Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-08-28
ney and no stove. There are no flowers
about it as with the Japanese.

about it as with the Japanese
The Farmer Isn't Very Progressive.
A pig and a COW may occupy the same
hut. The pig is scavenger with big black
ears. The farmer has few chickens and
ducks, but never eats them himself He
never sees newspaper. He has no carpet,
no musical implement, no books and seldom
clock. The floor of his house is the hard
ground. His bed is straw. He has no win
dows in his house or hut In winter he
covers himself with rags to keep warm and
in summer he is almost naked. He sows
his barley or rice in bed, hoes it by hand,
reaps it with a sickle and winnows it in
the wind A quarter of an acre is a big
farm. What little manure he has is in the
LIQUID form and when he manures a bed
you can smell it mile away. He has no
knowledge of politics China might have
big war and he would never hear of it till
troops marched into his rice field.
are a basket, tea kettle and q four tined
hoe. This hoe is very heavy, ami is used
for spading as we'll as hoeing. He raises it
in the air as blacksmith raises his sledge,
imbeds it In the earth and pulls it forward.
The food for 400, 000, 900 peopleis culti-
waited by this implement A threshing ma
chine or a reaper is never seen in China
The Chinese puts as much labor on an acre
as an American farmer would on 20 acres,
but Chinaman will raise enough on an
acre to support family of seven and pay
bis 81 80 in taxes The size of Chinese
farm is from hundred feet square to three
acres. A quarter of an acre will keep a
man busy, but he will raise three crops a
year on It.
How the Chinapan Raises Three Crops
First, he raises barley or wheat ip the
winter When the wheat is heading, cotton
Is sown broadcast After reaping the bar
ley and wheat in June the little cotton is
seen coming up. Then the barley
roots are pulled up and the cotton comes on.
It is in beds and is all hoed byIhand. 1t
grows low and has a short staple Chinese
cotton would not bring 8 centsta pound in
New Orleans, and the yield is about 200
pounds to the acre. Men and women draw
The crops to market on twofwheeled carts
Cotton is not baled, but crowded into
sacks like wool. Horses are seldom seen
on q farm in China, men and women do the
work of the horse A Chinese farm la
borer gets about or 8 cent? day aid his
rice. L,
Notwithstanding labor being SO cheap in
China, the superior skill 1t our American
cotton planters and the igood quality of
their cotton and its cheap Price is destroy
ing the cotton industry Of China China
will have to give up cotton and 60 into rice,
barley and peanuts Last year the Chinese
raised only 100. 900 bales of cotton. The
raising of silk worms here will always
thrive, and silk will be feeled from the
cocoons into skeins by cheap 5-cents-per-
day labor, but silk weaving will have to go
to England and America, where they use
power looms. Tea will also always be
raised in China, where 5-cent labor can pick
the leaves The tea plant is the same as
our camelia or japonica Georgia could
raise as good tea as China if she had as
cheap labor.
The Cheap Living OF China.
If rice is to be raised AFTER barley and
wheat, the land is flooded With water. Then
the rice is set out in the wateR in hills foot
apart. It is common to see wbmen working
IN the rice fields, covered with straw gar
ments to their knees After tie rice is har-
vested full crop of radishes ID put in. In
order to irrigate for rice, water is pumped
onto the land by hand, though sometimes
revolving belt covered with buckets is pro-
PEELED by buffalo COW which walks round
and round like threshing horses in America
Rice in China is worth about dollar a
busheL A Chinaman can live on four
bushels of rice year. This, with peanut
OAis tSa ouu AibsAc Su6ois OoSSS oooub W .
year.
''You think s. year in America" said
Mr.. Leonard, our Consul General, sis
cheap living, but If man in Pittsburg
should live on boiled wheat STith little
cotton seed oil, tea and sugar, }he could live
as cheap as the Chinese. 1t Is meat which
makes living expensive inf England or
America 1t takes eight pounds OF cereals
to make pound of beefste3k, and whore
you get the pound of beefstehk it IL only
worth about third as much a. a pound of
wheat or corn. Americans reduce the
nutritious quality of their food 80 fold BY
feeding it FIRST to the animal and then eating
the animal"
A Real Joke From the Orient.
Writing of the Chinese farmer reminds
me of the first CLEAN Of Chinese humor I
have encountered
A Chinese wife came to the field to call
her husband to dinner.
"Come home to dinner, All Singh she
shouted. 49,,
shouted back.
At dinner the wife said: "Husband, you