538 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



from the objective point of view, yet 

 remember that the oriental may live in 

 a subjective civilization. 



My first impression was of waste 

 land, and this impression grew con- 

 stantly in spite of all the dissuasion of 

 friends. The smaller the divisions of 

 land, the greater is the wastage of the 

 partitions. In the best-tilled parts of 

 the coastal plain, possibly ten per cent 

 of the land sometimes is wasted by mere 

 embankments and division lines. Much 

 of the land also is taken by the grave 

 mounds, and the unoccupied land near 

 may be left in such small and irregular 

 areas as to be utilized with dilliculty. 

 In the interior are vast shaven hills 

 and mountains, swamps and flats due 

 to uncontrolled streams and lakes, semi- 

 deserts under no kind of effective con- 

 trol. One is impressed with the barren- 

 ness of the country, although the fields 

 themselves when cropped may yield 

 well or may not. One is impressed 

 everywhere with the merciless skinning 

 of the land to get every last fragment 

 of fiber and root for fuel. He has never 

 seen such sacrilege of the earth. 



Much has been said about the use 

 and conservation of resources in China, 

 whereby the last fragment is saved ; 

 but this is in the nature of private 

 scavenging and is not public conserva- 

 tion of natural resources. In fact, it is 

 quite the opposite, for it looks only to 

 the present need and does not consider 

 the future. It is more likely to be a 

 vast practice of waste, looked at in the 

 national and social sense, however well 

 it may meet the penury of the present. 

 It has no large result in it, no state 

 policy, no bountiful provision for the 

 future. It is true that definite public 

 plans of conservation are now ^^nder 

 way, as in forestry, and in some places 

 they are beginning to work out excel- 

 lent results ; but these are modern and 

 recent adaptations or movements and 

 not the result of the historical experi- 

 ence of China. 



The first dutv of asrrieulture is to 



l)roduce supplies, and to maintain the 

 fertility of the earth while producing 

 them; and yet the measure of agricul- 

 ture is not the yield, nor is it the main- 

 tenance of the greatest number of 

 people on a given area of the earth's 

 surface. Nevertheless, it is just this 

 assumption on the part of both agricul- 

 tural publicists and economists^that 

 the test of agricultural excellence is 

 that it sustain the greatest possible 

 number of people — which is the under- 

 lying fallacy in present discussions. 

 The greatest yield of agriculture is the 

 human result, not the maintenance of 

 given numl)ers. 



King writes that he was "amazed at 

 the amount of efficient human labor 

 cheerfully given for a daily wage of 

 live cents and food, or fifteen cents 

 I'nited States currency, without food." 

 You well know the slaving labor that is 

 required, the long hours of mere grind- 

 ing physical toil, the slender margin of 

 profit, the skin-and-bone existence for 

 the mass of the folk on the land, when 

 ])eople by millions give themselves for 

 five cents a day and food. It does not 

 matter what may have been the classi- 

 fication of the ranks of society by Con- 

 fucius, placing the farmer only second 

 in the scale of four, unless such classi- 

 fication works itself out in practice 

 with those who actually handle the 

 land. On a basis of five cents a day 

 and food, there can be no satisfactory 

 agriculture. 



We are not to overlook or to deny, of 

 course, the many highly developed 

 manual agricultural practices of the 

 Chinese and their neighbors. The Oc- 

 cident undoubtedly has much to learn 

 from these patient toilers who for tens 

 of centuries have produced supplies for 

 such crowding millions and have still 

 maintained the producing power of the 

 earth. Their patience, persistence, and 

 elimination of all frills and unessen- 

 tials, the heavy yields in many places, 

 the painstaking care to the smallest de- 

 tail, all inspire one's admiration ; it is 



