THE WONDERFUL CANALS OF CHINA 



By U. S. Consul George E. Anderson, Hangchau, China 



THERE are several features in 

 the canal system of China, 

 especially of the Imperial or 

 Grand Canal, which can be studied with 

 profit by the people of the United States. 

 One of these is the use of the canal for 

 the production of food in addition to 

 its uses as a means of transportation. 

 Allied to this is the use of the muck 

 which gathers at the bottom of the 

 waterway for fertilization. Another is 

 the use of every particle of plant life 

 growing in and around the canal for 

 various purposes. 



The Chinese secure a vast quantity 

 of food of one sort or another from 

 their canals. To appreciate the exact 

 situation with respect to the waterways, 

 it must be realized that the canals of 

 China cover the plain country with a 

 network of water. Leading from the 

 Grand Canal in each direction are 

 smaller canals, and from these lead still 

 smaller canals, until there is hardly a 

 single tract of 40 acres which is not 

 reached by some sort of a ditch, gen- 

 erally capable of carrying good-sized 

 boats. The first reason for this great 

 network is the needs of rice cultivation. 

 During practically all of the growing 

 season for rice the fields are flooded. 

 Wherever a natural waterway can be 

 made to irrigate the rice fields it is used, 

 but, of course, from these to the canals 

 or larger rivers there must be water- 

 ways. Where natural streams cannot 

 thus be adapted the Chinese lead water 

 in canals or ditches to the edge of their 

 fields and raise it to the fields of rice by 

 the foot-power carriers which have been 

 described so often by tourist writers. 

 However the water is supplied to the 

 rice, it is evident that there must be a 

 waterway leading to the field and back 

 to a principal stream, which is gen- 



erally a branch canal. These water- 

 ways naturally take up a considerable 

 portion of the land, and the Chinese 

 make as profitable use of them as of the 

 land itself. 



The first use of the waterways is for 

 fishing. The quantity of fish taken 

 from the canals of China annually is 

 immense. The Chinese have no artifi- 

 cial fish hatcheries, but the supply of 

 fish is maintained at a high point by 

 the fact that the flooded rice fields act 

 as hatcheries and as hiding places for 

 the young fish until they are large 

 enough to look out for themselves. In 

 the United States this fish propagation 

 annex to the canals is probably neither 

 possible nor needful in view of the work 

 done by the state and national bureaus ; 

 but in China it is nothing less than 

 providential. 



Along the canals in China at any time 

 may be found boatmen gathering muck 

 from the bottom of the canal. This 

 muck is taken in much the same man- 

 ner that oysters are taken by hand on 

 the Atlantic coast In place of tongs 

 are large, bag-like devices on crossed 

 bamboo poles, which take in a large 

 quantity of the ooze at once. This is 

 emptied into the boat, and the process 

 is repeated until the boatman has a 

 load, when he will proceed to some 

 neighboring farm and empty the muck, 

 either directly on his fields — especially 

 around the mulberry trees, which are 

 raised for the silk-worms — or in a pool, 

 where it is taken later to the fields. 

 From this muck the Chinese farmer 

 will generally secure enough shellfish 

 to pay him for his work, and the fer- 

 tilizer is clear gain. The fertilizer thus 

 secured is valuable. It is rich in nitro- 

 gen and potash and has abundant hu- 

 mus elements. This dredging of the 



