The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-08-03

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mountainous regions; but there are
wide valleys and rolling plains, so
rich that they need to be only tick
led with the pillow to laugh with the
harvest
The southern half of Manchuria is
now fairly we'll settled. Above Muk-
den the farms are widely scattered
and there are huge areas Of govern
ment land which the authorities are
thinking Of throwing open to immi-
grants. The two American agri-
cultural experts tell me that they
have travelled for days over land as
rich as that Of any part of America,
which is now practically waste. They
say the farming methods are so crude
Ia if employed in the United States
they would produce practically nothing
Nevertheless, the Manchurian land
yields from thirty to fifty bushels OF
sorghum seed per acre, and twenty
bushels Of wheat. 1t produces about
fifty bushels of corn. and with i'm
proved seed and cultivation similar
to ours it would probably yield as
much maize on the average as the
corn belt Of the United States.
Where the Wheat is Hoed.
All crops here are planted in rows,
just see we plantcorn or tomatoes. The
rows are about eighteen inches apart
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each year. In the spring the grain is
sown with the hand in the old fur
rows of the year preceding, and the
pillow is then run along the sides to
cover it. It is tramped down by the
feet of the farmers, and is plowed
again and again throughout the sum
mer. In this way the grain has to
start from hard ground, which its
roots cannot easily penetrate. New
ertheless, the crops are good. In
most places the. grain is kept weeded
and in not a few wheat n millet
are hoed as we hoe cotton.
A curious feature of the farming
is that the rows are never plowed
straight. They wind their way over
the fields with all the regularity of
the ~undulations of a marcel wave.
tifully winding, but never straight.
Upon my asking a Tartar farmer
why this was he replied hat one
could get more grain from a field Of
crooked rows than from one of
straight ones.
An Agricultural Empire.
Few people have any idea Of the
extent Of these rich lands of Man
churia. The country is enormous,
and at present not one-ffth of it is
under cultivation, and that fifth is not
half farmed Manchuria, all told,
covers more area than ten states the
size of Indiana. 1t has more ground
thar Germany and France, and you
could put the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland into one
half Of it, and there would be lots
Of room around the edges. 1t is big
ged than all New England, Delaware,
Virginia., Pennsylvania, West Virgin
ia and South Carolina 1t
is more than twice as big as Japan, and
bigger han the states of Ohio. Indi-
ana, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and
Minnesota put together. This nor
nous territory has rivers running
north and south. 1t has streams as
big as the Mississippi, and, on the
whole, it is fairly we'll Watered.
Prof. Parker tells me that the grain
area is probably as large as Iowa,
Minnesota and the wv Dakotas, and
that crops Will grow much farther
north here thar in the United States.
Wheat soWn in April natures six
weeks sooner than in the like lati-
tudcs at home. It is the same with
India corn, which is ripe by the first
Of September, ~ about two weeks
earlier than in the United States.
The soy bean does not grow at it's