The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1860-01-04
Asbtaa0 o.. farmer.
CHINESE AGRICULTURE.

OA44A ZOE OA0
In the eyes of the Chinese, human excre-
ments constitute the true substance of the soil,
ESQ Davis, Fortune, Hedde, and others tell u.s.
and it is principally to this most energetic
agent that they ascribe the activity and fertili-
ty of the earth. r..
Except the trade in grain, and in 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 the 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 a bamboo pole.
The estimation in which it is held is so
great that everybody knows the amount of ex-
crements voided per man in a day, month, or
year; and a Chinese would regard as a gross
breach of manners the departure from his
house of a guest who ~negleets 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 arc soaked in water, and applied in
the fluid form. With the exception of his
rice fields, the Chinese does not manure the
field, bat 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. To give some no.
ton of the value set by them on human ofal,
it 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 hundreds
OF millions of customers whom they daily
shave. The Chinese know the action of gyp-
sum 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 d.
luted with water, and has begun to germinate;
and experience has taught him ESQ 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
vegetable refuse are mixed with turf, straw,
grass, peat weeds and Garth 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
manuring of seeds. When seed time arrives
one man makes holes in the ground; another
follows with the seed, which he places in the
holes; and a 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 ~rootlets through the
hard, solid soil, and to collect its mineral con-
stituents.
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 prop
erly prepared for their reception, at an inter
val of four inches from each other. The time
of transplanting is towards the month of De-
cember. In. March the seed sends up from
seven to nine stalks with ears, but the straw
is shorter than with US. I have been told
that wheat yields one hundred and twenty 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; but one great and incontrovertible
truth may. at all events, be learned from Chi
nose agriculture, viz: that tie fields of the
Chinese cultivator have preserved their f%ertili-
ty 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 attained selely
and simply by the restitution to the soil of the
mineral constituents removed in the produce
or, what amounts to the something, that this
has been effected by the aid of a manure, of
which the greater portion is lost to the land in
the system of European (aad American p cul-
tivation.-Licbig's Modern agriculture.