INTENSE CULTURE IN THE EAST

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 309, 24 May 1911, Page 3

INTENSE CULTURE IN THE EAST

A humble-minded pilgrimage by an export was seen im the visit of K. 11. King, of the Wisconsin Agricultural College, to China and Japan' to study why their soils could support three persons" to the acre. Western agriculturists have much to learn from those farmers who have made the soil respond for twenty and perhaps even forty centuries of service (says Collier's Weekly). The average farm is supporting three persons to the acre, and in nearly all parts of the densely-populated sections two, three, and sometimes even •four crops are taken from the same field each year. But this is not the only cause of their longer growing season. The almost universal practice of planting nearly all crops in rows and in hills in the row permits one crop to be planted, germinated, and often hoed before another crop has been removed from the field, thus utilising for growth all of the time we consume in removing the harvest and in fitting the ground for the next crop. Then there is the other verv extensive practice of starting crops in nurseries under conditions of intensive fertilisation, securing on a much smaller area rapid growth and stronger plants, which are then transferred to the fields. In this manner even t.lie vtutt areas covered by the staple rice crop are handled, the plants being grown thirty or more days in small beds, gaining thereby thirty to fifty days, during whcili another crop on the same field is matured, harvested, and the ground fitted for the one to follow.

Human labor is the one asset of which they have an excess, and it is freely used in securing the effect of longer seasons, which, because of their geographical position, exceed the American. Tn southern China two crops of rice are regularly taken, and this is true even in parts of Japan, In the Ohekinng province a crop of rape, of wheat, or beans, or of green mulching precedes the summer crop of rice or of cotton. Tn the Shantung province a crop of winter wheat, or of barley is followed in the summer with a crop of millet and soy beans, of sweet potatoes, or peanuts. As far north as Tientsin and IVkin. in the latitude of Columbus (Ohio), Indianapolis (Indiana) and Springfield (Illinois). Mr. King talked with a farmer who followed his crop of wheat with one of onions, and these with cabbage the same year, realising a gross earning of 10:! dollars gold per acre. Another farmer planted a crop of white potatoes at- (lie earliest opportunity in the spring, marketed them young, and followed with onions and then with cabbage, realising 20: idol. per acre for three crops.