Chap. VII. 
THE SOIL AND ITS PRODUCTIONS. 
101 
cabbages, turnips, yams, carrots, egg-plants, cucumbers, 
and other articles of that kind which are grown in the 
vicinity of the city. The land, although level, is generally 
much higher than the valleys amongst the hills, or the 
plain round Ning-po ; and, consequently, it is well 
adapted for the cultivation of cotton, which is, in fact, 
the staple production of the district. Indeed this is the 
great Nanking cotton country, from which large quantities 
of that article are generally sent in junks to the north 
and south of China, as well as to the neighbouring 
islands. Both the white kind, and that called the 
" yellow cotton," from which the yellow Nanking cloth 
is made, are produced in the district. 
The soil of this district is not only remarkably fertile, 
but agriculture seems more advanced, and bears a 
greater resemblance to what it is at home, than in any 
part of China which I have seen. One here meets with 
a farmyard containing stacks regularly built up and 
thatched in the same form and manner as we find them 
in England ; the land, too, is ridged and furrowed in the 
same way ; and were it not for plantations of bamboo, 
and the long tails and general costume of the natives, a 
man might almost imagine himself on the banks of the 
Thames. 
A very considerable portion of the land in the vicinity 
of the town is occupied by the tombs of the dead.* In 
all directions large conical-shaped mounds meet the eye, 
overgrown with long grass, and in some instances planted j 
with shrubs and flowers. The traveller here, as well '/ 
* It is stated in Davis's ' Chinese,' that the dead are all buried 
on the sides of the barren hills. 
