228 
WANDERINGS IN CHINA. 
Chap. XIV. 
until it forms a puddle and its surface becomes smooth 
and soft. In this condition it is ready to receive the 
young rice-plants. 
Previously to the preparation of the fields the rice- 
seed is sown thickly in small patches of highly-manured 
gTound, and the young plants in these seed-beds are 
ready for transplanting when the fields are in a fit state 
to receive them. Sometimes the Chinese steep the 
seeds in liquid manure before they sow them ; but 
although this practice is common in the south, it is 
not general throughout the empire. 
The seedling-plants are carefully dug up from the bed 
and removed to the fields. These fields are now smooth, 
and overflowed with water to the depth of three inches. 
The plants are put in, in patches, each containing about 
a dozen plants, and in rows from ten to twelve inches 
apart each way. The operation of planting is performed 
with astonishing 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 comers 
