Three distinct qualities of flour are thus produced. The _shon-mien_, or A grade, is the first siftings; the _nee-mien_, or second grade, is the grindings of the rough leavings from the first siftings, which is of a darker and redder colour than the first grade; and _mod_ is the finely-ground last siftings of all grades. When bread is made from this grade it resembles rough gingerbread. This is usually the food of the poorest families. The bread of the Chinese is usually fermented, and then steamed. Only a very small quantity is baked in ovens. But the staple articles of food in Northern China are wheat, millet, and sweet potatoes. Wheat and rice are the food of the rich, while the middle classes of the Empire eat millet and rice. In the southern provinces the entire bread-stuff is rice. [Illustration: CHINESE METHOD OF HUSKING GRAIN.] At King-Kiang wheat is served as rice. It is first threshed with flails made of bamboo, and then pounded by a rough stone hammer, working in a mortar which rests on a pivot, and is operated like a treadle by the human foot. This separates the husks, and it is then winnowed, the grain being afterwards ground in the usual way. Rice is undoubtedly the staple food of those parts of China where it will grow, in spite of its being a precarious crop, the failure of which means famine. A drought in its early stages withers it, and an inundation, when nearly ripe, is equally destructive; whilst the birds and locusts, which are fearfully numerous in China, infest it more than any other grain. Rice requires not only intense heat, but moisture so abundant that the field in which it grows must be repeatedly laid under water. These requisites exist only in the districts south of the Yang-tse Kiang (the Yellow River) and its several tributaries. Here a vast extent of land is perfectly fitted for this valuable crop. Confined by powerful dykes, these rivers do not generally, like the Nile, overflow and cover the country; but by means of canals their waters are so widely distributed that almost every farmer, when he pleases, can inundate his field. This supplies not only moisture, but a fertilising mud or slime, washed down from the distant mountains. The cultivator thus dispenses with manure, of which he labours under a great scarcity, and considers it enough if the grain be steeped in liquid manure. The Chinese always transplant their rice. A small space is enclosed, and very thickly sown, after which a thin sheet of water is led or pumped over it; in the course of a few days the shoots appear, and when they have attained the height of six or seven inches the tops are cut off, and the roots transplanted to a field prepared for the purpose, when they are set in rows about six inches from each other. The whole surface is again supplied with moisture, which continues to cover the plants till they approach maturity, when the ground is allowed to become dry.