Extracts from Travels in China. 



contrivance of irrigation and flooding of all parts of the 

 land, the Chinese husbandman will raise two crops of rice, 

 or one of sugar, in eacli year, he then sufFers the land to 

 rest till the following spring, when the same process is 

 repeated. And thus from generation to generation succes- 

 sive crops are reserved from the same soil, without the least 

 idea of any necessity to let the earth lie fallow or idle for a 

 year. The mulberry trees which are used for the cultiva- 

 tion of the silk worm do not seem to differ from the common 

 mulberry trees of Europe, they are planted in rows ten or 

 twelve feet asunder, in beds of loamy earth, thrown about 

 a foot high above the other surface. 



The insect Silk-worms are nursed in small huts erected 

 for that purpose in the middle of the plantations, in order to 

 be retired from all noise, for the Chinese remark that even 

 the barking of a dog will do some injury to the worms. 

 Some are reared however in the towns by persons who buy 

 the leaves for that purpose, and the eggs are plac ed upon 

 paper until the period of hatching arrives. 



