The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1886-07-15
Country Life in China.

Life in Chinese hamlet is wound up
to run like clockwork, and its busy regi-
larity never varies. The hamlet itself,
says writer, is often very picturesque.
Here is a group of 700 or 800 HOUSES,
situated between two graceful hills, PIE.
sen<ing a charming view. Excepting
about "a hundred tradesmcn 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
cane in spots not so well 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
glimpse of the gray earth, contrasting
with all the ret. 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. z:
Hemp, yielded by palm tree, its large
leaves reaching twenty feet from the
ground; oil extracted from tree which
has u disgusting look on account of its
knotty, crooked trunk and rusty leaves,
and bamboo, the most useful of all the
small 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 yellow
tiles and their upturned corners through
riffs in the foliage against the pure blue
of the sky. No rumbling wheels are
heard, and even the song of birds, the
echoing voices of the field laborers, dc
not break the deep prevailing stiffness.
Diminutive as the farms are, their yiel6
is enormous. On farm of four acres /,
family will live comfortably and econo
mize five or six hundred dollars year
To secure such a result, the tillers do no
limit themselves to selling the raw prod
ucts of the land, but transform them a.
far as possible by manufacturing in thei
homes. They manufacture, by primitiv
process, their own oil and sugar, ant
weave their silk, hemp, cotton, and, b,
thus establishing manufactures as mucl
as possible on the farms, keep many la
borers attached to the soil and proven
their concentration in large factories
which would encourage everproduction
They proportion the quantity of thei
products to their immediate wants, thor
oughly convinced that steady work vii
always supply them from year to year
As consequence, little capital is accu
mulated, an China, perhaps, has les
money piled up than any other natio
of the worit, All this is simply in &C
cordance with frugal methods Of Twin
and the cardinal idea that work is tn
'chief end OF man.-Bdltimore American