CiiAP. XIV. 
WINTER CROPS. 
237 
Frequently the sowing takes place before the cotton or 
the dry summer crops have been removed from the 
ground, and the young plants are seen coming up 
amongst these crops, and ready to take their place when 
they are removed. This is done in order to give a 
longer season for the ripening of the different crops, and 
is very generally practised in the northern districts. 
The wheat and barley ripen in Fokien in April, and in 
the neighbourhood of Shanghae about the middle of 
May. About Chinchew and Amoy the wheat-crops are 
so poor that the labourers pull them up by the hand, in 
the same manner as we do in our moorlands in England 
and Scotland. They are of course much better in the 
rich district of Shanghae, but the varieties of both wheat 
and barley are far inferior to ours ; and as the Chinese 
sow them too thickly, they are generally much drawn, 
and the heads and corn small. The beans and peas 
seem to be exactly the same as our field kinds, and are 
certainly indigenous to the northern parts of China. 
Very large quantities of the cabbage tribe are cultivated 
for the sake of the oil which is extracted from their 
seeds. They are planted out in the fields in autumn, 
and their seeds are ripe in April and May, in time to be 
removed from the land before the rice-crops. It must 
not be supposed, however, that the whole of the land is 
regularly cropped in this manner, and that, as some writers 
inform us, it never for a moment lies idle, for such is not 
the case. 
In the island of Chusan, and over all the rice country 
of Chekiang and Keangsoo, there are two plants culti- 
vated in the winter months, almost exclusively for 
