The Hawaiian gazette., 1900-12-28
THE FOOD OF CHINA
CONTINUED from Page ~

OF this kind In the rear, and sometimes
; a dozen sets of stones viii be moved by
as many bullocks.
The only modern -four mills of China
are at Shanghai and at Wuhu, on the
Yangtse kiang, about 240 miles north
of here, The Shanghai mill will soon
be doing a big business. 1t has been
put UP by a prominent American miller,
with the finest of American improve
ments, electrical and otherwise, and 1t
Is, 1 am told as good as any mill in
! Minneapolis, though not as large. 1t
has cost about 100000, is owned by Chi
nese capital, and will be fed with Chi
nese wheat. The Chinese propretors
visited the United States, carrying two
or three bushels of wheat along with
them to see whether our machinery
would work equally well with their
grain. The amount brought was so
small that no test could be made, but
there Is no doubt as to the success Of
the undertaking.
CHINA'S BIG BREAD BASKET.
one of the big bread baskets OF the
Chinese empire is the great plain which
extends north of the Yangtse. There
are hundreds of miles of this region
which are covered with wheat. The
plain from north to south Is as long as
from New York to Cleveland. 1t is al
most as wide as from New York to
| Plttsburg, and great part of it con-
tains good wheat soil Much of the
land Is too high for irrigation, but the
soil is so rich that in ordinary seasons
| 1t produces good crops
had a chat the other day with Capt.
| w. w. Rich, the foreign adviser to
Sheng, the head of the Chinese impe-
rial railways. Capt. Rich has travelled
over most of the empire, surveying rail-
roads and reporting on mines and other
matters for Sheng He is from Mime
apolis, and ought to know wheat when
he sees it, Said he.
THE wheat fields of the great Chi
nese plains remind me of the bonanza
farms of the Dakotas They extend on
and on for miles. There are no fences
and no barns-nothing but wheat
wheat! wheat! Here and there Is a
clump of trees. Each of the tree
clumps marks a Chinese village, rang
ing in size from few houses up to
hundreds. The farmers live in the vii
lagos and go out from them to their
work. The land is owned in small
patches, but to the stranger 1t has no
visible boundaries"
us the country thickly populated?'
Yes" replied Capt. Rich. Much
more thlckly than I supposed at first
was surprised at the number of peo-
pie in village The families are large,
and you find eight or ten persons in
one house. Nearly every village be-
longs to a clan or family. 1t has It's
head men, who act as their governors,
and who are well posted on all matters
connected with their localities. / talk
ed with many of these old men. They
told me that it took all the wheat they
could raise to feed the local population.
They could not give me any encourage
ment as to export. You see, | was look
ing up freight for possible railroad.
asked them what they did when they
had big crop. They answered that
they stored it in public granaries
against the times of famine"
1t is cultivated in n way that would
surprise our bonanza farmers. The
grain is first sowed in seed beds and
the stalks transplanted, plant by plant,
like rice. The stalks are set out in
rows about six inches apart, in little
punches of five or six stalks. The crop
is kept free from weeds. 1t Is hoed
and sprinkled with liquid manure.
In the larger wheat regions which
Captatn Rich saw the wheat Is sown
with rude drills which drop three rows
- " tive. Tho crop is hood aNd scion
tifcally cultivated. although the plow-
ing Is very shallow.
several hundred miles above here in
the Yangtse valley the farmers plant
their wheat in hills. They hoe it regu-
larry and weed 1t. They cut 1t with a
sickle and fail it out on a threshing
floor.
A BIG CHANCE FOR AMERICAN
CORN.
Uncle Sam should profit by the ap-
preaching famine to introduce Ameri- !
can corn. The beggars will be legion |
and thousands will starve. Ship loads |
of corn might be sent and the food thus
introduced Sooner or later China will /
be our greatest corn market. When /
the Nicaragua canal Is completed the
chief fleet of the Pacific will be the corn
feet. Hundreds of steamers will then
hA mi
valley to the countless millions on the
opposite side of the Pacific. Asia has
more than a half billion people who
want the cheapest food that will sus-
tain life.
There is no cereal that has as much
nutriment as corn. 1t is better and
cheaper than wheat, rice, or any othe~
and we can raise enough to supply the
world. our corn crop is our biggest
'rOp. We raise about two billion bush
lis every year, and even as things now
are this has value almost double that
If the wheat crop. With the increased
demand from Asia 1t will be worth
much more and the area can be so In
creased that we can feed the world. At
present about three ourths of our corn
$ consumed in the United States, while
about half our wheat is exported. In
he future there viii be as great de-
nand for corn as for wheat.
FAMINE AN OPENING WEDGE. I
The coming famine should be the
opening wedge There will be n great
demand for cheap bread stuffs, and II
'orn can be sent out at low price It
AN be sold. a large amount could
De given away at a profit. The cooks
iere are organized into a trades union
~ guild. If few of these cooks We're
aught how to prepare the product FOR
he public restaurants. the food might
oon become popular II could be also
;lven out through the famine kitchens
md charitable restaurants, which at
uch times are often established by the
and In this way might get a
oothold which would he permanent.
So far our people have not appre-
lated this market Some of the Chi
cse have tried to get corn and failed
I was only last year that one OF them,
Ccording To John Fowler, the United