Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1886-07-10
Country Life in China.

Lie in Chinese hamlet is wound up
to run like clockwork, and its-busy regu-
larity never varies. The hamlet itself,
says writer, is often very picturesque.
Here is group of 700 or 800 houses,
situated between two graceful hills, pre-
senting charming view Excepting
about hundred tradesmen massed on
the banks of small river that runs
through the valley, the inhabitants have
scattered their cottages little every
where, leaving between them here and
there spaces occupied by fields and gar
dens. The stream, spanned by bridges,
is constantly dotted with big and little
boats going and coming from neighbor-
ing towns. Compelled to shape their
fields according to the sinuosities the
water describes and the contours of the
Hills, their designs are of the most I'M
looked-for sort. BY small canals, con-
veying the water from the river the ter
races on the hills are irrigated for cult
walton. Upon these terraces the gay,
green color of the rice fields predomi-
mates over the darker tint of the sugar
ca. e in spots not so we'll irri-
gated; big yellow flowers stand
out on the cotton stalks; lines of
orange-trees, with their sombre LEAKAGE,
are visible, and beyond stretch planta-
tons of tea trees, under which is caught
a glimpse of the gray earth, contrasting
with all the re t. Rice, tea, cotton,
sugar and oranges are the most import mt
crops of the locality, but there are several
Others that add to its income, viz. ::
Hemp, yielded by palm tree, its large
leaves reaching twenty feet from the
ground; oil extracted from tree which
has IA disg ,sting look on account of its
knotty, crooked trunk and rusty leaves,
and bamboo, the most useful of all the
smnll trees, and exceedingly graceful,
with its branches extending thirty feet
and balancing their leAves in the slight
est breeze. The country roundabout has
punches of small trees, from which as
cend morning, noon, and evening, silver
tinklings from the bells of dozen pago-
das, revealing their triple roofs of ye low
tiles and their upturned corner; through
riffs in the foliage :ainst the pure blue
of the SKY. No rumbling wheels are
heard, and even the song of birds, the
echoing voices of the fed Iaborers, do
not break the deep prevailing stiffness
blInluutlNc Ms Tie al MS al Inelr ylclu
is enormous. On farm of four acres a
family will live comfortably and econo-
mize five or six hundred dollars a year.
To secure such result, the tillers do not
limit themselves to selling the raw prod
ucts of the land, but transform them as
far as possible by manufacturing in their
homes. They manufacture, by primitive
process, their own oil and sugar, and
weave their silk, hemp, cotton, and by
thus establishing manufactures as much
as possible on the farms. keep many la
borers attached to the soil and prevent
their concentration in large factories,
which would encourage everproduction.
They proportion the quantity of their
products to their immcd late wants, thor
|, oughly convinced that steady work will
always supply them from year to year.
AS consequence, little capital is accu-
mulated, an China, perhaps, has less
money piled up than any other nation
of the world. All this is simply in &C.
cordance with frugal methods of living
and the cardinal idea that work is the
chief end OF man-Baltimore american.