Farmers of Forty Centuries; Or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and JapanKing, F. H. (Franklin Hiram)
Science
Farmers of Forty Centuries; Or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and Japan
King, F. H. (Franklin Hiram)
Agriculture -- China; Agriculture -- Japan; Agriculture -- Korea
After passing Lienshan, where, the railway runs near the sea, a sail
was visible on the bay and many stacks of salt piled about the
evaporation fields were associated with the revolving sail windmills
already described. Here, too, large numbers of cattle, horses, mules
and donkeys were grazing on the untilled low lands, beyond which we
traversed a section where all fields were planted, where no
fertilizer was piled in the field but where many groups of men were
busy hoeing, sometimes twenty in a gang.
Chinese soldiers with bayonetted guns stood guard at every railway
station between Shanhaikwan and Mukden, and from Chinchowfu our
coach was occupied by some Chinese official with guests and military
attendants, including armed soldiers. The official and his guests
were an attractive group of men with pleasant faces and winning
manners, clad in many garments of richly figured silk of bright,
attractive, but unobtrusive, colors, who talked, seriously or in
mirth, almost incessantly. They took the train about one o'clock and
lunch was immediately served in Chinese style, but the last course
was not brought until nearly four o'clock. At every station soldiers
stood in line in the attitude of salute until the official car had
passed.
Just before reaching Chinchowfu we saw the first planted fields
littered with stubble of the previous crop, and in many instances
such stubble was being gathered and removed to the villages, large
stacks having been piled in the yards to be used either as fuel or
in the production of compost. As the train approached Taling ho
groups of men were hoeing in millet fields, thirty in one group on
one side and fifty in another body on the other. Many small herds of
cattle, horses, donkeys and flocks of goats and sheep were feeding
along stream courses and on the unplanted fields. Beyond the
station, after crossing the river, still another sand dune tract was
passed, planted with willows, millet occupying the level areas
between the dunes, and not far beyond, wide untilled flats were
crossed, on which many herds were grazing and dotted with grave
mounds as we neared Koupantze, where a branch of the railway
traverses the Liao plain to the port of Newchwang. It was in this
region that there came the first suggestion of resemblance to our
marshland meadows; and very soon there were seen approaching from
the distance loads so green that except for the large size one would
have judged them to be fresh grass. They were loads of cured hay in
the brightest green, the result, no doubt, of curing under their dry
weather conditions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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