10 AGRICULTURAL EXPLORATIONS IN THE ORCHARDS OF CHINA. 



Of insecticides little is known. In some districts the bark of fruit 

 trees is scraped scrupulously clean every winter. The trunks of 

 peach trees are often whitewashed, apparently to kill the insects in 

 the bark. Some fruit growers clean the trunks of their trees every 

 year by applying a bundle of burning straw to them at the approach 

 of spring. Of spraying, however, nothing is known. It is a good 

 thing that there are so many parasites in China winch prey upon 

 scale and other insects; for if it were not for them, fruit growing 

 w T ould be almost impossible. 



A peculiarity of Chinese taste is that the race as a whole does not 

 care for soft fruits. One may even see high-class Chinese ladies 

 selecting hard apricots from a basket containing a mixture of ripe 

 and green ones and relishing the crunching of the hard fruit between 

 their teeth. At dinner parties, fine-looking but extremely hard pears 

 are served and are keenly relished by the most highly cultured 

 Chinese. For this reason one finds that although raspberries, red 

 currants, gooseberries, and various other small fruits grow wild in the 

 mountains, one never sees them cultivated, and the fruit on these 

 wild bushes is only sparingly picked. 



PERSIMMONS. « 



Chinese name, "Shi tze." 



The persimmon (Diospyros Icaki) is one of the most important tree 

 fruits in northern China. Certain valleys are entirely given over to 

 its cultivation, and the revenue derived from the sale of the fruit 

 often forms the main source of income for certain districts. For 

 instance, in the small village of Tai-dja-tchwang, near the large city 

 of Pautingfu, Chihli Province, the writer was assured in January, 1908, 

 that the persimmon crop of the previous autumn had brought in about 

 10,000 Mexican dollars, an amount which, though seemingly insig- 

 nificant to us, is really a very large item in a small village in China. 

 The most favored location for a persimmon orchard is at the foot 

 of a hill or a mountain with a southern or eastern exposure, where 

 the land consists of a warm decomposed granite soil that will allow 

 the water to drain off easily and yet will retain enough to prevent the 

 trees from suffering in case a drought should occur. 



Trees are generally planted from 20 to 30 feet apart, and, as they 

 are not fast growing, peaches and bush cherries are often grown 

 between them for the first dozen years or so. When, however, the 

 persimmons need the space, these secondary plantings are taken out 



a In the opinion of the writer the persimmons of northern China constitute a different 

 group of these fruits from the various forms of Diospyros haki found in Japan, but as 

 D. Jcalci is so exceedingly variable it may be a very difficult matter to assign different 

 varieties to well-defined groups. 

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