Evening star., 1900-12-08
War and Famine Will Open Up a
Great Market.
FOOD SUPPLY OF The COUNTRY
There is Also Big Demand for
American Corn.
HOW THE NATIVES FARM
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star
Copyrighted. 1900, by Frank G. Carpenter)
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.

Special correspondence of The Evening Star.
copyrighted 1900, by Frank G. Carpenter)
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
SHANGHAI, November /, 1900.
Every farmer in the United States has
a personal interest in the Chinese
situation. China Will eventually be one
of the biggest markets for our ce-
reals and the time is ripe for pushing
our wheat and corn to the front. There
Il already demand for them at the ports,
AMI if the merchants had them in hand
they might he shipped in quantities into
she interior this winter. The northern part
of the empire is now the verge of a
famine. Some of the provinces have had
short crops for several years. The farms
OF Shantung raised almost nothing in 1899
and the wants of the people have had
much to 90 with fomenting the Boxer up
rising. Chilli is in a bad way The Peiho
valley has been devastated the lands about
Pekin are laid waste. hundreds of villages
have been destroyed and hundreds of thou
sands of people have left their fields. either
TO serve in or follow the army This desti
tut!on exists throughout large part OF
northern China. It is only in some sec
t;Cns that the people have enough laid up
for The winter, and when the cold weather
comes on the suffering Will be intense The
Chinese rely chiefly ON food and clothing to
keep themselves warm. Such an eXtrava-
gance as fuel 10 increase ones bodily heat
Is unknown. The houses are not warmed,
and the cold of nature will he doubled by
the lack of food 10 resist 1t.
China's Food supply.
Few people realize the enormous amount
of food it takes to supply the Chinese
There are about four hundred million ac-
tive stomachs trotting about inside these
ryellow skins, and each of them cries for
meals three times a day. The general
upinion at home is that they are kept quiet
on rats and rice. This is q mistake. Rats
are such poor eating that only the lowest
of the people touch them. and rice costs 50
much that is, consumption is largely con-
fined to the rice-raising regions of south
and central China. Most of the northern
Chinese cannot afford rice They live upon
rnillet corn. barley. beans, peas and sor-
ghun, seeds. They raise some wheat. eating
tho bran as we'll as the meal. They know
lust how much it takes to sustain life and
they are anxious 10 get the best and cheap
est food that the world can supply
American Flour in China.
The most of our flour which comes to
China costs too much for common con-
sumption 1t ts being eaten, however. by
the well-to-do, and thousands of sacks of
II are consumed as a coating for sweet
cakes We shipped fully twice much
last year as we did in 1S!i6, and in 1895 the
total amount was 59.GH,0D pounds. We
are increasing shipments now to the
.garrtsOns of foreign troops stationed In Ger
man English and Russian China, and the
soldiers now at Tfen Tsin, Pekin and in
Shantung and Manchuria will require tens
os thousands of additional sacks.
From the importing houses here 1 nave
learned how the -four is brought across the
Pacific. 1t is put up in cloth sacks of fifty