Irrigation by animal power is extensively practiced in each of the three countries, employing mostly the type of power wheel shown in Fig. 158. The next illustration, Fig. 174, shows the most common type of shelter seen in Chekiang and Kiangsu provinces, which are there very numerous. We counted as many as forty such shelters in a semi-circle of half a mile radius. They provide comfort for the animals during both sunshine and rain, for under no conditions must the water be permitted to run low on the rice fields, and everywhere their domestic animals receive kind, thoughtful treatment. In the less level sections, where streams have sufficient fall, current wheels are in common use, carrying buckets near their circumference arranged so as to fill when passing through the water, and to empty after reaching the highest level into a receptacle provided with a conduit which leads the water to the field. In Szechwan province some of these current wheels are so large and gracefully constructed as to strongly suggest Ferris wheels. A view of one of these we are permitted to present in Fig. 175, through the kindness of Rollin T. Chamberlin who took the photograph from which the engraving was prepared. This wheel which was some forty feet in diameter, was working when the snap shot was taken, raising the water and pouring it into the horizontal trough seen near the top of the wheel, carried at the summit of a pair of heavy poles standing on the far side of the wheel. From this trough, leading away to the left above the sky line, is the long pipe, consisting of bamboo stems joined together, for conveying the water to the fields. When the harvest time has come, notwithstanding the large acreage of grain, yielding hundreds of millions of bushels, the small, widely scattered holdings and the surface of the fields render all of our machine methods quite impossible. Even our grain cradle, which preceded the reaper, would not do, and the great task is still met with the old-time sickle, as seen in Fig. 176, cutting the rice hill by hill, as it was transplanted. Previous to the time for cutting, after the seed is well matured, the water is drawn off and the land permitted to dry and harden. The rainy season is not yet over and much care must be exercised in curing the crop. The bundles may be shocked in rows along the margins of the paddies, as seen in Fig. 176, or they may be suspended, heads down, from bamboo poles as seen in Fig. 177.