The Peasantry of Central China.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 372, 29 May 1889, Page 3

The Peasantry of Central China.

A consular report on agriculture in the district of Chinkiang, on the Yangbszo, which has lately been issued, will be read with interest at the present moment, as the district includes the most southern of the faminine-stricken regions. The district is mainly agricultural, wheat, rice, beans, peas, peanuts, indigo, cotton, vegetables, melon seeds, buck wheat and silk being produced south of the river, and millet, lily flowers, walnuts, vegetable tallow, corn, vegetable soap, rice peas and beafls, and seasamum seeds coming from the north. During 1888, from May, a severe drought prevailed, and over 50 square miles of country south of the river the crop was not a tenth of that of ordinary years, while to the north floods have been dreaded rather than drought. Tha agricultural year in the district is as follows : Wheat is sown in November, or as aoon as the rice crop is cleared off the ground. It is «own by hand after a shower of rain, and the ground is then lightly harrowed and left. In three weeks the young wheat appears above the ground, but does not grow to any height until March or April, and by the beginning of May it is nearly ready to be cut. Two hundred pounds to the sixth of an acie is considered a good crop. Near the towns vegetables are grown in large quantities month after month, the ground being preserved from exhaustion by constant sprinkling with liquid manure. Peas and beans are sown in October and gathered in August, cotton is sown in April and the crop is ready in October. As soon as the wheat has been cut, the ground is ploughed up, water is let into the fields, and the young rice plants are planted out. They have been raised from seed in small, well watered plots oi ground, where they are carefully tended till they are ready for transplanting. The crop is reaped in October. In northern Kiangsu millet takes the place of rice. Thus a succession of wheat and rice crops are taken every year off the low-lying lands, while on the higher erround, which is beyond the roach of artificial irrigation, a succession of crops of vegetables of various kinds, peas, beans, cotton, indigo, &c, is obtained. South of the river the land is owned in small properties of from 4 to 8 acres in extent, but to the north some very large properties exist, and are let out at rent. Properties of 66,000 and 50,000 acres belong to two families, and those between 1,000 and 10,000 acres are not uncommon. The rent on the average is about 28s an acre ; but the metayer system is almost universally in force, and the amount paid, to the landlord varies with the season ana the amount of the crop. ' The hard, rigid, unyielding systems prevalent in Europe are not usual in China, nor are they in accordance with the popular ideas of equity and justice.' The houses of the peasantry are rough, rude and bare to a degree, among the few poor ornaments being occasionally an empty foreign beer bottle. It is in the fields, not in the house, that one sees the neatness, care, industry and thrift of the Chinese peasant. The land tax is 10s to 12s per annum on good land, 6s to 8s on tho inferior kind. In towns 18s an acre is paid. The people consume chiefly the produce of their farms, their daily meal consisting of rice, vegetables, a little fish and soy. Once a month, on festival days, they eafc meat, generally pork. Tea is the usual drink, made as often as not from willow leaves. The amount of rice consumed at a meal, and the quantity of hard work performed on such a diet, are both remarkable.