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obtained astonish one acquainted simply with what is usually 

 seen on Wisconsin or Illinois farms. The cereal crops, even 

 when raised wholly by themselves, reminded me of those grown 

 on the virgin soils of our interior plains in the early days. 

 Fields of grain of great luxuriance were common, and fields of 

 mustard, a crop much raised in central and western China, 

 often overtopped one with plants 8 or 10 feet high. These 

 results no doubt follow from the long and patient trials of the 

 Chinese under the stimulus of their critical dependence upon the 

 fruitfulness of their crops to feed their vast multitudes. It 

 is their solution of the best relations of plant to man and man 

 to plant. 



To better adjust themselves to the severe demands of a dense 

 population, the Chinese have resorted to a suggestive biological 

 selection ; the choice of the fittest, as they see fitness ; the se- 

 lection of man at the expense of the domestic animals. Plants 

 are obvious necessities, but, especially in the central and south- 

 ern districts, animals other than man are reduced to a minimum 

 rather than multiplied to serve as converters or burden-bearers, 

 as is our practice. Biological evolution in China has thus tend- 

 ed toward a bilateral form, man and plants. The animal inter- 

 mediaries of nature have fallen in some districts almost to a 

 negligible element. Instead of one man and a horse to help 

 him, it is three men. 



But the barriers which had isolated China for thousands of 

 years have been broken down, and the question now arises, 

 what will be the nature of the new adjustment, what form will 

 the new evolution take. We may pertinently ask ourselves, 

 have these barriers been broken down because westerners wish 

 to carry to China the benefits of their best civilization, or be- 

 cause westerners wish to exploit the people, and the resources 

 of China. Or, if motives have been mixed, what is their ratio? 

 Must China now adjust herself to a militant world where force 

 dominates, or need she merely become receptive toward the 

 best that civilization offers? Is it the soldier or science that 

 is to creep in through the gaps in her broken barriers? No 



