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 the winter and early spring crops have been harvested the
narrow ridges on which they are grown are turned into the furrows by
means of their simple plow drawn by a heavy bullock, different from
the cattle in China but closely similar to those in Japan. The
fields are then flooded until they have the appearance seen in Fig.
12. Over these flooded ridges the green grass and oak boughs are
spread, when the fields are again plowed and the material worked
into the wet soil. If this working is not completely successful men
enter the fields and tramp the surface until every twig and blade is
submerged. The middle section in this illustration has been fitted
and transplanted; in front of it and on the left are two other
fields once plowed but not fertilized; those far to the right have
had the green manure applied and the ground plowed a second time but
not finished, and in the immediate foreground the grass and boughs
have been scattered but the second plowing is not yet done.
We passed men and bullocks coming from the hill lands loaded with
this green herbage and as we proceeded towards Fusan more and more
of the hill area was being made to contribute materials for green
manure for the cultivated fields. The foreground of Fig. 211 had
been thus treated and so had the field in Fig. 212, where the man
was engaged in tramping the dressing beneath the surface. In very
many cases this material was laid along the margin of the paddies;
in other cases it had been taken upon the fields as soon as the
grain was cut and was lying in piles among the bundles; while in
still other cases the material for green manure had been carried
between the rows while the grain was still standing, but nearly
ready to harvest. In some fields a full third of a bushel of the
green stuff had been laid down at intervals of three feet over the
whole area. In other cases piles of ashes alternated with those of
herbage, and again manure and ashes mixed had been distributed in
alternate piles with the green manure.
In still other cases we saw untreated straw distributed through the
fields awaiting application. At Shindo this, straw had the
appearance of having been dipped in or smeared with some mixture,
apparently of mud and ashes or possibly of some compost which had
been worked into a thin paste with water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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