Scenes and Notes from Korea 



499 



other sections the woods have 

 been entirely cut away. In 

 these sections, it is claimed, 

 Korea suffers from disastrous 

 floods as terrible in their rav- 

 ages as those in China. Coal 

 mines are being hunted for 

 and opened as rapidly as pos- 

 sible, which will also help 

 preserve the forests. 



It is not generally known 

 that Japanese forests have 

 been managed longer than any 

 of those in Europe. They 

 were controlled before the 

 birth of Christ, and during the 

 early Christian centuries for- 

 est planting on watersheds to 

 prevent floods was enforced 

 by freauent edicts, and the 

 felling of trees was supervised 

 by officers of the provinces. 

 As a result, Japan alone 

 among the nations began mod- 

 ern industrial progress with its 

 forests not only unimpaired 

 but improved after centuries 

 of use. About 59 per cent of 

 its total area is in forests of 

 which the state owns consider- 

 ably more than one half. 



China, on the contrary, has 

 persistently destroyed her for- 

 ests, with the result that its 

 hills have been largely stripped 

 clean of vegetation and the 

 soil is almost completely at 

 the mercy of the floods. In the lower 

 mountains of northeastern China, where 

 the stripping process has reached its ex- 

 treme phase, there is no trace of anything 

 worthy of the name of forest. In the 

 graveyards and courts of the temples a 

 few aged cedars have been preserved by 

 the force of public opinion, and poplars 

 and fruit trees planted about dwellings 

 are protected as private property by the 

 peasant owners. 



In the province of Shantung, where 

 deforestation is practically complete, fuel 

 and fodder for cattle are literally 

 scratched from the hillsides by boys who 

 go out from villages with their iron rakes 



Most of the carrying in Korea is done by men. Often 300 

 and 350 pounds are thus borne. Mr E. D. Follwell, who 

 sent this photograph, writes : "I have seen men, and once a 

 woman, carrying two pigs at a time on the back as they 

 went to market." 



in autumn to secure winter supplies. 

 Grazing animals, searching every ledge 

 and crevice, crop the remaining grass 

 down to the very roots. 



In western China, where forest destruc- 

 tion is not yet complete, enough vegeta- 

 tion covers the mountains to retard the 

 run-off of the rains and return sufficient 

 moisture to lower levels, where it can be 

 reached by the roots of crops. 



Mr Sammons says that the Koreans 

 have been greatly impressed by the 

 American electrical machines, and that 

 they are adopting all kinds of modern 

 electrical appliances, such as fans and 

 motors and electrical fixtures. 



