Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1890-05-22
CHINESE FARMERS.
Curious Modes of Cultivation Among
the Celestials.

Curious Modes of Cultivation Among
the Celestials.
The Chinese have been noted as farm
ers for more than four thousand years,
and, since 2, 200 years before Christ, the
Emperor has started the plowing for the
nation. The Festival of Spring Plow-
ing is the great event of the Chinese
year. At this time His Majesty, "The
Son of Heaven" after fasting and pray
ing in the temple of heaven, makes sacri-
fees to the god of agriculture. He comes
from the hall of Intense Thought, out
into the fields surrounding the temple
grounds, and puts his royal long finger
nailed hands upon the rude plow, painted
for the occasion with imperial yellow.
Princes of the royal blood assist him
while the water buffalo drags the rude
machine through nine furrows, and
couriers are sent forth to the farmers
throughout the land to let them know
that spring has begun, and that cultiva-
ton may commence. At the same time,
all over China, the same ceremony is en-
acted by the chief officers of the various
provinces. Every official in China is
called upon to be farmer, and the gov
ernors-general, the revenue commission
ers and the justices of the peace act as
chief plowmen.
The water-buffalo, the most ungainly
species of the COW genus in existence, is
the chief draft-animal of China, and, at
the opening of spring, life-sized paper
buffalo is carried, on table, in grand
procession, with bands of music and with
appropriate ceremonies, throughout the
nifiac Of ba in or,l 20,
to the people that spring has begun. A
day or so later the millions of this great
agricultural people are hard at work, and
the smell of the newly -plowed ground
rises from an area half the size of the
United States.
The greater part of China is cultivated
Ikea garden, and the people are garden
ers rather than farmers. The holdings
are very small, ranging in size in some
districts from one to ten acres, and there
are thousands of families in China who
live off one-acre farms. The people, as
rule, in the districts of North and South
China, through which travelled, do not
live on the ground that they cultivate,
but in villages. The men, women and
children go out in the morning to work
and come home at sunset. spent week
travelling along the winding Peiho in
house-boat, through the great plain of
North China, and / sometimes watched
the sun rise, from my front door, on the
water. At this time the fields, as far as
the eye could reach, were spotted with
professions of big-hatted, half-naked,
yellow-faced men, trotting along with
great hoes over their shoulders, and of
not few headed women, some of
whom had baskets resting above their
Chinese waterfalls. There were few ami
mails to be seen. The fields were not
separated by fences, and the only bound
ary marks were little pieces of granite or
sandstone, about foot high and six
inches square, set up at the corners of the
fields. The plows in Use were of the
rudest possible description, consisting of
beam-handle and a share with wooden
stem, which was fastened to q sort of rest
at the back. In some cases the share
was tipped with iron, but saw no fur
rows more than six inches deep, and in
some places the plow merely scratched
the ground. Chinese farmers measured
the depth of furrow as the Western
cowboy does his whiskey or the farmers
wife measures her cloth-a furrow is so
many fingers deep. One of these plows
costs about two dollars, and the rude
rope harness, which is fastened to the
neck of the buffalo by a wooden bow like
yoke, cannot be worth more than fifty
cents. The work clothes of the farmer
are on the same inexpensive order, con-
sisting, in some cases, of hat and a
waist-cloth, which comes as far down as
the knees, leaving the breast, shoulders
and feet bare.
Many of these farmers use spades, or
rather the spade-hoe, long handled in
strument, with heavy blade about four
inches wide, and more than foot long.
Such harrows as / saw were each made up
of heavy stick, to which one row of
stout wooden or iron teeth was fastened,
and attached to the back of which was a
handle, by which the narrower pressed
the machine into the ground, in much
the same way as our farmer holds his
plow I did not see the women har-
messed to either plows or harrows, though
such instances are said to be common in
the more poverty stricken districts of the
interior. There were however, many
women working in the fields in every
part of China which l visited, and at
Fuchau, about thousand miles or more
south of Peking, saw women hoeing and
spading, whose wages were just two cents
day. These women were as hardy as
the fish-wives of Paris. They had ear
rings as big around as tin cup, and their
silver hair-pins were a foot long, and
often dozen in number. In the fields
near Canton l saw score of geese follow
ing plow held by bare-legged, pig
tailed farmer, and drawn by NANCY
black buffalo, and in every province |
visited l found pigs, chickens, ducks and
geese by the thousands. II American Agri-
cnlfnrist