CHINA 



1342 



CHINA 



does one affected by great bodies of water. 

 In the northern part of China the average 

 temperature for the year is about 51; in the 

 south, about 79, and the annual range is twice 

 as great in the north as in the south. The 

 summer months throughout much of the 

 country are very hot, while in the winter the 

 rivers are frozen through a great part of their 

 courses. 



Most of the rainfall occurs during the sum- 

 mer season, but this is -by no means evenly 

 distributed over the country. In the south, 

 near the coast, it is frequently 100 inches a 

 year, while at Peking, in the north, it rarely 

 reaches twenty-five inches. 



Plants and Animals. As might be expected 

 in a country of so great size, the plant life 

 of China is widely varied. The very name 

 associates itself in the mind with certain plants 

 tea, the opium poppy, the mulberry and 

 rice; and these are widely cultivated and are 

 treated under the heading of Agriculture, below. 

 Of the plants which the Chinaman finds ready 

 to his hand by the gift of nature, by all means 

 the most important is the bamboo, which he 

 could no more do without than the American 

 or Englishman could do without iron and its 

 products. But he uses bamboo in more ways 

 than iron is used he eats the young sprouts, 

 fashions a great deal of his furniture out of 

 the full-grown reeds, builds houses and boats in 

 which to live and makes paper from it. The 

 wax, camphor and varnish trees, and in the 

 south the cocoanut and other palms, are char- 

 acteristic of China, which still has in some of 

 its mountain areas extensive forests. Over 

 large regions, however, the forests have been 

 cut down, and vast, desolate stretches are 

 clothed only with a tough grass. It is not that 

 the Chinese do not appreciate the beauty of 

 trees it is simply that they must use every 

 resource at their command. Perhaps the land 

 is capable of cultivation then assuredly the 

 trees must come down; if not, wood is always 

 good for burning, and the trees must come 

 down, anyway. 



It might be surprising to learn how many of 

 the commonly-known fruits and flowers are 

 Chinese in origin. Not only the various species 

 of the azalea and the rhododendron, but the 

 peach and the orange as well, have been intro- 

 duced elsewhere from China. For centuries the 

 Chinese have had their skilled gardeners, and 

 no Western country has brought about more 

 wonderful developments of flowers than has 

 China, with the chrysanthemum, for instance. 



But it is only the wealthy who can have flower 

 gardens; the poorer classes have no spot of 

 ground, however tiny, which they can spare 

 to grow anything that cannot be eaten. 



In the wild mountain regions there are still 

 to be found tigers, leopards, bears and wolves, 

 while in the southwestern extremity, near 

 Burma, the elephant and the rhinoceros are fre- 

 quently seen. Over much of the country, how- 

 ever, the large game has been driven out, but 

 hares, rabbits, squirrels, rats and mice are 

 everywhere abundant, and the bird family is 

 very numerous. Almost more important than 

 the birds, which include geese, ducks and other 

 species used for food, are the fish, for China 

 is one of the greatest fish countries of the 

 world. Particularly interesting is the use made 

 of cormorants in fishing (see CORMORANT). 



Agriculture. For thousands of years the land 

 of China has been cultivated, and during much 

 of that time has supported a huge population, 

 yet its fertility is not exhausted and China is 

 still primarily an agricultural nation. This 

 tells much about the methods that are em- 

 ployed. Primitive they may be, but they tend 

 to conserve the elements of the soil. A Chinese 

 city has no drainage system, no garbage-dis- 

 posal problem. In the early morning hours, 

 before dawn, the farmers' boats enter the canals 

 of the city and glide here and there, collect- 

 ing the refuse of every sort for fertilizing pur- 

 poses. 



Farming is held in high honor, and in the 

 days of the Empire it was the custom each 

 year for the emperor to open the agricultural 

 season by turning a furrow and sowing some 

 seed. The government really owns the land, 

 and has a right to eject any man from his hold- 

 ing if he does not till it carefully. Most of 

 these holdings are small, comparatively few 

 being over ten acres, but from these little 

 patches excellent returns are received excel- 

 lent, that is, from the viewpoint of the Chinese, 

 who do not demand much beyond the necessi- 

 ties of life. No patch of ground is too small 

 to claim attention. If a man has in his hold- 

 ing a rocky ledge, however small, which is level 

 enough to retain earth, he will carry earth in 

 a basket, cover the ledge and there set out his 

 plants. Travelers in China tell of seeing such 

 carefully-cultivated ledges containing nineteen 

 rice plants, the entire plot so small that it 

 might be covered by a dinner napkin. 



Nor are these their only space economies. 

 Large rafts are built, covered with earth and 

 moored in the river. There the farmer plants 



