Cuar. XVI.] CHINESE AGRICULTURE. 291 
proceeds to a field, and with his own hands holds 
the plough, and throws a portion of the rice seed 
into the ground; thus showing the importance 
which government attaches to industry in the culti- 
vation of the earth, that there may be plenty on the 
land to supply the wants of the teeming population. 
The progress and advancement of the Chinese in 
agriculture as an art has been, however, greatly 
exaggerated by many who have adverted to this 
subject in their writings. The Chinese government 
has been always so jealous of foreigners entering 
the country, that those who were probably able to 
form a correct opinion on the subject were pre- 
vented from doing so, and were led away by the 
fertility of their imaginations; while, on the other 
hand, the Roman Catholic missionaries who tra- 
velled and resided in the interior, were evidently 
ignorant of the art itself, as well as of the progress 
it had made in other countries. But it must also 
be borne in mind, that whilst agriculture has been 
advancing rapidly towards perfection amongst the 
nations of the western world, the Chinese in this, 
as with most other things, have remained sta- 
tionary, and hence there must be a much greater 
disparity between us and them now than there was 
when the early writers upon China published their 
works. To these writers, and more particularly 
to those who kept on faithfully copying their works, 
we must attribute the erroneous opinions which 
have been generally held by us in every thing re- 
lating to the agriculture of the Chinese. I have no 
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