74 
AGRICULTURE OF THE CHINESE --NO. 3, ETC 
America ever attained anything like his fame, and 
perhaps never will. This was owing in a measure 
to the great sectional race between the north and 
the south, which he ran with Sir Henry, over the 
Union Course, on Long Island, on Tuesday, the 
27th of May, 1823, Eclipse beating him in the two 
last heats, and thus winning very easily. It was 
supposed that upwards of sixty thousand persons 
were present on this occasion. The race was a 
subject of great interest throughout the United 
States for some time before and after the event. 
Certain sections were as much, or perhaps more ex ¬ 
cited by it, than they would have been by a presi¬ 
dential contest. In fact, immediately after it was 
over, the late eccentric John Randolph, of Roanoke, 
remarked, that he was very glad the next president 
was not to be chosen by the people on that day, 
for if he were, Mr. Purdy, the fortunate rider of 
Eclipse, would certainly have been the man. 
After this match, Eclipse was put into the breed¬ 
ing stud, where he proved as good a stock getter as 
he had been a racer. He stood in this vicinity 
several years, and was then purchased by Col. 
Johnson, and taken to Virginia, Tennessee, and 
Kentucky. He died of an apoplectic fit, on the 
farm of Mr. Jilson Yates, near Shelbyville, Ken¬ 
tucky, on the 11th of July, 1847, in his thirty- 
fourth year. He was a clean-limbed, powerful- 
built horse, of great speed and endurance. He had 
a plain head and neck, but was unmatched in the 
exquisite beauty and fine proportions of all his 
other points. He stood fifteen and a half hands 
high, and was of a light chestnut, or sorrel color. 
Up to within a few days of his death he was as 
spirited and lively as a colt, and did not appear to 
be over ten years old. 
TJie following quaint eulogy of Eclipse, appear¬ 
ed soon after his death, in the “ Pine Knot,” a paper 
published at Napoleon, Mississippi :— 
Farewell, old horse! thy rnce is run ; 
The final goal at length is won ; 
This to thy praise at least be said— 
Thou never wast, as some are, led ; 
No servile follower for bread. 
Thou wast a leader “ from the start,” 
And well hast acted here thy part; 
Well may thy friends, and truly, b ast, 
First wast thou ever at thy “post 
Sure of “the right”—then like a rocket, 
Your shot “ ahead” —like Davy Cmcket. 
Our eyes with mourning tears run o’er, 
Alas ! that thou c;t ist run no more ! 
We loved thee living, mourn thee dead! 
“Green be the turf above thy head !” 
For a highly interesting and particular account 
of the great race between Eclipse and Sir Henry, 
see page 76, of this number of the Agriculturist. 
Wash for Fruit Trees. —Take equal parts, by 
measure, of ground plaster of Paris, soft soap, and 
green cow dung; dilute them with water to the 
consistency of common white wash ; and apply the 
mixture to the trunks and large branches of the trees 
with a mop or brush. This will not only have a 
tendency to destroy or ward off insects, but render 
the trees more healthy and fruitful. 
Salting Manure. —Mixing salt with stable and 
other manures has a great tendency to prevent the 
development of grubs and vermin, which are fre¬ 
quently bred in dung when carried unsaltcd to the 
fields. 
AGRICULTURE OF THE CHINESE.—No. 3. 
Terrace Cultivation .—The terrace cultivation of 
China has been noticed by nearly all writers up¬ 
on that country, and, like most other subjects, it 
has been either much exaggerated or undervalued. 
It appeared to me to be carried to the greatest per¬ 
fection on the hill sides adjacent to the river Min 
near Foo-chow-foo; at least I was more struck 
with it there thany anywhere else. On sailing up 
that beautiful river, these terraces look like steps 
on the sides of the mountains, one rising above an¬ 
other, until they sometimes reach six or eight hun¬ 
dred 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 collec¬ 
tion of gardens among the rugged and barren moun¬ 
tains. The terrace system is adopted by the Chi¬ 
nese, either for the purpose of supplying the hill 
sides with water where paddy is to be grown, or to 
prevent the heavy rains from washing down the 
loose soil from the roots of their 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 crosswise or horizontally ; 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 highest terrace, into which it flows and 
floods the whole of the level space. When the 
water rises three or four inches in height, which 
is sufficiently high for the rice, it finds vent at an 
opening made for the purpose in the bank, through 
which it flows into the terrace below, which it 
floods in the same manner, and so on to the lowest. 
In this way the whole of the rice terraces are kept 
continually flooded, until the stalks of the crops as¬ 
sume a yellow ripening hue, when the water being 
no longer required, it is turned back into its natural 
channel, or led to a different part of the hill, for the 
nourishment of other crops. These mountain 
streams, which abound in all parts of the hilly dis¬ 
tricts, are of the greatest importance to the farmer \ 
and as they generally spring from a high elevation 
in the ravines, they can be conducted at pleasure 
over all the lower parts of the hills. No operation 
in agriculture gives him and his laborers more plea¬ 
sure than leading these streams of water from one 
place to an other and making them subservient to 
their purposes. In my travels in the country the 
inhabitants often called my attention to this branch 
of their operations, and I pleased them much when 
I expressed my admiration at the skill with which 
they executed it. The practice is not confined to 
the paddy fields; for I remember once, when su¬ 
perintending the planting of some large trees and 
shrubs in the garden of Messrs. Dent & Co., in 
Hong-kong, after 1 had given them a large supply 
of water at the time they were put into the ground, 
I desired the gardener to repeat the dose next morn¬ 
ing. But, on the following day, when I returned 
