10 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



as the government receives its annual rent, eitlier in specie or 

 in kind, which is about one-tenth part of its produce. Ow- 

 ing to the redundant popuhition very few farmers own more 

 than two or three hundred acres. Some, indeed, own their 

 eight hundred to a thousand acres, but these are exceptional 

 cases. But millions and millions of them own ten or twenty 

 acres. Thus, the Chinese are considered by Europeans more 

 like gardeners than farmers. 



The plains of the middle and southern provinces are made 

 to yield two or three crops in rotation every year ; at the 

 north, only two. But when patches are laid out for raising 

 vegetables, five, six, seven, and even eight crops are realized. 

 The principal staples of production are : rice, tea, silk, cot- 

 ton, hemp (which the Chinese make into grasscloth for 

 dresses, of which there are three species, known by the bo- 

 tanical names of Cannabis saliva, Sidi tiiiafoUa, JSTetica 

 nivea), tobacco, indigo, sugar-cane, camphor, vegetable wax, 

 bamboo, from which all paper is made, sweet and Irish pota- 

 toes, both foreign plants introduced into the countr}^ the lat- 

 ter solely for European use. Our limited time will not permit 

 us to go into details of the various manipulations of tea, silk, 

 cotton and hemp — a species of flax. "VVe all are aware of the 

 great benefit these have conferred upon mankind throughout 

 the w^orld. We are sure that tea and silli can be made to 

 grow upon American soil, especially in the regions of Cali- 

 fornia, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico; but before you can 

 afford to sell tea at ten or twelve cents a pound, it is useless 

 to make an attempt. Tobacco is raised in great quantity, and 

 some of very superior quality. It is smoked in pipes, very 

 little being made into cigars ; chewing is unknown. Kor have 

 the Chinese arrived to that high state of civilization as to use 

 the juice of this weed in daubing the beautiful silk dresses of 

 the fair ladies. 



The sugar-cane is principally raised in the southern prov- 

 inces. Su1)stitute manual labor for steam, the process of mak- 

 ing sugar is the same in both countries, with this exception : 

 the Chinese do not purify it with ox's blood, but press it with 

 mud. It has not that crystalline appearance as the sugar made 

 in this country. Camphor-trees grow in immense forests, and 

 are of great height and dimensions. The process of making 



