pleasant mornings when the air was still, the laying of warp for
cotton cloth could be seen, to be woven later in the country homes.
We saw this work in progress many times and in many places in the
early morning, usually along some roadside or open place, as seen in
Fig. 65, but never later in the day. When the warp is laid each will
be rolled upon its stretcher and removed to the house to be woven.
In many places in Kiangsu province batteries of the large dye pits
were seen sunk in the fields and lined with cement. These were six
to eight feet in diameter and four to five feet deep. In one case
observed there were nine pits in the set. Some of the pits were
neatly sheltered beneath live arbors, as represented in Fig. 66. But
much of this spinning, weaving, dyeing and printing of late years is
being displaced by the cheaper calicos of foreign make and most of
the dye pits we saw were not now used for this purpose, the two in
the illustration serving as manure receptacles. Our interpreter
stated however that there is a growing dissatisfaction with foreign
goods on account of their lack of durability; and we saw many cases
where the cloth dyed blue was being dried in large quantities on the
grave lands.
In another home for nearly an hour we observed a method of beating
cotton and of laying it to serve as the body for mattresses and the
coverlets for beds. This we could do without intrusion because the
home was also the work shop and opened full width directly upon the
narrow street. The heavy wooden shutters which closed the home at
night were serving as a work bench about seven feet square, laid
upon movable supports. There was barely room to work between it and
the sidewalk without impeding traffic, and on the three other sides
there was a floor space three or four feet wide. In the rear sat
grandmother and wife while in and out the four younger children were
playing. Occupying the two sides of the room were receptacles filled
with raw cotton and appliances for the work. There may have been a
kitchen and sleeping room behind but no door, as such, was visible.
The finished mattresses, carefully rolled and wrapped in paper, were
suspended from the ceiling. On the improvised work table, with its
top two feet above the floor, there had been laid in the morning
before our visit, a mass of soft white cotton more than six feet
square and fully twelve inches deep. On opposite sides of this table
the father and his son, of twelve years, each twanged the string of
their heavy bamboo bows, snapping the lint from the wads of cotton
and flinging it broadcast in an even layer over the surface of the
growing mattress, the two strings the while emitting tones pitched
far below the hum of the bumblebee. The heavy bow was steadied by a
cord secured around the body of the operator, allowing him to manage
it with one hand and to move readily around his work in a manner
different from the custom of the Japanese seen in Fig. 67. By this
means the lint was expeditiously plucked and skillfully and
uniformly laid, the twanging being effected by an appliance similar
to that used in Japan.
Repeatedly, taken in small bits from the barrel of cotton, the lint
was distributed over the entire surface with great dexterity and
uniformity, the mattress growing upward with perfectly vertical
sides, straight edges and square corners. In this manner a
thoroughly uniform texture is secured which compresses into a body
of even thickness, free from hard places.
The next step in building the mattress is even more simple and
expeditious. A basket of long bobbins of roughly spun cotton was
near the grandmother and probably her handiwork. The father took
from the wall a slender bamboo rod like a fish-pole, six feet long,
and selecting one of the spools, threaded the strand through an eye
in the small end. With the pole and spool in one hand and the free
end of the thread, passing through the eye, in the other, the father
reached the thread across the mattress to the boy who hooked his
finger over it, carrying it to one edge of the bed of cotton. While
this was doing the father had whipped the pole back to his side and
caught the thread over his own finger, bringing this down upon the
cotton opposite his son. There was thus laid a double strand, but
the pole continued whipping hack and forth across the bed, father
and son catching the threads and bringing them to place on the
cotton at the rate of forty to fifty courses per minute, and in a
very short time the entire surface of the mattress had been laid
with double strands. A heavy bamboo roller was next laid across the
strands at the middle, passed carefully to one side, back again to
the middle and then to the other edge. Another layer of threads was
then laid diagonally and this similarly pressed with the same
roller; then another diagonally the other way and finally straight
across in both directions. A similar network of strands had been
laid upon the table before spreading the cotton. Next a flat
bottomed, circular, shallow basket-like form two feet in diameter
was used to gently compress the material from twelve to six inches
in thickness. The woven threads were now turned over the edge of the
mattress on all sides and sewed down, after which, by means of two
heavy solid wooden disks eighteen inches in diameter, father and son
compressed the cotton until the thickness was reduced to three
inches. There remained the task of carefully folding and wrapping
the finished piece in oiled paper and of suspending it from the
ceiling.
On March 20th, when visiting the Boone Road and Nanking Road markets
in Shanghai, we had our first surprise regarding the extent to which
vegetables enter into the daily diet of the Chinese. We had observed
long processions of wheelbarrow men moving from the canals through
the streets carrying large loads of the green tips of rape in
bundles a foot long and five inches in diameter. These had come from
the country on boats each carrying tons of the succulent leaves and
stems. We had counted as many as fifty wheelbarrow men passing a
given point on the street in quick succession, each carrying 300 to
500 pounds of the green rape and moving so rapidly that it was not
easy to keep pace with them, as we learned in following one of the
trains during twenty minutes to its destination. During this time
not a man in the train halted or slackened his pace.
This rape is very extensively grown in the fields, the tips of the
stems cut when tender and eaten, after being boiled or steamed,
after the manner of cabbage. Very large quantities are also packed
with salt in the proportion of about twenty pounds of salt to one
hundred pounds of the rape. This, Fig. 68, and many other vegetables
are sold thus pickled and used as relishes with rice, which
invariably is cooked and served without salt or other seasoning.
Another field crop very extensively grown for human food, and partly
as a source of soil nitrogen, is closely allied to our alfalfa. This
is the Medicago astragalus, two beds of which are seen in Fig. 69.
Tender tips of the stems are gathered before the stage of blossoming
is reached and served as food after boiling or steaming. It is known
among the foreigners as Chinese "clover." The stems are also cooked
and then dried for use when the crop is out of season. When picked
very young, wealthy Chinese families pay an extra high price for the
tender shoots, sometimes as much as 20 to 28 cents, our currency,
per pound.
The markets are thronged with people making their purchases in the
early mornings, and the congested condition, with the great variety
of vegetables, makes it almost as impressive a sight as Billingsgate
fish market in London. In the following table we give a list of
vegetables observed there and the prices at which they were selling.
-----------------------------------------------------------
LIST OF VEGETABLES DISPLAYED FOR SALE IN BOONE ROAD MARKET,
SHANGHAI, APRIL 6TH, 1900, WITH PRICES EXPRESSED
IN U. S. CURRENCY.--
---------------------------------------------------------
Cents
Lotus roots, per lb. 1.60
Bamboo sprouts, per lb. 6.40
English cabbage, per lb. 1.33
Olive greens, per lb. .67
White greens, per lb. .33
Tee Tsai, per lb. .53
Chinese celery, per lb. .67
Chinese clover, per lb. .58
Chinese clover, very young, lb. 21.33
Oblong white cabbage, per lb. 2.00
Red beans, per lb. 1.33
Yellow beans, per lb. 1.87
Peanuts, per lb. 2.49
Ground nuts, per lb. 2.96
Cucumbers, per lb. 2.58
Green pumpkin, per lb. 1.62
Maize, shelled, per lb. 1.00
Windsor beans, dry, per lb. 1.72
French lettuce, per head .44
Hau Tsai, per head .87
Cabbage lettuce, per head .22
Kale, per lb. 1.60
Rape, per lb. .23
Portuguese water cress, basket 2.15
Shang tsor, basket 8.60
Carrots, per lb. .97
String beans; per lb. 1.60
Irish potatoes, per lb. 1.60
Red onions, per lb. 4.96
Long white turnips, per lb. .44
Flat string beans, per lb. 4.80
Small white turnips, bunch .44
Onion stems, per lb. 1.29
Lima beans, green, shelled, lb. 6.45
Egg plants, per lb. 4.30
Tomatoes, per lb. 5.16
Small flat turnips, per lb. .86
Small red beets, per lb. 1.29
Artichokes, per lb. 1.29
White beans, dry, per lb. 4.80
Radishes, per lb. 1.29
Garlic, per lb. 2.15
Kohl rabi, per lb. 2.15
Mint, per lb. 4.30
Leeks, per lb. 2.18
Large celery, bleached, bunch 2.10
Sprouted peas, per lb. .80
Sprouted beans, per lb. .93
Parsnips, per lb. 1.29
Ginger roots, per lb. 1.60
Water chestnuts, per lb. 1.33
Large sweet potatoes, per lb. 1.33
Small sweet potatoes, per lb. 1.00
Onion sprouts, per lb. 2.13
Spinach, per lb. 1.00
Fleshy stemmed lettuce, peeled,
per lb. 2.00
Fleshy stemmed lettuce, unpeeled,
per lb. .67
Bean curd, per lb. 3.93
Shantung walnuts, per lb. 4.30
Duck eggs, dozen 8.34
Hen's eggs, dozen 7.30
Goat's meat, per lb. 6.45
Pork, per lb. 6.88
Hens, live weight, per lb. 6.45
Ducks, live weight, per lb. 5.59
Cockerels, live weight, per lb. 5.59--
---------------------------------------------------------
This long list, made up chiefly of fresh vegetables displayed for
sale on one market day, is by no means complete. The record is only
such as was made in passing down one side and across one end of the
market occupying nearly one city block. Nearly everything is sold by
weight and the problem of correct weights is effectively solved by
each purchaser carrying his own scales, which he unhesitatingly uses
in the presence of the dealer. These scales are made on the pattern
of the old time steelyards but from slender rods of wood or bamboo
provided with a scale and sliding poise, the suspensions all being
made with strings.
We stood by through the purchasing of two cockerels and the
dickering over their weight. A dozen live birds were under cover in
a large, open-work basket. The customer took out the birds one by
one, examining them by touch, finally selecting two, the price being
named. These the dealer tied together by their feet and weighed
them, announcing the result; whereupon the customer checked the
statement with his own scales. An animated dialogue followed,
punctuated with many gesticulations and with the customer tossing
the birds into the basket and turning to go away while the dealer
grew more earnest. The purchaser finally turned back, and again
balancing the roosters upon his scales, called a bystander to read
the weight, and then flung them in apparent disdain at the dealer,
who caught them and placed them in the customer's basket. The storm
subsided and the dealer accepted 92c, Mexican, for the two birds.
They were good sized roosters and must have dressed more than three
pounds each, yet for the two he paid less than 40 cents in our
currency.
Bamboo sprouts are very generally used in China, Korea and Japan and
when one sees them growing they suggest giant stalks of asparagus,
some of them being three and even five inches in diameter and a foot
in height at the stage for cutting. They are shipped in large
quantities from province to province where they do not grow or when
they are out of season. Those we saw in Nagasaki referred to in Fig.
22, had come from Canton or Swatow or possibly Formosa. The form,
foliage and bloom of the bamboo give the most beautiful effects in
the landscape, especially when grouped with tree forms. They are
usually cultivated in small clumps about dwellings in places not
otherwise readily utilized, as seen in Fig. 66. Like the asparagus
bud, the bamboo sprout grows to its full height between April and
August, even when it exceeds thirty or even sixty feet in height.
The buds spring from fleshy underground stems or roots whose stored
nourishment permits this rapid growth, which in its earlier stages
may exceed twelve inches in twenty-four hours. But while the full
size of the plant is attained the first season, three or four years
are required to ripen and harden the wood sufficiently to make it
suitable for the many uses to which the stems are put. It would seem
that the time must come when some of the many forms of bamboo will
be introduced and largely grown in many parts of this country.
Lotus roots form another article of diet largely used and widely
cultivated from Canton to Tokyo. These are seen in the lower section
of Fig. 70, and the plants in bloom in Fig. 71, growing in water,
their natural habitat. The lotus is grown in permanent ponds not
readily drained for rice or other crops, and the roots are widely
shipped.
Sprouted beans and peas of many kinds and the sprouts of other
vegetables, such as onions, are very generally seen in the markets
of both China and Japan, at least during the late winter and early
spring, and are sold as foods, having different flavors and
digestive qualities, and no doubt with important advantageous
effects in nutrition.
Ginger is another. crop which is very widely and extensively
cultivated. It is generally displayed in the market in the root
form. No one thing was more generally hawked about the streets of
China than the water chestnut. This is a small corm or fleshy bulb
having the shape and size of a small onion. Boys pare them and sell
a dozen spitted together on slender sticks the length of a knitting
needle. Then there are the water caltropes, grown in the canals
producing a fruit resembling a horny nut having a shape which
suggests for them the name "buffalo-horn". Still another plant,
known as water-grass (Hydropyrum latifolium) is grown in Kiangsu
province where the land is too wet for rice. The plant has a tender
succulent crown of leaves and the peeling of the outer coarser ones
away suggests the husking of an ear of green corn. The portion eaten
is the central tender new growth, and when cooked forms a delicate
savory dish. The farmers' selling price is three to four dollars,
Mexican, per hundred catty, or $.97 to $1.29 per hundredweight, and
the return per acre is from $13 to $20.
The small number of animal products which are included in the market
list given should not be taken as indicating the proportion of
animal to vegetable foods in the dietaries of these people. It is
nevertheless true that they are vegetarians to a far higher degree
than are most western nations, and the high maintenance efficiency
of the agriculture of China, Korea and Japan is in great measure
rendered possible by the adoption of a diet so largely vegetarian.
Hopkins, in his Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture, page 234,
makes this pointed statement of fact: "1000 bushels of grain has at
least five times as much food value and will support five times as
many people as will the meat or milk that can be made from it". He
also calls attention to the results of many Rothamsted feeding
experiments with growing and fattening cattle, sheep and swine,
showing that the cattle destroyed outright, in every 100 pounds of
dry substance eaten, 57.3 pounds, this passing off into the air, as
does all of wood except the ashes, when burned in the stove; they
left in the excrements 36.5 pounds, and stored as increase but 6.2
pounds of the 100. With sheep the corresponding figures were 60.1
pounds; 31.9 pounds and 8 pounds; and with swine they were 65.7
pounds; 16.7 pounds and 17.6 pounds. But less than two-thirds of the
substance stored in the animal can become food for man and hence we
get but four pounds in one hundred of the dry substances eaten by
cattle in the form of human food; but five pounds from the sheep and
eleven pounds from swine.
In view of these relations, only recently established as scientific
facts by rigid research, it is remarkable that these very ancient
people came long ago to discard cattle as milk and meat producers;
to use sheep more for their pelts and wool than for food; while
swine are the one kind of the three classes which they did retain in
the role of middleman as transformers of coarse substances into
human food.
It is clear that in the adoption of the succulent forms of
vegetables as human food important advantages are gained. At this
stage of maturity they have a higher digestibility, thus making the
elimination of the animal less difficult. Their nitrogen content is
relatively higher and this in a measure compensates for loss of
meat. By devoting the soil to growing vegetation which man can
directly digest they have saved 60 pounds per 100 of absolute waste
by the animal, returning their own wastes to the field for the
maintenance of fertility. In using these immature forms of
vegetation so largely as food they are able to produce an immense
amount that would otherwise be impossible, for this is grown in a
shorter time, permitting the same soil to produce more crops. It is
also produced late in the fall and early in the spring when the
season is too cold and the hours of sunshine too few each day to
permit of ripening crops.
VII
THE FUEL PROBLEM, BUILDING AND
TEXTILE MATERIALS
With the vast and ever increasing demands made upon materials which
are the products of cultivated fields, for food, for apparel, for
furnishings and for cordage, better soil management must grow more
important as populations multiply. With the increasing cost and
ultimate exhaustion of mineral fuel; with our timber vanishing
rapidly before the ever growing demands for lumber and paper; with
the inevitably slow growth of trees and the very limited areas which
the world can ever afford to devote to forestry, the time must
surely come when, in short period rotations, there will be grown
upon the farm materials from which to manufacture not only paper and
the substitutes for lumber, but fuels as well. The complete
utilization of every stream which reaches the sea, reinforced by the
force of the winds and the energy of the waves which may be
transformed along the coast lines, cannot fully meet the demands of
the future for power and heat; hence only in the event of science
and engineering skill becoming able to devise means for transforming
the unlimited energy of space through which we are ever whirled,
with an economy approximating that which crops now exhibit, can good
soil management be relieved of the task of meeting a portion of the
world's demand for power and heat.
When these statements were made in 1905 we did not know that for
centuries there had existed in China, Korea and Japan a density of
population such as to require the extensive cultivation of crops for
fuel and building material, as well as for fabrics, by the ordinary
methods of tillage, and hence another of the many surprises we had
was the solution these people had reached of their fuel problem and
of how to keep warm. Their solution has been direct and the simplest
possible. Dress to make fuel for warmth of body unnecessary, and
burn the coarser stems of crops, such as cannot be eaten, fed to
animals or otherwise made useful. These people still use what wood
can be grown on the untillable land within transporting distance,
and convert much wood into charcoal, making transportation over
longer distances easier. The general use of mineral fuels, such as
coal, coke, oils and gas, had been impossible to these as to every
other people until within the last one hundred years. Coal, coke,
oil and natural gas, however, have been locally used by the Chinese
from very ancient times. For more than two thousand years brine from
many deep wells in Szechwan province has been evaporated with heat
generated by the burning of natural gas from wells, conveyed through
bamboo stems to the pans and burned from iron terminals. In other
sections of the same province much brine is evaporated over coal
fires. Alexander Hosie estimates the production of salt in Szechwan
province at more than 600 million pounds annually.
Coal is here used also to some extent for warming the houses, burned
in pits sunk in the floor, the smoke escaping where it may. The same
method of heating we saw in use in the post office at Yokohama
during February. The fires were in large iron braziers more than two
feet across the top, simply set about the room, three being in
operation. Stoves for house warming are not used in dwellings in
these countries.
In both China and Japan we saw coal dust put into the form and size
of medium oranges by mixing it with a thin paste of clay. Charcoal
is similarly molded, as seen in Fig. 72, using a by-product from the
manufacture of rice syrup for cementing. In Nanking we watched with
much interest the manufacture of charcoal briquets by another
method. A Chinese workman was seated upon the earth floor of a shop.
By his side was a pile of powdered charcoal, a dish of rice syrup
by-product and a basin of the moistened charcoal powder. Between his
legs was a heavy mass of iron containing a slightly conical mold two
inches deep, two and a half inches across at the top and a heavy
iron hammer weighing several pounds. In his left hand he held a
short heavy ramming tool and with his right placed in the mold a
pinch of the moistened charcoal; then followed three well directed
blows from the hammer upon the ramming tool, compressing the charge
of moistened, sticky charcoal into a very compact layer. Another
pinch of charcoal was added and the process repeated until the mold
was filled, when the briquet was forced out.
By this simplest possible mechanism, the man, utilizing but a small
part of his available energy, was subjecting the charcoal to an
enormous pressure such as we attain only with the best hydraulic
presses, and he was using the principle of repeated small charges
recently patented and applied in our large and most efficient cotton
and hay presses, which permit much denser bales to be made than is
possible when large charges are added, and the Chinese is here, as
in a thousand other ways, thoroughly sound in his application of
mechanical principles. His output for the day was small but his
patience seemed unlimited. His arms and body, bared to the waist,
showed vigor and good feeding, while his face wore the look of
contentment.
With forty centuries of such inheritance coursing in the veins of
four hundred millions of people, in a country possessed of such
marvelous wealth of coal and water power, of forest and of
agricultural possibilities, there should be a future speedily
blossoming and ripening into all that is highest and best for such a
nation. If they will retain their economies and their industry and
use their energies to develop, direct and utilize the power in their
streams and in their coal fields along the lines which science has
now made possible to them, at the same time walking in paths of
peace and virtue, there is little worth while which may not come to
such a people.