Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-11-07
CHINESE FARMERS
THEY ARE INDUSTRIOUS, BUT
LACK ORIGINALITY.
Keep Down Weeds, but Refuse to Use
Irrigation or to Select
Seeds.
from the Nerth China News.

From the North China News
The casual traveller in China, of whom
there is an eyer-increasing number, is not
unlikely to be impressed with the spectacle
of an untold number of millions OF people
going on their simple life just as their
cestors did before them without making
any fuss about 1t, and with eye open to
any occult relation to sociology any
other branch of human learning. This i'm
preston deepens if he reads or has read
the idyllic pictures drawn by occasional ma
tives of China, who, having wandered afar
and having had their eyes enlightened by
the learning of the west, repay the debt by
lauding the superior simplicity and salts
factoriness Of the Chinese rural existence
as compared with anything which these
wise men have found elsewhere. very
small knowledge of Chinese life as it is
suffices to prick these bubbles, which, be 1t
observed. are blown for use abroad and not
for inspection by foreigners in China.
Many advantages the Chinese rustic no
doubt has, but what is it that he lacks. and
with which he can by any means at our
command be supplied?
China's Great Plain.
Rural China is a term many sizes too
large for use in such a connection. there
fore let restrict our purview to some
special reason, say the great plain stretch
ing from the mountains behind Pekin to
the "Yangste valley Gf any of our readers
happen to know what that is. Here the
conditions are to a certain extent homoge-
neous, and the aggregate of population Is
probably not to be equaled elsewhere on
the planet, unless 1t may be on the great
plains of Bengal. One may consider at
tentively the 'SociologicaI' conditions of
these uncounted and innumerabe millions
without arriving at any definite perception
of what modern science can do for them.
For of course it is no answer to this ques-
ton Ito order half of them to clear out or
to get killed, so that the remaining half
can the more easily survive. That recipe
was tried in 1S77-7S on a vast scale, it
has often been involuntarily tested be-
fore, but within a few years the recurrent
conditions are practically the same as be-
fore and nothing has been achieved by the
way of relief. On consideration, perhaps,
We might agree that the most pressing ex-
ternal need of these people is an abundant
supply of water Rivers, of course, there
already are, and wells.
Little Irrigation.
But there are not many small streams,
and irrigation is limited to a narrow band
along the banks of such there are, and
is only accomplished with great labor.
None of the wells are more than twenty
or at most thirty feet deep, and the task
of cultivatng garden" is one Of the
heaviest of rural tolls, and, while the re-
turns are more certain than those from
ordinary farming, they are by no means ex-
travagant. The whole country is underlaid
with inexha ustible supplies of water, which
could be readily reached and brought to
the surface by artesian or some other form
of we'll. The breezes of heaven are abund-
ant and continuous; in the dusty season,
which forms large part Of the year. far
too much Whoever has witnessed the
transformation effected in the desert" of
Utah and on the alkaline plains of Nevada
by irrigation alone, does not require to be
told that iunumerable ever flowing wells
and a wide sown crop of windmills would
change the face Of the Chinese great plain
till every acre of land would produce dou-
BILE, if not manifold, more than it now does.
Scarcity of Fuel.
Another serious lack of almost all this
wide region is cheap fuel and where this
is not felt the result is to make the general
phenomena still more conspicuous. Every
spear of straw has value as fuel. North
ern China is perhaps the only country on
earth where, after all other harvests have
been safely gathered in, there still remains
the leaf crop, every tree being artiicially
denuded to help to keep the. pot boiling
Yet at but relatively short distance there
are illimitable quantities Of excellent coal,
some of the best in the world, practically
not yet touched. 1t is mere question of
capacity of output and facility of trans
portation. The Chinese have an adage con-
corning one who has food, but who does
not know enough to eat it; who. although
he possesses a bed quilt. has not sense
enough to go to sleep. This symbolic Ian
guage aptly represents the Chinese people
themselves; they have the materials, as
they have always had but they lack the
wisdom to use them. 1t Is one of the IRA
tional generalizations of the superficial OBJ
server in China-or out of it-that as farm
ers the Chinese beat the world. Look at
their numbers, their skill, their patience
and deny it If you can.
We have looked at their numbers their
skill and their patience, and we wish TO
remark that, instead of their beating the
world, the world is visibly beating them,
and will continue to do so more and more