1& ADVERTISEMENT 



literature is the richest in the world, possesses many hundred works 

 upon agriculture, which, among us, always comprises the raising of 

 Silk Worms and the cultivation of Mulberry Trees. They have 

 also particular treatises, such as the Tsan-chou, the Tsan-king, 

 (books on siik worms) ; the Nan-fang-tsan-chou, methods used in 

 the south ; the Pe-fang-1san-chou, methods used in the north of 

 China, the l-s&ng-tsong-lun, General Considerations upon the Culti- 

 vation of Mulberry Trees, etc. But among the twelve thousand 

 Chinese volumes which the Royal Library possesses, there are but 

 three works which treat in a manner more or less extensive of the 

 double question which occupies us. The first is a small Encyclo- 

 paedia of the Arts and Trades, in 3 volumes, 8vo., entitled Thien- 

 kong-Jchai-we, of which the second edition has appeared in 1636. 

 Brief proceedings are found there, which competent persons have 

 thought very interesting. I have given them the greater part in 

 the Supplement, (page 187-169.) The second work is found in an 

 agricultural collection of sixty books, entitled Nong-tching-tsiouen- 

 chou. It has been composed by Siu-kouang-ki, who, after having 

 obtained the degree of Doctor, occupied successively the most 

 eminent offices, and became preceptor to the eldest son of the 

 Emperor. We see in his biography,* that in the 35th year of the 

 reign of Chin-tsong (1607), he received lessons from a learned 

 European named Li-ma-tcou, (the celebrated missionary, Matthew 

 Ricci), and that he studied under his direction astronomy, mathe- 

 matics, in their application to the Chinese calendar, and the theory 

 of fire-arms. The Emperor Sse-tsong having heard that Siu-kouang, 

 who had just died, had left a great work on agriculture, entitled 

 Nong-tching-tsiouen-chou, ordered it to be presented to him by the 



* Ming-s?^ (Annals of the Dynasty of the Ming), book CCLI, folio 15, imperial 

 edition, of twenty-four historians of the first order, in 700 volumes, small folio. 

 Peking, 1739. 



