350 THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



food serves a double purpose, Not only is the productiveness of the 

 soil preserved, but a degree of cleanliness is maintained that makes- 

 life possible. With the utter ignorance arid indifference of the Chinese 

 to cleanliness for the sake of comfort and health, if it were not profit- 

 able for them to clean up their houses and streets they wonld become 

 so filthy that pestilence would sweep the population off the earth. In 

 proportion to the density of the population the value of all fertilizer 

 increases, so- that the very crowding of the people tends to improve 

 their cleanliness. The city of Hingbua is said by all visitors to be an 

 unusually clean one. It is not because the Hinghua people are nat- 

 urally haters of dirt, but the population is unusually dense even 

 for China, and it pays the people to clean up the streets and 

 houses and carry the dirt off to their fields. The farmers are even 

 willing to pay for the privilege by buying all the refuse of the city at 

 a good price. 



One would think that this scrupulous care in using everything 

 would make it unnecessary and even unprofitable to import any fer- 

 tilizer; but into this one small territory of Hinghua, seventy-five miles 

 long by forty wide, is annually imported from the Shantung province, 

 a thousand miles north, not less than one thousand two hundred tons 

 of bean-pulp, which sells at from fifty to sixty dollars (Mexican) a ton. 



This bean- pulp is simply beans from which the oil has been 

 pressed out. It is imported in round, flat cakes of about the size and 

 shape of an American farmer's grindstone. It is pulverized and dis- 

 solved in water by soaking for a fortnight, and then mixed with more 

 water and put onto the fields. This bean-pulp is absolutely necessary, 

 it is claimed, to raising sugar-cane. In planting, each joint is dipped 

 into the pulverized bean-pulp. 



Peanut-pulp is also used very extensively. Peanut oil is used by 

 the Chinese as Americans use lard. The oil is pressed out, and the 

 pulp in disks one foot across by itn inch or two thick is used for much 

 the same purposes as the bean, but it is less effective and is mostly a 

 local product. 



The expense of all this, it is plain to all, must be very great. The 

 Chinese farmer can tell you exactly what will be the difference in his 

 crop from using a certain fertilizer, and how much is necessary to 

 bring the best results. 



He calculates upon spending for this purpose alone at the rate of 

 $12 (Mexican) a crop an acre, or ordinarily $3(? a year for his three 

 crops. But the figures do not tell it all. Where ten cents a day is 

 considered fair wages, this $36 represents the wages of one farm 

 laborer for a year; or counting one crop a year, it would represent to 

 the American farmer, for fertilizing three acres, a sum equal to the 

 wages of his "farm-hand" for twelve months. That is far more than 

 the land produces. 



Nevertheless, farming is the chief and favorite occupation of the 

 Chinese; it is the most certain of profits, though the margin is narrow, 

 and in it their best qualities of industry, skill and economy are dis- 

 played. 



