302 TERRACE CULTIVATION. [Cuar. XVL 
the level of the sea. When the rice and other 
crops are young, these terraces are clothed in 
luxuriant green, and look like a collection of gardens 
among the rugged and barren mountains. The 
terrace system is adopted by the Chinese, either for 
the purpose of supplying the hill sides with water 
where paddy is to be grown, or to prevent the 
heavy rains from washing down the loose soil from 
the roots of other vegetables. Hence these cuttings 
are seen all over the sides of the hills, not exactly 
level like the rice terraces, but level enough to 
answer the purpose of checking the rains in their 
descent down the mountain. For the same reason, 
the sweet potato and some other crops which are 
grown on the hills are always planted in ridges 
which run cross-ways or horizontally; indeed, 
were the ridges made in a different direction, the 
heavy rains which fall in the early summer months 
would carry both the loose soil and crops down 
into the plains. 
Rice is grown on the lower terrace ground, and 
a stream of water is always led from some ravine 
and made to flow across the sides of the hills, until 
it reaches the highest terrace, into which it flows 
and floods the whole of the level space. When the 
water rises three or four inches in height, which is 
sufficiently high for the rice, it finds vent at an 
opening made for the purpose in the bank, through 
which it flows into the terrace below, which it 
floods in the same manner, and so on to the lowest. 
In this way the whole of the rice terraces are kept 
continually flooded, until the stalks of the crops 
