298 NUMBER OF CROPS. [Cnar. XVL 
in rows from ten to twelve inches apart each way. 
The operation of planting is performed with as- 
tonishing rapidity. A labourer takes a quantity of 
plants under his left arm, and drops them in 
bundles over the land about to be planted, as he 
knows, almost to a plant, what number will be 
required. These little bundles are then taken up, 
and the proper number of plants selected and 
plunged by the hand into the muddy soil. The 
water, when the hand is drawn up, immediately 
rushes into the hole, and carries with it a portion 
of soil to cover the roots, and the seedlings are 
thus planted and covered in without further 
trouble. 
In the south the first crop is fit to cut by the 
end of June or the beginning of July. Before it 
is quite ripe, another crop of seedlings is raised 
on the beds or corners of the fields, and is ready 
for transplanting as soon as the ground has been 
ploughed up and prepared for their reception. 
This second crop is ready for cutting in November. 
In the latitude of Ning-po, 30° north, the 
summers are too short to have the land cropped in 
the same way in which it is done in the south. The 
farmers here manage to have two crops of paddy in 
the summer by planting the second crop two or three 
weeks after the first, in alternate rows. The first 
planting takes place about the middle of May, and 
the crop is reaped in the beginning of August, at 
which time the alternate rows are only about a foot 
in height, and are still quite green. After the 
early crop is removed, the ground is stirred up 
