Besides fertilizing, transplanting and weeding the rice crop there is the enormous task of irrigation to be maintained until the rice is nearly matured. Much of the water used is lifted by animal power and a large share of this is human. Fig. 169 shows two Chinese men in their cool, capacious, nowhere-touching summer trousers flinging water with the swinging basket, and it is surprising the amount of water which may be raised three to four feet by this means. The portable spool windlass, in Figs. 27 and 123, has been described, and Fig. 170 shows the quadrangular, cone-shaped bucket and sweep extensively used in Chihli. This man was supplying water sufficient for the irrigation of half an acre, per day, lifting the water eight feet. The form of pump most used in China and the foot-power for working it are seen in Fig. 171. Three men working a similar pump are seen in Fig. 150, a closer view of three men working the foot-power may be seen in Fig. 42 and still another stands adjacent to a series of flooded fields in Fig. 172. Where this view was taken the old farmer informed us that two men, with this pump, lifting water three feet, were able to cover two mow of land with three inches of water in two hours. This is at the rate of 2.5 acre-inches of water per ten hours per man, and for 12 to 15 cents, our currency, thus making sixteen acre-inches, or the season's supply of water, cost 77 to 96 cents, where coolie labor is hired and fed. Such is the efficiency of human power applied to the Chinese pump, measured in American currency. This pump is simply an open box trough in which travels a wooden chain carrying a series of loosely fitting boards which raise the water from the canal, discharging it into the field. The size of the trough and of the buckets are varied to suit the power applied and the amount of water to be lifted. Crude as it appears there is nothing in western manufacture that can compete with it in first cost, maintenance or efficiency for Chinese conditions and nothing is more characteristic of all these people than their efficient, simple appliances of all kinds, which they have reduced to the lowest terms in every feature of construction and cost. The greatest results are accomplished by the simplest means. If a canal must be bridged and it is too wide to be covered by a single span, the Chinese engineer may erect it at some convenient place and turn the canal under it when completed. This we saw in the case of a new railroad bridge near Sungkiang. The bridge was completed and the water had just been turned under it and was being compelled to make its own excavation. Great expense had been saved while traffic on the canal had not been obstructed. In the foot-power wheel of Japan all gearing is eliminated and the man walks the paddles themselves, as seen in Fig. 173. Some of these wheels are ten feet in diameter, depending upon the height the water must be lifted.