Cuar. IL] AGRICULTURE AND SOIL OF CHINA. 7 
In the knowledge and practice of agriculture, 
although the Chinese may be in advance of other 
Eastern nations, they are not for a moment to be 
compared with the civilised nations of the West. 
Perhaps more nonsense has been written upon 
this subject than upon any other connected with 
China; and we can only account for it by supposing 
the writers to have been entirely unacquainted with 
the subject, and led away by the fancies and pre- 
judices above alluded to. How ridiculous, for 
example, for them to speak in such glowing terms 
of the fertility of the land, when we bear in mind 
that they judged from what they saw at Canton 
and Macao! Had they seen the glorious scenery 
amongst the mountains at Tein-tung near Ning-po, 
or the rich plain of Shanghae, then indeed they 
might have written in the most glowing terms of 
the fertility of Chinese soil; but what terms could 
they have found to describe it, after giving the 
barren soil of the south such a character ? 
Although it is not my intention to devote any 
part of these pages to the history and government 
of the Chinese, I must still notice, in passing, what 
has been so often said about the perfection of their 
government and laws. And here, too, I must differ 
from those who have such high notions of the 
Chinese in these respects. I think no country can 
be well governed where the government is power- 
less, and has not the means of punishing those who 
break the laws. China is very weak in this respect, 
compared with European nations, and the only thing 
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