June 2, 1902.] THE THOPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
801 
canton, Swatow, and other Chinese ports, and the 
whole production is praotioally consumed internally, 
the small export to Europe being of no account. 
The fibre fuldU all the purposes in China that 
flax does in England. Clothes for summer wear, shoe, 
thread, fishing nets, bow strings, twine, rope, and sail 
cordage, etc., etc. 
Investigations into, and practical experience of the 
Chinese methods of cultivation, revealed much that 
was useful and instructive, and practically, the writer 
thinks, exf/laina the whole position, and not favouribly 
possibly to the introduction of the industry in India or 
the Colonies, under European supervision in large 
blocks, i.e., on the estate system. 
The fibre is undoubtedly indigenous in China, 
growing as a weed along the roadsides, and in the 
crevices of the City Walls, therefore, even the delicate 
seed mast find a congenial home and survive the 
winter, which la sometimea as severe as in England, bnt 
of course the commercial yield is from cultivation solely. 
Now in India, it is difficult to produce from seed with 
the greatest care, and where the plant has been import- 
ed into a new district, the seed absolutely will not 
germinate, presumably from the absence of a fertilizing 
ageniy. 
The experience of cultivation in India, was that 
taking freshly felled forest land with rich alluvial soil, 
the plant gave luxuriant crops of great height for 
about 1.^ months, gradually declining, and the ground 
was then so completely exhausted, that weeds would 
hardly grow. 
The plant of course is purely a surface feeder. In 
a short time the roots meet, and become a solid blocft, 
and although of course all experiments in digging, 
root pruning, and turning up the soil were exhausted, 
and are practised, the plant being a permanent one 
and not an annual, it is not really possible to 
give the plant freeh turned soil in an efficient way 
after each crop, without taking the whole plantation 
up, which, of course would involve interruption to 
growth, for the best commercial crops are not really 
gained until the second year. The writer believes the 
experience of other planters has been the same, not 
only in India, but other places, and such manuring as 
ia within the average range of an Indian planter, 
say once a year even, including replacing stems and 
leaves, did not put the laud into condition again or 
produce any commercial results, even such manu- 
ring as that would probably be impossible in large 
blocks. 
How then do the Chinese continue to produce anc- 
cessive commercial crops ? In China every particle of 
human excrement inclusive of the cities ia conserved 
and put on the laud, and there is little doubt that if we 
ever interfered with their system, by our sanitary re- 
gulations, we should probably ruin the country. The 
liquid manure collected in tanks, after u suificient time 
to a low fermentation is broucfht down to the river 
and shipped in junks by contractors who supply the far- 
mers; the solids are deposited on the river banks, 
turned over, mixed, tempered, fermented and then 
aimilaily dealt with. It is all applied to the land in the 
liquid form and the Chinese will not use animal manure 
in preference, or on the same level, on the ground 
of want of strength. 
The China Grass receives two applications of the 
strongest liquid manure each crop, starting from the 
time of planting, first immediately after cutting crop, 
and the second in ten days, and a plantation is calcu- 
lated to last about ten years, the roots being cut from 
time to time. Even with all these advantages, while 
the results are successful and commercial, there are no 
points to give away as regards the value and length of 
the crop. 
This it appears is how the exhfljustion of the land is 
got over, ani successive crops maintained, and it would 
appear, therefore, to be idle for anyone to embark in 
any cultivation schemes, except they can find at least 
equally favourable conditions as the Chinese possess, 
i.e., they must be prepared to manure richly twice in 
each crop. This condition does not appear likely to 
fall in with large blocks under Earopoan ownership and 
supervision, although reference may be made to the 
possibility of artificial fertilizers, the result would be ex- 
ceedingly dubious, if only on account of their slow 
assimi'ation, in a necessarily quick growing crop and 
of finding the right one, combining all the necessary 
elements in a form that can be at once drawn upon by 
the plant. 
The statistics and estimates of j ields, etc., which 
often occupy so important a place in prospectuses 
seem to be really of very little importance. The land 
responds exactly in proportion to the generosity of 
treatment it receives, yield is heavy or light in pro- 
portion. There is no difficulty in getting a remnner- 
ative yield, given the necessary conditions. How- 
ever rich any available site of virgin forest soil may 
be to start with that practically only governs the 
situation for the first period of 15 monthsi. when in 
any case manuring must begin on the Chinese 
system, and the real question is always the average 
yield over, say 10 years. Sites therefore are not of 
premier importance. 
The only point of importance or improvement the 
writer could see that could be added to Chinese 
methods, is that they do not trouble to irrigate. Thus 
on a dry season, 'they often lose the best growing time, 
viz., the hot weather, and a short length crop follows. 
This is well known on the market. 
There are, however, some "other very important 
details to be learned from the Chinese. The writer 
has seen in European hands, the crop laboriously 
gathered by cutting each stem with a knife, with 
much injury to the young shoots that are to form 
the next crop. The bulky result containing only 3 
to 5 per cent. Fibre is then bundled and carried off 
the field to the factory, decorticated by machine or 
hand, and the refuse, stems, etc.. actually carried 
back and spread over the land. 
The Chinaman knows better, and does not cut the 
crop at all. He simply snips the stem near the root 
whereupon the fibre opens of itself at the break into 
two ribbons, inserts his fingers, runs them up, and 
with a slight pull decortication and cutting are done 
atone operation, actually taking less time, than mere 
cutting would de, and leaving each stem and ita 
leaves on the ground in their own place. Thus the 
whole cumbrous foreign method and its immense cost 
and extra labour ia disposed of at one stroke. 
It is evident therefore that decorticating machines 
have no place, and are absolutely superfluous, because 
the stems would have to be cut, if they were used, 
and this, together with the handling the bulky crops 
of stems on and off the field that has been the bug- 
bear of all European devised scheme, are difficulties 
that really never existed if an investigation of exist- 
ing method in China had been made. 
The operation above mentioned of course givaa 
ribbons with the brown pellicle on, and where these 
have to be cleaned, which with modern degumming 
processeas is not at all always essential, the Chinese 
method has been again grossly exauggerated in 
difficulty and cost, I have seen descriptions stating tiiat 
each ribbon was tied to a book and tediously scraped 
with a knife, the work being only one pound daily. As 
a matter of fact the Chinese cleaner has (t knife aha>-p- 
ened like the blade of a trowel, which he holds in the 
palm of the right hand, on his thumb attached to a 
ring he slips a small piece of bamboo, he then t&kcs a 
handful of ribbons fgreen) in the left hand, and di iiws 
them rapidly between the knife edge and bamboo, then 
reverses and cleans the held end. The whole thing ia 
exceedingly simple, quick and easy, and the aveiage 
work tested is 10 lb. cleaned dry fibre per man per 
day, and as it is really done either in spare time 
or by the women and children, of no coat as reg irda 
any competition by decorticating machines. 
In any case if decorticating machines were u;ed 
the cultivation difficulty being first got over, it w^ald 
obviously be more economical to decorticate the 
atipped ribbons in the machine for the purpose of 
cleaning (gathered in the Chinese way) than the 
bulk of stems, with the carrying ofi and on the fiel 
