34 



The World's Commercial Products 



retain water to a depth of a few inches. Frequently in natural hollows, where all the sides have 

 been terraced, the general effect is that of a huge amphitheatre, which, when the crop is standing, 

 appears, at a distance, to have been overgrown with moss. 



Water must be available at the highest level of the rice-field, and is led on to the first 

 terrace, whence in time it trickles over the earth bank on to the second, and so on, so that 

 the whole hillside from top to bottom is converted into a series of very shallow pools separated 

 by low vertical steps. By diverting the stream, the rice-fields can be dried for purposes of 

 harvesting, etc. Those who look upon all natives in the tropics as indolent and without 

 initiative might have reason to modify their opinion somewhat if they saw some of these 

 terraced rice-fields which have required enormous, persistent, and well directed action for their 

 formation, and demand constant care for their maintenance in good condition. 



If it is not possible to flood the rice-fields in a natural way, by admitting the water from 

 a stream, the flooding has to be accomplished by artificial means. A simple way is that 



followed by the Chinaman, whose rice-field 

 is more of a garden than an actual field. 

 With his mate he takes his stand on the 

 little dike separating his plot from the water 

 at a lower level. Together they repeatedly 

 let down a small wooden bucket on one side 

 into the water, draw it up, and empty it on 

 the other side on a mat, placed over the 

 young plants to prevent their being washed 

 away, whence it flows on to the field. If 

 the field is too large to irrigate by hand, he 

 uses a sort of chain-pump, worked either 

 with a treadmill by men or by a buffalo. 

 A similar machine is also used in Siam. 



In the Highlands of Java, where a rapidly 

 flowing stream can be used to flood fields 

 situated above the water-level, the people 

 are very clever in making the stream itself 

 force the water up to the height required. 

 A paddle-wheel is made of bamboo cane 

 and twigs, consisting of an axis, to which 

 two big felloes are fastened by means of 

 spokes. These felloes are mutually connected by pieces of bamboo, open on one side and 

 closed on the other by the partition always found in bamboos at every joint. The bamboo 

 buckets are fixed on the felloes in such a way that on the side of the paddle-wheel going 

 up they are placed with their opening upwards, the natural consequence of which is that 

 on the other side the situation is reversed, that is, the opening is downwards. The 

 stream pushes against the bamboo-buckets and causes the wheel to turn, while the buckets 

 fill themselves. Having passed the highest point, they empty themselves into a simple 

 gutter constructed by the wheels' side, through which the water flows on to the field. 



In China, as already mentioned, rice is held in high esteem. Every year the soil is worked 

 with great pomp and solemnity by the Emperor himself, assisted by a number of princes and 

 high functionaries, before his subjects. To the Temple of Heaven and Earth at Peking 

 belongs a field which is reserved for this ceremony. In the spring the " Son of Heaven " 

 ploughs about four furrows there with a beautifully ornamented plough, drawn by an ox. 

 With other ploughs his courtiers and high officials make a number of furrows, the number 

 increasing as their rank decreases, until finally the work is finished by some forty field 

 labourers, who have been found worthy of this honour. The field is then sown with the 



HOEING RICE IN JAPAN 



