232 
WANDERINGS IN CHINA. 
Chap. XIV. 
The terrace cultivation of China has been noticed by 
nearly all writers upon this country, and, like most other 
subjects, it has been either much exaggerated or under- 
valued. It appeared to me to be carried to the greatest 
perfection on the hill-sides adjacent to the river Min, 
near Foo-chow-foo ; at least I was more struck with 
it there than anywhere else. On sailing up that beau- 
tiful river, these terraces look like steps on the sides 
of the mountains, one rising above another, until they 
sometimes reach six or eight hundred feet above 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 pre- 
vent 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 hori- 
zontally ; 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 
