Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-12-12
0QOrtester DAILY Spg,
JOHN cHINAMAN AS AN AGR1cULTURIsT.

SA~@~sAAAA-AAs
In the eyes of the Chinese human excre
ments constitute the true substance of the soil
$50 Davis, Fortune, Hedde, and others, tell usl.
and it is principally to this most energetic
agent that they ascribe the activity and fertili-
ty of the earth.
Except the trade in grain, and i'll articles of
food, generally, there is none so extensively
carried on IN China as that in human eXcre-
ments. Long, clumsy boats, which traverse
the street canals, collect these matters every
day, and distribute them over the country
Every Coolie, who has brought his produce to
market In the morning, carries home at night
two pals full OF this manure on bamboo pole
The estimation in which it his held is so
great, that everybody knows the amount of
eXcrements voided per man, in a day, month
or year and a Chinese would regard as gross
breach of manners the departure from his
home OF guest, who negects to let him have
that advantage, to which he deems himself
justly entitled, in return for his hospitality.
In the vicinity Of large towns, these excre-
ments are converted into poudrette, which is
then sent to the most distant places, in the
shape of square cakes, like bricks. For USE
these cakes are soaked in water and applied
in the fluid form. With the exception OF lis
rice fields the Chinese does not manure the
field, but the plant.
Every substance derived from plants and
animals is carefully collected by the Chinese
and converted into manure. Oil cakes, horn
and bones are highly valued and so is SCOT
and more especially ashes. 10 give some no
tons of the value set by them on human otfal
1t will be sufficient to mention that the BARRIERS
most carefully collect and sell, as an article of
trade, the somewhat considerable amount of
hair of the boards and heads of the hundred
million of customers, whom they daily
shave. The Chinese know the action of gyps-
um and lime; and it often happens that they
renew the plastering of the kitchens, for the
purpose OF making use Of the old matter for
manure.
No Chinese farmer ever sows a seed of corn
before it has been soaked in liquid manure di-
luted with water, and has begun to terminate;
and experience has taught him $50 he asserts)
that this operation not only tends to promote
the growth and development of the plant, but
also to protect the seed from the insects hid
den in the ground
During the summer months, all kinds of
vegetables refuse are mixed with turf straw
grass, peat, weeds and earth, collected into
heaps, and when quite dry, set on fire. after
several days of slow combustion the entire
mass is converted into a kind of black earth
This compost is only employed for the man
urlng Of seeds. When seed time arrives, one
man makes holes in the ground; another fol-
holes; and the third adds the black earth
The young seed planted in this manner, grows
with such extraordinary vigor that it is there
by enabled to push its rootlers through the
hard, solid soil, and to collect its mineral CON
sttuents.
The Chinese farmer sows his wheat after
the grains have been soaked in liquid manure
quite close, in seed beds, and afterwards trans
plants it, Occasionally, also, the soaked grains
are Immediately sown in the field properly
prepared for their reception, at an interval of
four inches from each other The time of
transplanting is towards the month of Decem.
ber In March the seed sends up from seven
to nine stalks with ears, but the straw is short
er than with us. | have been told that wheat
yields 12O fold more, which amply repays the
care and labor bestowed upon it.
1t is quite true that what suits one people
may not on that account suit all countries and
all nations bnt one great and incontrovertible
truth may, at all events, be learned from Chi
nese agriculture, viz : that the fields of the
Chinese cultivator have preserved their fertil-
ity unimpaired and in continued vigor ever
since the days of Abraham, and of the build
ing of the first pyramid in Egypt* This re-
suit we also learn, has been obtained solely
and simply by the restitution to the soil Of the
mineral constituents removed in the produce
or, what amounts to the same thing, that this
has been effected by the aid of manure, of
which the greater portion is lost to the land in
the system of European land American y cul-
tivation.-Liebig'S Modern agriculture.
*Vessels of Chinese porcelain are found in the
pyramids, of the same shape, and with the same