The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1896-05-13
Farming in China.

field of FIVE or ten acres. Upon this
he must support himself, his wives
and chrildren and put something By
for a rainy day. His estate is a sandy
plain which slopes from one end to the
other. His first step is to divide it
into counterparts by raising low walls
or partitions of clay. They are usual
ly II feet thick and 2 feet high.
Where it is difficult to get clay he
constructs the wall of the stones he
finds in the soil or of broken bricks
tiles and stops up the crevices with
clay or even mud. Any form Of soil
excepting sand is used in this manner.
So far do they go that l have seen
them gathering the ooze, barred by the
low tide, to build the walls with. In
each little compartment he builds a
ditch in front of the lower wall, and
at the corner of the compartment he
lowers the wall somewhat for the water
to flow from one compartment into the
next adjoining. When it rains, the
compartments fill, and the entire field
looks like a lot of panes of glass the
water soaks slowly into the soil and
keeps the ground moist enough for
agricultural and horticultural purposes
for several months. Where the rain
fall is but slight he digs a we'll at a
point selected by an astrologer. This
individual is a bankrupt or dissipated
scholar or priest, who has lost caste
by reason Of his infrmities and makes
a living more or less precarious by
astrology, fortune telling, selecting
graves, finding subterranean water and
similar superstitional occupations.
He bears a striking resemblance to
the soothsayers and witches of our
own history. Like them, he employs
a dividing rod and some arrangement
in crystal which is supposed to be-
come cloudy when water is near. His
| charge for indicating the place where a
we'll will be successful varies from 10
cents to 50cents, and if his client se-
cures an extra large supply he demands
and receives a bonus Of the same
amount. These c~ontrivances nine
times out of ten do their business
we'll. Some 10 to great depths. 1t
was from these deep pits that France
and ourselves first derived the idea of
the artesian we'll.
Water once reached, the farm labor
starts to keep on forever. Some one
of the family is always at the we'll,
raising the precious fluid to the sur
face. It u q by a little canal to the
! TOP compartment and thence trickles
through the entire field. When men
and women work at it, they Sc a
large measure, which brings up about
FIVE gallons every time. When little
children do the labor, a smaller
measure, one that seldom exceeds a
| gallon, is used instead. Oxen are
sometimes employed, but engines,
windmills and other labor saving con-
trivances are never seen. The most
patient animal in the world, the
human being, does nearly all the work.
In Tong-an,I once ran across a queer
machine for sending water over the
terraces from these wells. This was a
large wooden x, which was whirled
around by a combination Of wire and
string, something after the fashion Of
a Chinese top. This was kept run
ming all day long by being tied to the
great toes of several Chinese women,
who sat upon the grass knitting and
nursing their babies at the same
time.
Chinese are large employers of stor-
age reservoirs. These are not made
according to the rules Of engineering,
but of brute necessity. They are
usually hollows which are walled up
with earth excavated from their bot
tom, or else marses or the the dry beds
of marshes which are similarly en-
larged and confined, and in some cases
small valleys in which a retaining wall
has been thrown up across its mouth.
The imperial law favors to the utmost
the use of water for irrigation by the
farmer and discountenances any inter
ference BY middlemen or private capt.
tai. The streams, no matter whether
navigable, the ponds and lakes are all
government property and cannot be
alienated. At the furthest, the pri-
vate individual can only lease the land
beneath the water;ewith the condition
that the government can at any time
enter in and take possession of the
property upon paying him for any i'm
provement he may have made.