OBSERVATIONS 



ON THE 



AGRICULTURE, ETC. OF LEW CHEW, 



MADE DURING A STAY ON THAT ISLAND FROM THE 22» JANUARY TO THE 7th OF FEBRUARY, 1854. 



The prospect, as ships near the land in approaching the harbor of Eapha, is beautiful. 

 From the beach to the summit of the long and gently ascending slope, nearly the whole surface 

 seems to be in the highest state of cultivation. The different shades of green presented by the 

 different winter crops ; the uniform, terraced hills ; the occasional patches of large, spreading 

 forest-trees, forming beautiful groves to relieve the uniformity of cultivated fields, and on the 

 distant and even line of the summit of the ridge, the peculiar pines, with their limbless trunks 

 and fiat, broad, spreading tops, under which the deep-blue sky is seen, all conspire to form a 

 most rich and highly cultivated rural landscape. Nor is the visitor disappointed on landing 

 and gaining a nearer view. Every foot of ground appears to be carefully cultivated, unless 

 from situation or barrenness cultivation would be unprofitable. Patches of sweet potatoes meet 

 the eye in every direction, cultivated in broad, flat beds, from 8 to 10 feet across, and seldom 

 more than 30 feet in length, when they are separated from others like them by narrow and 

 dry ditches and corresponding dikes. But few of these beds have entire possession of the soil, 

 for, generally, they have growing in them at the same time a crop of the common kidney-bean, 

 (or house-bean,) planted in rows 2 ' or 2\ feet apart, and from 6 to 12 inches in the drill. 

 This bean crop was in full flower the 1st of February, and would seem to thrive even better 

 than the potato crop, which was at this season ready for harvesting ; and in many places the 

 people were seen digging them with a broad and deep hoe with a very short handle. The vines 

 were not uniformly luxuriant, nor was the yield prolific. A few potato patches had for the 

 double crop green peas instead of beans. These were of a large, coarse variety, and were well 

 adapted to the soil and climate. An occasional patch of potatoes had turnips, or parsnips, or 

 radishes, growing irregularly in places where the potato-vines were not so thick, or missing. 

 These crops were all cultivated with a large chisel, used with one hand, holding the handle in 

 the palm, and forced into the ground by a forward motion of the laborer on his knee, and seated 

 on his heels ; the left hand busy, at the same time, in pulling weeds and grass from about the 

 roots of either crop. A few of the potato beds had been newly planted in slips, which seems to 

 be the usual method, and had as yet no second crop. When potatoes are planted as a winter 

 crop on rice lands, (as they were on the beautifully rich valleys between Napha and Phanyi, and 

 on the bottom-lands near Melville bay, in the northeast part of the island,) they raise high beds, 

 in some places from 2 to 3 feet high ; from these, the vines are much more luxuriant, and, no doubt, 

 the crops are more abundant. When they plant them on the steep and almost perpendicular 

 mountain-sides, as they do south of Phanyi, and up the steep hills around Shah bay, and on the 



