THEORIES CONCERNING SOIL FERTILITY 337 



persons being always on the alert with baskets and rakes to avail of the least 

 particle that appears. The Chinese get as much off their land as it is capable 

 of producing, and this is done by the liberal use of manure and application of 

 much more labor in working the soil than in other countries. The reason they 

 do not use dung is that they have comparatively no animals." 



"It is quite impossible for us in Europe to form an adequate conception of 

 the great care which is bestowed in China upon the collection of human excre- 

 ments. In the eyes of the Chinese, these constitute the true sustenance of the 

 soil (so Davis, Fortune, Hedde, and others tell us), and it is principally to this 

 most energetic agent that they ascribe the activity and fertility of the earth." 



"Except the trade in grain, and in articles of food, generally there is none so 

 extensively carried on in China as that in human excrements. Long, clumsy 

 boats, which traverse the street canals, collect these matters every day, and dis- 

 tribute them over the country. Every coolie who has brought his produce to 

 market in the morning carries home at night two pails full of this manure on a 

 bamboo pole. 



I 11 The estimation in which it is held is so great that everybody knows the 

 amount of excrements voided per man in a day, month, or year ; and a Chinese 

 would regard as a gross breach of manners the departure from his house of a 

 guest who neglects to let him have that advantage to which he deems himself 

 justly entitled in return for his hospitality. The value of the excrements of five 

 people is estimated at two Teu per day, which makes 2000 Cash l per annum, 

 or about twenty hectoliters (440 gals.), at a price of seven florins." w 



"Every substance derived from plants and animals is carefully collected by 

 the Chinese and converted into manure. Oil cakes, horn, and bones are 

 highly valued, and so is soot, and especially ash. To give some notion of the 

 value set by them upon animal offal it will be sufficient to mention that the 

 barbers most carefully collect, and sell as an article of trade, the somewhat con- 

 siderable amount of hair of the beards and heads of the hundreds of millions 

 of customers whom they daily shave. The Chinese know the action of gypsum 

 and lime; and it often happens that they renew the plastering of the kitchens 

 for the purpose of making use of the old matter for manure." DAVIS. 



"During the summer months all kinds of vegetable refuse are mixed with 

 turf, straw, peat, weeds, and earth, collected into heaps, and when quite dry, 

 set on fire ; after several days of slow combustion the entire mass is converted 

 into a kind of black earth. This compost is only employed for the manuring of 

 seeds. When seedtime arrives, one man makes holes in the ground; another 

 follows with the seed, which he places in the holes ; and a third adds this black 

 earth. The young seed planted in this manner grows with such extraordinary 

 vigor that it is thereby enabled to push its rootlets through the hard solid soil, 

 and to collect its mineral constituents." FORTUNE. 



"The Chinese farmer sows his wheat, after the grains have been soaked in 



1 The Chinese coin tsien (pronounced chen), called cash by foreigners, is valued 

 at about one tenth of a cent. C. G. H. 



