THE DIVERSIFIED FARM. 



ft In diversified farming by irrigation lies the salvation of agriculture. 



THE AGE wants to brighten the pages of its Diversified Farm department and with 

 this object in view it requests its readers everywhere to send in photographs and 

 pictures of fields, orchards and farm homes: prize-taking horses, cattle, sheep or hogs. 

 Also sketches or plans of convenient and commodious barns, hen houses, corn cribs, 

 etc. Sketches of labor-saving devices, such as ditch cleaners and watering troughs. 

 A good illustration of a windmill irrigation plant is always interesting. Will you help 

 us improve the appearance of THE AGE? 



CHINESE AGRICULTURE. 

 Under the above title Wm. X. Brewster 

 gives a very interesting account of the 

 way things are managed by Chinese 

 farmers Mr. Brewster has charge of the 

 Methodist mission work in the district of 

 Hinghua. China, and from his labors in 

 this line has had abundant opportunity to 

 become intimately acquainted with the 

 every day life and work of the Chinese. 

 In the article which appeared the Farm 

 and Fireside, Mr. Brewster said as an 

 introduction that ; 'in order for the Amer- 

 ican farmer to understand how the 

 Chinese cultivate the soil it is necessary 

 first to understand something of the con- 

 ditions of life here in southern China. In 

 the first place, the population is so dense 

 that land is very expensive. Fertile 

 fields, with plenty of water, near a good 

 market, and where the owners can watch 

 them against thieves, are worth to the 

 owners prices that seem like the ficti- 

 tious values of corner lots in a booming 

 western town in America. 5 ' 



Continuing he says: "As I write I am 

 passing by fields that will bring $600 

 (Mexicans) an acre. The owners of these 

 fields have them worked for ten cents a 

 day. or about $3.00 a month. That is. an 

 acre of ground represents the wages of an 

 ordinary day-laborer for two hundred 

 months, or nearly seventeen years. Of 

 course, all land is not worth so much as 



that ; much of it will bring not more than 

 half that, or even less ; but good rice-land, 

 well located, is commonly valued at that 

 figure, or even more. A laborer or the 

 farm in America wants at least $1.00 a 

 day. Very little farm land without im- 

 provements is worth $100 an acre. The 

 laborer can earn an acre in three months 

 as easily as the Chinese coolie could earn 

 it in seven times that time. 



It goes without saying that where land 

 is so valuable it must be made the most 

 of by the cultivators. There are no un- 

 sightly rail fences meandering about over 

 the face of the earth, taking up as much 

 space as a turnpike ought to. In fact, 

 there are no fences at all. There are 

 high earth and brick walls around houses, 

 and sometimes orchards are thus closed 

 in, but never fields. They have no 

 barbed wire for fences, and a wall would 

 not only occupy space, but would shade 

 the ground, besides costing a large sum 

 to build it and keep it in repair. How do 

 they keep the cattle out of the grain? 

 This is simple enough. They keep them 

 in the house, not the stable. I have 

 never seen a stable in China. No cattle 

 would stay there long, if locked up in 

 a building by themselves ; thieves are too 

 abundant. When a cow or ox wants to 

 graze, it is led out by one of the family, 

 and led back again after nipping tufts of 

 grass on the canal bank or the roadside 



