AGRICULTURE 55 



A field of the pink Buckwheat (F. esculentum) in flower is one 

 of the prettiest sights imaginable. It is most commonly grown 

 on terraced mountain-sides. The other species grows twice as 

 tall as the above, and bears greenish-white flowers. The 

 altitudinal limit of buckwheat equals and possibly exceeds 

 that of barley. After the seeds are threshed out they are 

 ground up in water, and the husks are removed by a fine sieve. 

 The flour is then made into dough with a little salt, to which 

 lime is added. This dough is made into vermicelli, when it is 

 ready for cooking and eating. Buckwheat constitutes a most 

 important article of food among the Chinese who live in the 

 mountainous districts, and also with the tribesfolk of the 

 borderland. It is a very accommodating crop, for it thrives on 

 the poorest of soils, requires little attention beyond sowing and 

 harvesting, and matures very quickly. 



Since the Chinese are to such a large extent a vegetarian 

 people, the various members of the pea and bean family are 

 necessarily most important crops. The Common Pea, " Me- 

 wan-tzu " [Pisum sativum), and Broad Bean [Vicia Faba), with 

 the Soy Bean {Glycine hispida), are the most important. The 

 two former are winter crops in the valleys and summer crops in 

 the highlands. The soy bean is everywhere a summer crop. 

 Peas and broad beans are eaten both fresh and dried. They 

 are also ground into flour and made into vermicelli. The young 

 shoots of the pea are eaten as a vegetable. The soy bean, 

 " Huang-tou," is of even greater value than the preceding ; it 

 is planted everywhere — in fields by itself, around rice and other 

 fields, and as an undercrop to maize and sorghum. It yields 

 seeds of three colours, namely, yellow, green, and black. The 

 Chinese distinguish three kinds of the yellow and two kinds 

 each of the green and black. These varieties yield a succession 

 of beans, the black being fully a month later than the others. 

 The " Huang-tou " is cooked and eaten as a vegetable, or ground 

 into flour and made into vermicelli ; preserved in salt it makes 

 an excellent pickle. It is also extensively used in the manu- 

 facture of soy sauce and soy vinegar. A variety with small 

 yellow seeds is largely employed in making bean-curd. While 

 in central and Western China the soy bean is cultivated ex- 

 clusively as a food-stuff, in Manchuria it is grown almost solely 



