48 
LIVE APPLE TREE POSTS. 
to break and pulverize the surface of the soil 
or to bury the manure. Hence it has not long 
perpendicular teeth like ours; but the laborer 
stands upon the top of it, and presses it down upon 
the muddy soil while it is drawn along. The ob¬ 
ject of both plow and harrow is not only to loosen 
the earth, but to mix up the whole 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 ground, 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 com¬ 
mon 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 
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 aston¬ 
ishing rapidity. A laborer takes a quantity of 
plants under his left arm, and drops them in bun¬ 
dles over the land about to be planted, as he 
knows, almost to a plant, what number will be re¬ 
quired. 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 corners of the fields, and is ready 
for transplanting as soon as the ground has 
been plowed up and prepared for their reception. 
This second crop is ready for cutting in November. 
In the latitude of Ning-po, 30° north, the sum¬ 
mers are too short to have the land cropped in the 
same way in which it is done in the south. The 
farmers here manage to have two crops of paddy 
[upland rice ?] in the summer by planting the 
second crop two or three weeks after the first, in 
alternate rows. The first planting takes place 
about the middle of May, and the crop is reaped in 
the beginning of August, at which time the alter¬ 
nate rows are only about a foot in height, and are 
still quite green. After the early crop is removed, 
the ground is stirred up and manured, and the 
second crop having now plenty of light and air, 
advances rapidly to maturity, and is ready for 
the reaping hook about the middle of November. 
About one hundred miles further north, in the 
Shanghae district, the summers are too short to 
enable the husbandman to obtain a second crop of 
rice, even upon the Ning-po plain, and he is 
therefore obliged to content himself with one. 
This is sown at the end of May, and reaped at the 
beginning of October. 
A large quantity of rain always falls at the change 
of the northeast monsoon in May. This is of the 
utmost importance to the farmer, not only as re¬ 
gards his rice crops, but also as to many other opera¬ 
tions at this season of the year. We are accus¬ 
tomed to hear a great deal of the machine-like 
regularity which pervades all the operations of the 
Chinese ; but a little investigation of the circum¬ 
stances in which they are placed—at least in so far 
as agriculture is concerned—will convince us that 
their practice is regulated, not so much by caprice 
and those “ Mede and Persian” laws, as by the 
laws of nature herself, upon which the success of 
the varied operations of agriculture mainly depend. 
Thus the crops of rice and cotton are sown on the 
low lands, and the sweet potatoes are planted on 
the hills, year after year, exactly at the same time. 
But this regularity is not the effect of prejudice, nor 
in obedience to the imperial orders; it is simply the 
result of experience which has taught the farmer 
that this is the proper time for these operations, be¬ 
cause there will then be a continuance of frequent 
and copious showers, which will moisten the earth 
and the air until such time as the young rootlets 
have laid hold of the soil and are capable of send¬ 
ing up sufficient nourishment to the stems. 
During the growth of the rice, the fields are al¬ 
ways kept flooded when water can be obtained. 
The terraces near the base of the hills are supplied 
by the mountain streams, and the fields which are 
above the level of any adjoining river or canal are 
flooded by the celebrated water wheel, which is in 
use all over the country. These machines are of 
three kinds. The principle in all of them is the 
same, the only difference being in the mode of ap¬ 
plying the moving power; one is worked by the 
hand, another by the feet, and the third by an ani¬ 
mal of some kind, generally a buffalo or bullock. 
The rice lands are kept flooded in this way until 
the crops are nearly ripe, when the water is no 
longer necessary. It is also necessary, or at least,, 
advantageous, to go over the ground once or twice 
during the summer, and stir the soil up well 
amongst the roots, at the same time removing any 
weeds which may have sprung up. If the weather 
is wet, the fields retain the water for a considerable 
time, and then it is not an uncommon sight to see 
the natives wading nearly up to the knees in mud 
and water, when they are gathering in the harvest. 
When ripe, the crops are cut with a small instru¬ 
ment, not very unlike our own reaping hook, and 
are generally threshed out at once in the fields 
where they have grown. Sometimes, however, and 
more particularly in the north, the paddy is tied up 
in sheaves, and carried home before it is threshed ; 
indeed, everything in the northern agriculture of the 
Chinese has a great resemblance to what is prac¬ 
tised in Europe. 
Live Apple Tree Posts. —The Massachusetts 
Ploughman suggests that apple trees be planted 
about ten feet apart, on a line where it is desired to 
construct a permanent fence. In the course of ten 
or twelve years they would be large enough to be 
mortised for the purpose of receiving cedar or 
chestnut rails, which, it is thought would last more 
than fifty years. In the mean time, these “ living 
fence posts” would occasionally bear a crop of 
apples, and thus become profitable in “ divers ways. ,? 
