Vol. LXIX No. 4031. 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 29, 1910. 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR. 
DRY FARMING IN CHINA. 
Saving the Manure. 
The Chinese farmers have reached the ‘‘root of the 
matter” in a thousand ways during their centuries of 
experience when, because of the great density of 
population, a failure in crops invariably spelled 
famine and death. They were compelled to “get 
there” and “stay there,” and they did. They have 
learned how to farm where the rainfall is excessive, 
and how to use even the ex¬ 
cess in maintaining fertility 
and in securing larger yields. 
They have learned equally 
well how to farm where the 
rainfall is deficient, and how 
to compel their fields to 
bring forth under such con¬ 
ditions. 
The densest population in 
China to-day is found in the 
Shantung Province, where the 
mean annual rainfall during 
the last io years is only about 
24 inches, and where nearly 
half of this falls during the 
two months of July and Au¬ 
gust. We left the province on 
the 20th of May, and from 
October the previous Fall un¬ 
til then there had fallen only 
2.44 inches of rain and yet, 
without irrigation, crops of 
wheat and barley had been 
brought nearly to maturity, 
and it was only the Spring- 
sowed grain that showed 
serious distress from drought. 
The leaves on the wheat were 
green and fresh clear to the 
ground. The crop would be 
light for the province, for the 
drought had been unusual, and 
yet they were expecting 15 
to 20 bushels per acre, good 
yields being 30 to 40 and more. 
W heat and other crops are 
all planted in rows, with naked 
hoed soil between, the wheat 
being often in hills in the row. 
The stand on the ground is 
adjusted to the available water 
capacity of the soil, there 
being fewer stalks in the row 
or in the hill where the 
water capacity is small. The 
result is that the wheat every¬ 
where was of nearly the same 
height, with the heads filling 
well, the yield being varied 
by the number of plants on the 
ground more than by stunted 
growth. One of the farmers 
in this province with whom we talked had a family of 
12 people which he was maintaining on 2.5 acres of 
good farm land, keeping besides one working cow, 
one donkey and two pigs. The crops he raised were 
wheat or barley, millet. Soy beans and sweet potatoes. 
Dus is at the rate of 192 people, 16 cows, 16 donkeys 
and 32 pigs on a 40-acre farm, very different from 
anything to be found in this country, where the rain¬ 
fall is best. 
^ here a man was plowing his ground preparatory 
to transplanting sweet potatoes the soil turned up 
from a depth of four inches was sufficiently moist to 
pack in my hand, and yet there had been no rain 
for six weeks, and standing water in the ground was 
8 to 10 feet below + he surface. No irrigation had 
been practiced on any of these crops up to this time, 
but hundreds of temporary wells were being dug to 
provide water for pieces of grain which were late, 
so as to make sure the crop if timely rains did not 
fall. The water is raised by hand with the aid of a 
light windlass, using a waterproofed woven basket, 
making a portable outfit, the whole of which is picked 
up and carried from field to field, and to the 
'•* • ■■ 
SOIL FOR COMPOST IN A SHANTUNG VILLAGE. Fig 
34 . 
FINISHED PILE OF COMPOST AND CHINESE FARM TEAM. Fig 
village where the farmers have their homes at night. 
METHOD OF FERTILIZING.—But it is of the 
method of fertilizing the soil, adopted in these regions 
of deficient rainfall, that I wish specially to write. 
Where the rainfall is small and irregular in distri¬ 
bution the soil is liable to become too dry to permit 
organic matter to ferment with sufficient rapidity in the 
soil to become available to the crop, and hence these 
farmers have been compelled to devise a very special 
system of fertilizing to fit their “dry-farming” con¬ 
ditions. It must be remembered that they want a crop 
of wheat or barley to occupy the ground up to nearly 
July, and then a crop of millet, maize, sweet potatoes, 
peanuts or Soy beans to follow and to utilize the 
large Summer rainfall when the sunshine is hot, the 
days long and the growth rapid. Under these condi¬ 
tions and requirements there is not time for straw and 
stubble or other coarse manure to ferment in the 
ground, even if favorable conditions were certain to 
prevail, and so nearly all growth on the fields is 
harvested, even to the extent of pulling up by the 
roots, the whole thing taken to the villages, where 
the stems and roots may be burned for fuel and the 
ashes saved, or where it may 
be fermented under suitable 
conditions, thoroughly disinte¬ 
grating the coarse material so 
that when applied to the fields 
it shall not obstruct the free 
capillary movement of soil 
moisture, and further, so that 
enough of it shall have been 
converted into immediately 
available form to be used by 
the crop with no loss of time. 
It must be remembered that 
these people, under the great 
stress of numbers, have 
learned how to add, in effect, 
30 to 30 days to the length of 
the growing season by being 
willing to exchange human 
labor, of which they have an 
excess, for time. They do this 
by starting plants in nurseries 
where, on a small area, they 
can fertilize high, provide the 
best of physical conditions and 
secure a month or so of growth 
while the field to which the 
transplanting will occur is ma¬ 
turing another crop, or is being 
fitted to receive the one to be 
transplanted; by having more 
than one crop growing in the 
same field at once, one finish¬ 
ing up while the other is start¬ 
ing; and finally, by literally 
growing their humus and 
much of the available plant 
food which may be derived 
from it in their villages and 
at their homes, where they can 
better use available spare 
moments, and then transport it 
to the fields at opportune 
times. To me this whole story 
would be a wonderful one if 
it could be worked out in its 
details and illuminated by the 
science which underlies its 
practice. 
Study carefully Fig. 34 . It 
is reproduced from a photo¬ 
graph taken in a country vil¬ 
lage composed of farmers’ 
homes. The streets are clean and orderly. A father, 
with his pipe, and two boys stand on the extreme left; 
beyond them is a huge pile of earth brought from the 
field to be used in making compost and fertilizer and 
then carried back. On the other side of the street, 
at the corner of the first building, is a pile of partly 
fermented compost thrown from a pit not visible. 
Further along in the street on the same side is a 
second large stack of soil with two boys standing at 
either end, and another little boy in the nearby door¬ 
way. In front of the tree on the left side of the 
street is another boy, and near him a small donkey and 
still another boy. Beyond the tree may be seen the 
35 . 
