littered with stubble of the previous crop, and in many instances
such stubble was being gathered and removed to the villages, large
stacks having been piled in the yards to be used either as fuel or
in the production of compost. As the train approached Taling ho
groups of men were hoeing in millet fields, thirty in one group on
one side and fifty in another body on the other. Many small herds of
cattle, horses, donkeys and flocks of goats and sheep were feeding
along stream courses and on the unplanted fields. Beyond the
station, after crossing the river, still another sand dune tract was
passed, planted with willows, millet occupying the level areas
between the dunes, and not far beyond, wide untilled flats were
crossed, on which many herds were grazing and dotted with grave
mounds as we neared Koupantze, where a branch of the railway
traverses the Liao plain to the port of Newchwang. It was in this
region that there came the first suggestion of resemblance to our
marshland meadows; and very soon there were seen approaching from
the distance loads so green that except for the large size one would
have judged them to be fresh grass. They were loads of cured hay in
the brightest green, the result, no doubt, of curing under their dry
weather conditions.
At Ta Hu Shan large quantities of grain in sacks were piled along
the tracks and in the freight yards, but under matting shelters.
Near here, too, large three-mule loads of dry earth compost were
going to the fields and men were busy pulverizing and mixing it on
the threshing floors preparatory for use. Nearly all crops growing
were one or another of the millets, but considerable areas were yet
unplanted and on these cattle, horses, mules and donkeys were
feeding and eight more loads of very bright new made hay crossed the
track.
When the train reached Sinminfu where the railway turns abruptly
eastward to cross the Liao ho to reach Mukden we saw the first
extensive massing of the huge bean cakes for export, together with
enormous quantities of soy beans in sacks piled along the railway
and in the freight yards or loaded on cars made up in trains ready
to move. Leaving this station we passed among fields of grain
looking decidedly yellow, the first indication we had seen in China
of crops nitrogen-hungry and of soils markedly deficient in
available nitrogen. Beyond the next station the fields were
decidedly spotted and uneven as well as yellow, recalling conditions
so commonly seen at home and which had been conspicuously absent
here before. Crossing the Liao ho with its broad channel of shifting
sands, the river carrying the largest volume of water we had yet
seen, but the stream very low and still characteristic of the close
of the dry season of semi-arid climates, we soon reached another
station where the freight yards and all of the space along the
tracks were piled high with bean cakes and yet the fields about were
reflecting the impoverished condition of the soil through the yellow
crops and their uneven growth on the fields.
Since the Japanese-Russian war the shipments of soy beans and of
bean cake from Manchuria have increased enormously. Up to this time
there had been exports to the southern provinces of China where the
bean cakes were used as fertilizers for the rice fields, but the new
extensive markets have so raised the price that in several instances
we were informed they could not then afford to use bean cake as
fertilizer. From Newchwang alone, in 1905, between January 1st and
March 31st, there went abroad 2,286,000 pounds of beans and bean
cake, but in 1906 the amount had increased to 4,883,000 pounds. But
a report published in the Tientsin papers as official, while we were
there, stated that the value of the export of bean cake and soy
beans from Dalny for the months ending March 31st had been, in 1909,
only $1,635,000, gold, compared with $3,065,000 in the corresponding
period of 1908, and of $5,120,000 in 1907, showing a marked
decrease.
Edward C. Parker, writing from Mukden for the Review of Reviews,
stated: "The bean cake shipments from Newchwang, Dalny and Antung in
1908 amounted to 515,198 tons; beans, 239,298 tons; bean oil, 1930
tons; having a total value of $15,016,649 (U. S. gold)". According
to the composition of soy beans as indicated in Hopkins' table of
analyses, these shipments of beans and bean cake would remove an
aggregate of 6171 tons of phosphorus, 10,097 tons of potassium, and
47,812 tons of nitrogen from Manchurian soils as the result of
export for that year. Could such a rate have been maintained during
two thousand years there would have been sold from these soils
20,194,000 tons of potassium; 12,342,000 tons of phosphorus and
95,624,000 tons of nitrogen; and the phosphorus, were it thus
exported, would have exceeded more than threefold all thus far
produced in the United States; it would have exceeded the world's
output in 1906 more than eighteen times, even assuming that all
phosphate rock mined was seventy-five per cent pure.
The choice of the millets and the sorghums as the staple bread crops
of northern China and Manchuria has been quite as remarkable as the
selection of rice for the more southern latitudes, and the two
together have played a most important part in determining the high
maintenance efficiency of these people. In nutritive value these
grains rank well with wheat; the stems of the larger varieties are
extensively used for both fuel and building material and the smaller
forms make excellent forage and have been used directly for
maintaining the organic content of the soil. Their rapid development
and their high endurance of drought adapt them admirably to the
climate of north China and Manchuria where the rains begin only
after late June and where weather too cold for growth comes earlier
in the fall. The quick maturity of these crops also permits them to
be used to great advantage even throughout the south, in their
systems of multiple cropping so generally adopted, while their great
resistance to drought, being able to remain at a standstill for a
long time when the soil is too dry for growth and yet be able to
push ahead rapidly when favorable rains come, permits them to be
used on the higher lands generally where water is not available for
irrigation.
In the Shantung province the large millet, sorghum or kaoliang,
yields as high as 2000 to 3000 pounds of seed per acre, and 5600 to
6000 pounds of air-dry stems, equal in weight to 1.6 to 1.7 cords of
dry oak wood. In the region of Mukden, Manchuria, its average yield
of seed is placed at thirty-five bushels of sixty pounds weight per
acre, and with this comes one and a half tons of fuel or of building
material. Hosie states that, the kaoliang is the staple food of the
population of Manchuria and the principal grain food of the work
animals. The grain is first washed in cold water and then poured
into a kettle with four times its volume of boiling water and cooked
for an hour, without salt, as with rice. It is eaten with chopsticks
with boiled or salted vegetables. He states that an ordinary servant
requires about two pounds of this grain per day, and that a workman
at heavy labor will take double the amount. A Chinese friend of his,
keeping five servants, supplied them with 240 pounds of millet per
month, together with 16 pounds of native flour, regarded as
sufficient for two days, and meat for two days, the amount not being
stated. Two of the small millets (Setaria italica, and Panicum
milliaceum), wheat, maize and buckwheat are other grains which are
used as food but chiefly to give variety and change of diet.
Very large quantities of matting and wrappings are also made from
the leaves of the large millet, which serve many purposes
corresponding with the rice mattings and bags of Japan and southern
China.
The small millets, in Shantung, yield as high as 2700 pounds of seed
and 4800 pounds of straw per acre. In Japan, in the year 1906, there
were grown 737,719 acres of foxtail, barnyard and proso millet,
yielding 17,084,000 bushels of seed or an average of twenty-three
bushels per acre. In addition to the millets, Japan grew, the same
year, 5,964,300 bushels of buckwheat on 394,523 acres, or an average
of fifteen bushels per acre. The next engraving, Fig. 205, shows a
crop of millet already six inches high planted between rows of
windsor beans which had matured about the middle of June. The leaves
had dropped, the beans had been picked from the stems, and a little
later, when the roots had had time to decay the bean stems would be
pulled and tied in bundles for use as fuel or for fertilizer.
We had reached Mukden thoroughly tired after a long day of
continuous close observation and writing. The Astor House, where we
were to stop, was three miles from the station and the only
conveyance to meet the train was a four-seated springless, open,
semi-baggage carryall and it was a full hour lumbering its way to
our hotel. But here as everywhere in the Orient the foreigner meets
scenes and phases of life competent to divert his attention from
almost any discomfort. Nothing could be more striking than the
peculiar mode the Manchu ladies have of dressing their hair, seen in
Fig. 206, many instances of which were passed on the streets during
this early evening ride. It was fearfully and wonderfully done, laid
in the smoothest, glossiest black, with nearly the lateral spread of
the tail of a turkey cock and much of the backward curve of that of
the rooster; far less attractive than the plainer, refined, modest,
yet highly artistic style adopted by either Chinese or Japanese
ladies.
The journey from Mukden to Antung required two days, the train
stopping for the night at Tsaohokow. Our route lay most of the way
through mountainous or steep hilly country and our train was made up
of diminutive coaches drawn by a tiny engine over a three-foot
two-inch narrow gauge track of light rails laid by the Japanese
during the war with Russia, for the purpose of moving their armies
and supplies to the hotly contested fields in the Liao and Sungari
plains. Many of the grades were steep, the curves sharp, and in
several places it was necessary to divide the short train to enable
the engines to negotiate them.
To the southward over the Liao plain the crops were almost
exclusively millet and soy beans, with a little barley, wheat, and a
few oats. Between Mukden and the first station across the Hun river
we had passed twenty-four good sized fields of soy beans on one side
of the river and twenty-two on the other, and before reaching the
hilly country, after travelling a distance of possibly fifteen
miles, we had passed 309 other and similar fields close along the
track. In this distance also we had passed two of the monuments
erected by the Japanese, marking sites of their memorable battles.
These fields were everywhere flat, lying from sixteen to twenty feet
above the beds of the nearly dry streams, and the cultivation was
mostly being done with horses or cattle.
After leaving the plains country the railway traversed a narrow
winding valley less than a mile wide, with gradient so steep that
our train was divided. Fully sixty per cent of the hill slopes were
cultivated nearly to the summit and yet rising apparently more than
one in three to five feet, and the uncultivated slopes were closely
wooded with young trees, few more than twenty to thirty feet high,
but in blocks evidently of different ages. Beyond the pass many of
the cultivated slopes have walled terraces. We crossed a large
stream where railway ties were being rafted down the river. Just
beyond this river the train was again divided to ascend a gradient
of one in thirty, reaching the summit by five times switching back,
and matched on the other side of the pass by a down grade of one in
forty.
At many of the farm houses in the narrow valleys along the way large
rectangular, flat topped compost piles were passed, thirty to forty
inches high and twenty, thirty, forty and even in one case as much
as sixty feet square on the ground. More and more it became evident
that these mountain and hill lands were originally heavily wooded
and that the new growth springs up quickly, developing rapidly. It
was clear also that the custom of cutting over these wooded areas at
frequent intervals is very old, not always in the same stage of
growth but usually when the trees are quite small. Considerable
quantities of cordwood were piled at the stations along the railway
and were being loaded on the cars. This was always either round wood
or sticks split but once; and much charcoal, made mostly from round
wood or sticks split but once, was being shipped in sacks shaped
like those used for rice, seen in Fig. 180. Some strips of the
forest growth had been allowed to stand undisturbed apparently for
twenty or more years, but most areas have been cut at more frequent
intervals, often apparently once in three to five, or perhaps ten,
years.
At several places on the rapid streams crossed, prototypes of the
modern turbine water-wheel were installed, doing duty grinding beans
or grain. As with native machinery everywhere in China, these wheels
were reduced to the lowest terms and the principle put to work
almost unclothed. These turbines were of the downward discharge
type, much resembling our modern windmills, ten to sixteen feet in
diameter, set horizontally on a vertical axis rising through the
floor of the mill, with the vanes surrounded by a rim, the water
dropping through the wheel, reacting when reflected from the
obliquely set vanes. American engineers and mechanics would
pronounce these very crude, primitive and inefficient. A truer view
would regard them as examples of a masterful grasp of principle by
some, man who long ago saw the unused energy of the stream and
succeeded thus in turning it to account.
Both days of our journey had been bright and very warm and, although
we took the train early in the morning at Mukden, a young Japanese
anticipated the heat, entering the train clad only in his kimono and
sandals, carrying a suitcase and another bundle. He rode all day,
the most comfortably, if immodestly, clad man on the train, and the
next morning took his seat in front of us clad in the same garb, but
before the train reached Antung he took down his suitcase and then
and there, deliberately attired himself in a good foreign suit,
folding his kimono and packing it away with his sandals.
From Antung we crossed the Yalu on the ferry to New Wiju at 6:30 A.
M., June 22, and were then in quite a different country and among a
very different people, although all of the railway officials,
employes, police and guards were Japanese, as they had been from
Mukden. At Antung and New Wiju the Yalu is a very broad slow stream
resembling an arm of the sea more than a river, reminding one of the
St. Johns at Jacksonville, Florida.
June 22nd proved to be one of the national festival days in Korea,
called "Swing day", and throughout our entire ride to Seoul the
fields were nearly all deserted and throngs of people, arrayed in
gala dress, appeared all along the line of the railway, sometimes
congregating in bodies of two to three thousand or more, as seen in
Fig. 207. Many swings had been hung and were being enjoyed by the
young people. Boys and men were bathing in all sorts of "swimming
holes" and places. So too, there were many large open air gatherings
being addressed by public speakers, one of which is seen in Fig.
208.
Nearly everyone was dressed in white outer garments made from some
fabric which although not mosquito netting was nearly as open and
possessed of a remarkable stiffness which seemed to take and retain
every dent with astonishing effect and which was sufficiently
transparent to reveal a third undergarment. The full outstanding
skirts of five Korean women may be seen in Fig. 209, and the
trousers which went with these were proportionately full but tied
close about the ankles. The garments seemed to be possessed of a
powerful repulsion which held them quite apart and away from the
person, no doubt contributing much to comfort. It was windy but one
of those hot sultry, sticky days, and it made one feel cool to see
these open garments surging in the wind.
The Korean men, like the Chinese, wear the hair long but not braided
in a queue. No part of the head is shaved but the hair is wound in a
tight coil on the top of the head, secured by a pin which, in the
case of the Korean who rode in our coach from Mukden to Antung, was
a modern, substantial tenpenny wire nail. The tall, narrow, conical
crowns of the open hats, woven from thin bamboo splints, are
evidently designed to accommodate this style of hair dressing as
well as to be cool.
Here, too, as in China and Manchuria, nearly all crops are planted
in rows, including the cereals, such as wheat, rye, barley and oats.
We traversed first a flat marshy country with sandy soil and water
not more than four feet below the surface where, on the lowest areas
a close ally of our wild flower-de-luce was in bloom. Wheat was
coining into head but corn and millet were smaller than in
Manchuria. We had left New Wiju at 7:30 in the morning and at 8:15
we passed from the low land into a hill country with narrow valleys.
Scattering young pine, seldom more than ten to twenty-five feet
high, occupied the slopes and as we came nearer the hills were seen
to be clothed with many small oak, the sprouts clearly not more than
one or two years old. Roofs of dwellings in the country were usually
thatched with straw laid after the manner of shingles, as may be
seen in Fig. 210, where the hills beyond show the low tree growth
referred to, but here unusually dense. Bundles of pine boughs,
stacked and sheltered from the weather, were common along the way
and evidently used for fuel.
At 8:25 we passed through the first tunnel and there were many along
the route, the longest requiring thirty seconds for the passing of
the train. The valley beyond was occupied by fields of wheat where
beans were planted between the rows. Thus far none of the fields had
been as thoroughly tilled and well cared for as those seen in China,
nor were the crops as good. Further along we passed hills where the
pines were all of two ages, one set about thirty feet high and the
others twelve to fifteen feet or less, and among these were numerous
oak sprouts. Quite possibly these are used as food for the wild
silkworms. In some places appearances indicate that the oak and
other deciduous growth, with the grass, may be cut annually and only
the pines allowed to stand for longer periods. As we proceeded
southward and had passed Kosui the young oak sprouts were seen to
cover the hills, often stretching over the slopes much like a
regular crop, standing at a height of two to four feet, and fresh
bundles of these sprouts were seen at houses along the foot of the
slopes, again suggesting that the leaves may be for the tussur
silkworms although the time appears late for the first moulting.
After we had left Seoul, entering the broader valleys where rice was
more extensively grown, the using of the oak boughs and green grass
brought down from the hill lands for green manure became very
extensive.
After the winter and early spring crops have been harvested the
narrow ridges on which they are grown are turned into the furrows by
means of their simple plow drawn by a heavy bullock, different from
the cattle in China but closely similar to those in Japan. The
fields are then flooded until they have the appearance seen in Fig.
12. Over these flooded ridges the green grass and oak boughs are
spread, when the fields are again plowed and the material worked
into the wet soil. If this working is not completely successful men
enter the fields and tramp the surface until every twig and blade is
submerged. The middle section in this illustration has been fitted
and transplanted; in front of it and on the left are two other
fields once plowed but not fertilized; those far to the right have
had the green manure applied and the ground plowed a second time but
not finished, and in the immediate foreground the grass and boughs
have been scattered but the second plowing is not yet done.
We passed men and bullocks coming from the hill lands loaded with
this green herbage and as we proceeded towards Fusan more and more
of the hill area was being made to contribute materials for green
manure for the cultivated fields. The foreground of Fig. 211 had
been thus treated and so had the field in Fig. 212, where the man
was engaged in tramping the dressing beneath the surface. In very
many cases this material was laid along the margin of the paddies;
in other cases it had been taken upon the fields as soon as the
grain was cut and was lying in piles among the bundles; while in
still other cases the material for green manure had been carried
between the rows while the grain was still standing, but nearly
ready to harvest. In some fields a full third of a bushel of the
green stuff had been laid down at intervals of three feet over the
whole area. In other cases piles of ashes alternated with those of
herbage, and again manure and ashes mixed had been distributed in
alternate piles with the green manure.
In still other cases we saw untreated straw distributed through the
fields awaiting application. At Shindo this, straw had the
appearance of having been dipped in or smeared with some mixture,
apparently of mud and ashes or possibly of some compost which had
been worked into a thin paste with water.
After passing Keizan, mountain herbage had been brought down from
the hills in large bales on cleverly constructed racks saddled to
the backs of bullocks, and in one field we saw a man who had just
come to his little field with an enormous load borne upon his
easel-like packing appliance. Thus we find the Koreans also adopting
the rice crop, which yields heavily under conditions of abundant
water; we find them supplementing a heavy summer rainfall with water
from their hills, and bringing to their fields besides both green
herbage for humus and organic matter, and ashes derived from the
fuel coming also from the hills, in these ways making good the
unavoidable losses, through intense cropping.
The amount of forest growth in Korea, as we saw it, in proximity to
the cultivated valleys, is nowhere large and is fairly represented
in Figs. 210, 213 and 214. There were clear evidences of periodic
cutting and considerable, amounts of cordwood split from timber a
foot through were being brought to the stations on the backs of
cattle. In some places there was evident and occasionally very
serious soil erosion, as may be seen in Fig. 214, one such region
being passed just before reaching Kinusan, but generally the hills
are well rounded and covered with a low growth of shrubs and
herbaceous plants.
Southernmost Korea has the latitude of the northern boundary of
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, while the
northeast corner attains that of Madison, Wisconsin, and the
northern boundary of Nebraska, the country thus spanning some nine
degrees and six hundred miles of latitude. It has an area of some
82,000 square miles, about equaling the state of Minnesota, but much
of its surface is occupied by steep hill and mountain land. The
rainy season had not yet set in, June 23rd. Wheat and the small
grains were practically all harvested southward of Seoul and the
people were everywhere busy with their flails threshing in the open,
about the dwellings or in the fields, four flails often beating
together on the same lot of grain. As we journeyed southward the
valleys and the fields became wider and more extensive, and the
crops, as well as the cultural methods, were clearly much better.
Neither the foot-power, animal-power, nor the wooden chain pump of
the Chinese were observed in Korea in use for lifting water, but we
saw many instances of the long handled, spoonlike swinging scoop
hung over the water by a cord from tall tripods, after the manner
seen in Fig. 215, each operated by one man and apparently with high
efficiency for low lifts. Two instances also were observed of the
form of lift seen in Fig. 173, where the man walks the circumference
of the wheel, so commonly observed in Japan. Much hemp was being
grown in southern Korea but everywhere on very small isolated areas
which flecked the landscape with the deepest green, each little
field probably representing the crop of a single family.
It was 6:30 P. M. when our train reached Fusan after a hot and dusty
ride. The service had been good and fairly comfortable but the
ice-water tanks of American trains were absent, their place being
supplied by cooled bottled waters of various brands, including
soda-water, sold by Japanese boys at nearly every important station.
Close connection was made by trains with steamers to and from Japan
and we went directly on board the Iki Maru which was to weigh anchor
for Moji and Shimonoseki at 8 P. M. Although small, the steamer was
well equipped, providing the best of service. We were fortunate in
having a smooth passage, anchoring at 6:30 the next morning and
making close connection with the train for Nagasaki, landing at the
wharf with the aid of a steam launch.