many are 

 automatically worked by the current of the streams. The 

 large skeleton-like water-wheels depicted in the photographic 

 illustration (p. 52), represent one of the methods commonly 

 in use in central and Western China. 



Rice-cultivation presents many tedious details and the 

 layman will probably find it difficult to realize that in China 

 the whole crop is planted by hand. The grain is sown thickly 

 in nursery-beds, and when the seedlings are 5 or 6 inches tall 

 they are transplanted in small clumps equidistant in the 

 flooded, prepared fields. Men and women take part in this work, 

 and it is surprising how rapidly the fields are planted. The 

 rice plants are made firm in the mud by treading around them 

 immediately they are established. The fields are kept free of 

 weeds and the requisite supply of water is maintained until, 

 as the crop ripens, the fields are finally allowed to get dry. 

 The rice crop is reaped by hand, and without being removed 

 from the field the grain is at once beaten off into wooden bins ; 

 afterwards it is dried and stored. The Chinese cultivate three 

 well-marked varieties of rice — namely, ordinary, red, and glu- 

 tinose. The first two are grown for food only ; the red, being the 

 hardiest, is cultivated at higher altitudes than the other, but 

 is by no means confined thereto. This Red Rice, " Hung-me " 

 (0. sativa, var. prcBcox), gets its name from the reddish colour 



