thre;e;-man Chinese foot-power and wooden chain pump, extensiveey used 



FOR irrigation IN VARIOUS PARTS OE CHINA 



The mechanical appliances in use on the canals and in the shops of Canton demonstrate 

 that the Chinese possess constructive ability of a high order, notwithstanding so many of 

 these are of the simplest forms. This picture shows a simple yet efficient pump (on page 

 944). A father and his two sons are driving an irrigation pump, lifting water at the rate 

 of seven and a half acre-inches per ten hours, and at a cost, including wage and food, of 

 2,6 to 45 cents, gold. Here, too, were large stern-wheel passenger boats, capable of carrying 

 thirty to one hundred people, propelled by the same foot-power, but laid crosswise of the 

 stern, the men working in long single or double lines, depending on the size of the boat. 

 On these the fare was one cent, gold, for a fifteen mile journey, a rate one-thirtieth our 

 two-cent railway tariff. The dredging and clearing of the canals and water channels in and 

 about Canton is likewise accomplished with the same foot-power, often by families living 

 on the dredge boats. 



eral coal, had been a physical impossi- 

 bility to all people alike until within very 

 recent years. With this fact must be 

 associated the very long unbroken life of 

 these nations and the vast numbers their 

 farmers have been compelled to feed. 



When we reflect upon the depleted fer- 

 tility of our own older farm lands, com- 

 paratively few of which have seen a cen- 

 tury's service, and upon the enormous 

 quantity of mineral fertilizers which are 

 being applied annually to them in order 

 to secure paying yields, it becomes evi- 

 dent that the time is here when profound 



consideration should be given to the prac- 

 tices the Mongolian race has maintained 

 through many centuries, which permit it 

 to be said of China that one-sixth of an 

 acre of good land is ample for the main- 

 tenance of one person, and which are 

 feeding an average of three people per 

 acre of farm land in the three southern- 

 most of the four main islands of Japan. 

 Dr. Kawaguchi, of the National De- 

 partment of Agriculture and Commerce, 

 taking his data from their records, in- 

 formed us that the human manure saved 

 and applied to the fields of Japan in 1908 



945 



