CHINA 



1343 



CHINA 



his seed in early spring, and as the raft drifts 

 slowly down the river the crops grow and ripen. 

 The picture is an attractive one to a person 

 who has not seen the original, and gives the 

 impression of a lazy, luxurious people who can- 

 not even stay at home to grow their crops. But 

 the truth is far otherwise. The Chinese peas- 

 ant is the hardest-working man in the world, 

 and only dire necessity of finding a place to 

 live and grow the things he needs for food 

 forces him into such expedients. Hundreds of 

 thousands of Chinese live on river boats, and 

 have no other homes (see Commerce and Trans- 

 portation, page 1344). 



One of the most interesting sections is the 

 hill country, for the hillsides are graded into 

 terraces and present the appearance of gardens 

 of variegated green. Much of the beauty is 

 lost, however, with sober reflection on the 



COMPARATIVE AREAS 



China and the United States drawn to the 

 same scale. 



amount of incredible, heart-breaking labor 

 necessary to turn these slopes into tillable 

 fields. Water for irrigation is raised to these 

 higher levels from the streams by a system of 

 water wheels with buckets, the necessary power 

 being furnished by men or by the Asiatic buf- 

 falo. The first water wheel lifts the water to 

 a canal on the first level, the second to the next 

 level, and so on till the highest point has been 

 reached, and every drop of water is made to 

 do its full work in its descent. Wonderful 

 indeed is the system of canals which this in- 

 dustrious people have constructed to maintain 

 the fertility of their fields and to control the 

 waters of the raging rivers so that they may 

 not do too great damage. A careful student of 

 Oriental countries declares: 



Forty canals across the United States from 

 east to west and sixty from north to south 



would not equal in number of miles those in 

 China, Korea and Japan. Indeed, it is probable 

 that this estimate is not too large for China 

 alone. 



Of course these canals are not all for irriga- 

 tion or water control ; some, notably the Grand 

 Canal, from Hang-chow to Tien-tsin, are pri- 

 marily ship canals, but many serve all pur- 

 poses. 



Chief Crops. China is especially fortunate 

 in the fact that the warm season and the rainy 

 season fall together, for that fact makes pos- 

 sible the raising of sub-tropical crops which 

 could not otherwise be grown in that latitude. 

 First and foremost of the crops is rice, the 

 staple food of the people, which is grown 

 chiefly in the middle and southeastern sec- 

 tions. The vast rice fields of this region, with 

 their vivid green and the standing water be- 

 tween the rows, are extremely picturesque. 

 Tea, which is also grown chiefly in the south; 

 the mulberry, cultivated as food for the silk- 

 worm; cotton, tobacco, sugar cane, indigo and 

 vegetables are other crops of importance, while 

 wheat, corn and oats are produced in consid- 

 erable quantities. Formerly one of the widely- 

 cultivated plants was the poppy, which yields 

 the opium that has been China's chief curse. 

 In 1906, however, when the government had 

 been brought to realize the harm opium was 

 doing the people, provision was made for 

 gradually reducing the amount of land under 

 poppies, and to-day the cultivation of these 

 beautiful but pernicious flowers has almost 

 ceased. 



Of one phase of agriculture China knows 

 nothing, and that is stock-raising. Pigs and 

 chickens may be seen, for they can subsist on 

 refuse and live in the dooryard of the little 

 thatched mud hut which shelters the family. 

 But cows, sheep and horses must have grazing 

 land, and land is too valuable to be used for 

 such purposes. There are no grassy commons 

 on which the cows of the villagers may be 

 tethered ; no roadside stretches where they may 

 crop the weeds, for every spot is under culti- 

 vation. The effects of this lack of animals are 

 many. Not only do the people have little 

 meat to eat, but they know nothing of milk 

 or of butter. And even more serious is the 

 absence of draft animals, for it means that 

 men must pull the carriages and bear the heavy 

 burdens, thereby injuring their health and 

 shortening their lives. A Chinese coolie can 

 do draft work more swiftly and more easily 

 than could an American or a European, but 



