INCREASING rut AVAILABI^E SURFACE OF THE FIELD SO THAT DOUBLE THE NUMBER 

 OF PLANTS MAY OCCUPY THE GROUND 



The row of cucumbers on opposite sides of each trellis will cover its surface. This 

 man's garden had an area of but 63 by 68 feet and two square rods of this were held sacred 

 to the family grave mound, and yet his statement of yields, number of crops, and prices made 

 his earning $100 a year on less than one-tenth of an acre. 



The city of Shanghai, as its name sig- 

 nifies, stood originally on the seashore, 

 which has now grown 20 miles to the 

 northward and to the eastward. In 220 

 B. C. the town of Putai, in Shantung 

 (see map of China, supplement), stood 

 one-third of a mile from the sea, but in 

 1730 it was 47 miles inland, and is 48 

 miles from the shore today. 



The dotted line laid in from the coast 

 of the Gulf of Chihli on map No. 3 marks 

 one historic shore line and indicates a 

 general growth of land 18 miles to sea- 

 ward. 



Besides these actual extensions of the 

 shorelines, the centuries of flooding of 

 lakes and low-lying lands has so filled 

 many depressions as to convert large 

 areas of swamp into cultivated fields. 

 Not only this, but the spreading of canal 

 mud broadcast over the encircled fields 

 has had two very important effects, 

 namely, raising the level of the low-lying 

 fields, giving them better drainage and so 

 better physical condition, and adding 

 new plant food in the form of virgin soil 



of the richest type, thus contributing to 

 the maintenance of soil fertility, high 

 maintenance capacity, and permanent 

 agriculture through all the centuries. 



AN ENGINEER-EMPEROR 



These operations of maintenance and 

 improvement had a very early inception ; 

 they appear to have persisted through- 

 out the recorded history of the Empire 

 and are in vogue today. Canals of the 

 type illustrated on maps Nos. i and 2 

 have been built between 1886 and 1901, 

 both on the extensions of Chungming 

 Island and the newly formed mainland 

 to the north, as is shown by comparison 

 of Stieler's atlas, revised in 1886, with 

 the recent German survey. 



Earlier than 2255 B. C, more than 

 4,100 years ago. Emperor Yao appointed 

 "The Great" Yu "superintendent of 

 works," and intrusted him with the work 

 of draining off the waters of disastrous 

 floods and canalizing the rivers, and he 

 devoted 13 years to this work. This 

 great eng-ineer is said to have written 



936 



