The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-09-13
CHINESE FARMERS.
From the New York World.

From the New York World.
Over on Long Island. at a place
known as Steinway, you can find John
Chinaman on his native heath, as il
were.
Here you may see him in queer clothes
and queer houses, raising queer prod
uets, and with queer-looking pagodo-
like summerhouse near by, to lend a
real celestial air to his surroundings
1t seems like bit of China dropped
into rural New York. 1t is a special
feature of the district and is pointed
out as an inducement TO summer board
ers.
II you would learn how TO husband
the natural resources of the soil go wit
ness Chinese farmer 1t work. He can
give points to the most thrifty squat
ter that ever worked a Harlem field.
Several fortunes have been made at
Steinway, and their owners are now
enjoying them in China
The Chinese farming community of
Long Island was started back in the
eighties by Shen 10, who lost his
fortune in his native land and came to
d.
several truck-farmers there, and the
profits are divided among them. The
same system prevails among the vege-
table gardeners of California.
The Chinese farmer lives in squalor.
A laundry in the slums or a squatter's
shanty are nothing to IT, The farm
house is mere hut made of old boards
knocked together and some tar paper
nailed over them. There is an oaor of
opium and another of the joss around
the place, although decaying vege-
tables contribute their share of the
general flthiness. Old boxes and
baskets lie around and lumber up the
passageways; old fruit cans and paper
scraps fill the chinks, as il were, and
general debris covers the ground
John generally selects a tree near
running water under which to build
his house, and while the house is pretty
sure TO be dirty the fields are the pink
of neatness in all that pertains TO good
farming. Fegeta bles are his strong
hold, and only the Chinese varieties are
raised. Johns best customer is Mott
street. In the field he wears his native
hat, uses primitive tools and generally
does everything upside down. Even
his explanations are topsy turvy, but
then everyone knows that he writes
backward. He never puts his phos-
pilates in the ground: he just sprinkles
them along the top of the hill. 1t is
queer stuff. too, which ,ooks like SCOT.
He plants his vegetables upon a hill
with deep gullies on either side He
builds trellises and trains his vines
upon them, and then when the fruit is
ripe crawls underneath on his back and
ships it off with a pair of shears.
But such fruit. No Jersey or Della.
ware horticulturist grows more tooth
some products. His Squashes, cucun-
bers, tomatoes and pumpkins have a
His beans sometimes weigh
three to the pound-by the way, he
sells everything by the pound. He has
in raising ginger and sugar
cane and ginseng of toothsomeness
which makes him the best-prsised man
in Mott street-when he goes there.
The rural Chinaman is thorough |
believer in irrigation. The whole sub |
soil of his farm Is a network Of water |
pipes. Every plot of ground has a wa
placed on one side and pipe |
and faucet leading thereto To show /
how queerly he wOrks-af ter leading /
the water all under his fields to his 1
water barrel. he laboriously lifts il out /
by the bucketful and throws it over the /
growing plants
But in the field he is a picturesque /
figure in his umbreIla-shaped hat. |
From daylight until dark he is at il. !
only to eat and after dark he 4
still goes on, carrying his psilfuls Of 4
water over the fields. II would be per
fectly useless for an agent 10 try 70 sell /
him such a labor-saring device as a
yarden-hOse. He could not understand
such modern invention
But after all he fills his niche. Il is
a profitable niche. Of course. but he
would not fll il if Il wasn't. He il an
autocrat in Chinatown and an example
TO the American neutrality-suspicious. He
1isturbs no one and wants no one TO
disturb him he tolls and slaves. ouiv
N nope Of the happiness and content
nent and ease he VIII ind wheE he re-