THE FARMER
Society divided into four classes--Farmers stand high in the
estimation of the nation--Poverty of the Chinese--Money lending and
borrowing--Small farms--Cause of poverty--Sell daughters to meet
debts--Farmers have to engage in various occupations to meet the
necessities of life--Some become coolies--Some chair-bearers--Some
emigrate--Chinese farmer second to none in the world--Implements
few--His knowledge of manures--Description of rice culture--Tried by
droughts--System of tenant farming--Method of paying their landlords.
In the four great divisions into which the Chinese have roughly divided
the whole of society, viz. scholars, farmers, artisans, and traders, the
one that holds the highest place for usefulness is undoubtedly the farmer.
The fact that the scholar is placed first shows the high estimation that
the nation has always entertained for learning. This is not a modern idea
that has gradually sprung up with the growth of civilization. It was
started at the very dawn of the country's history, for the men that have
really been the moulders and fashioners of the Empire were scholars whose
writings still continue to influence the thoughts and habits of the
people.
What Confucius thinks, no literary man, and much less the great unwashed,
would ever dare to dispute. In great moral questions the maxims he has
transmitted for twenty-five centuries are accepted by all as the very
inspirations of Heaven, whilst in matters of government and the guiding of
the affairs of the nation, the great principles that he and Mencius have
enunciated for the ruling of a people have been accepted by nearly every
ruler that has ever sat on the Dragon throne.
[Illustration: A FARM HOUSE.]
It is for this reason that the only aristocracy that exists in China
is that of learning. Wealthy tradesmen or artisans have no right to become
members of it, and the only possible way by which they can enter the
privileged circle is by buying literary degrees and passing themselves off
as scholars. This is sometimes done when the Government is in want of
funds, for the rich merchants are willing to pay fabulous sums for the
honour they gain by being allowed to wear the hat and button of a
mandarin, and to attend receptions where only the literati are permitted
to be present.
Next in rank and in importance are the farmers, who in their own special
line are no less honourable than the scholars. One of the great kings in
the remote times of Chinese history was a man who was taken direct from
the plough, to be a colleague with the famous Yau, a fact that has shed a
lustre upon the calling of the husbandman ever since. One of the very
greatest names in history was a farmer who subsequently sat upon the
Dragon throne, and the rulers of the various dynasties that since his time
have governed China, have all seemed to think that the farmer king has
left them a legacy in the land which was to be as much one of the glories
of the throne as any other that has descended to them through the long
range of the past centuries.
Every year, as the spring time comes round, and Nature proclaims to the
world in the awakening of tree and herb and flower that she is going to
begin her work for the year, the Emperor comes out of his palace with his
retinue of ministers and high officials, and guides a plough across a
field that has been prepared for his royal coming. By this act he assumes
the leadership in the agricultural work of the nation, and just as he
stands on the sacred hill by the Temple of Heaven once in the year and
becomes the High Priest for his people, so in this annual ceremony he is
for the moment the supreme farmer that would invite the golden harvests
that are to be reaped by and by, and which will fill the homes throughout
the wide extent of his Empire with abundance and prosperity.
The great mass of the farmers in China own their own land, which has in
the main descended from father to son for many generations, though in
consequence of the poverty of the people a very large amount of buying and
selling of farms is constantly going on all over the country. The
absolutely insolvent character of Chinese society is to the foreigner one
of the most remarkable features about it, and one that contains so many
perplexing elements, that after many an effort to solve it he drops it as
a puzzle to which he can find no answer.
It may be assumed as an undoubted fact that fully seven-tenths of the
whole nation are in hopeless debt, from which they will never be able to
release themselves as long as they live. Another tenth owe money, and
though these have the means of freeing themselves whenever their bills
become due, the tendency to borrow seems to have become so inwrought into
the very blood and fibre of a Chinaman that he cannot resist doing so on
the least provocation. The remaining fifth are the men of means that have
capital at their disposal, and who are the money-lenders to any one that
can give the least shred of security that the interest and capital will be
forthcoming at the particular times that are agreed upon.
But even these last are borrowers as well as lenders. No Chinaman would
ever dream of possessing money and not putting it out to interest. It
would be considered the sheerest waste to let it lie idle for a single
day, and so they are continually on the look-out for impecunious people to
whom they can lend with safety. In addition to this, he will borrow at a
certain interest, and then relend at a higher rate, and so money keeps
flowing backwards and forwards into his coffers, and though he loses
occasionally, his gains are so large and on the whole so certain, that his
wealth slowly but surely increases, whilst the seven-tenths I have already
spoken of become more and more hopelessly involved.
There are several reasons why the farming population should be so much at
the mercy of the money-lenders, though it must be understood that these
are not a special class of people that get their living by letting out
money at any extravagant rate of interest. Every man or woman that has a
spare dollar, at once becomes a money-lender, so that the creditors to
whom they are in debt are those in the same position in life, but who are
fortunate in having a little more spare cash at their disposal.
The smallness of the great mass of the farms is one great disposing cause
why their owners are always in such a perilous financial position. Under
ordinary favourable circumstances, these small farmers can work their
holdings so that they can make ends meet. Still, even then there is only a
very small margin left for the contingencies that this Eastern climate and
its great red-hot fiery sun are always producing. Should there be a
deficiency in the rainfall, and the rice be left in a waterless field, or
should the great typhoons blow with hurricane force, and the flood-gates
of Heaven be opened so that the growing crops shall be beaten down and
submerged beneath the deluge of waters, then indeed the condition of the
farmer is pitiable in the extreme.
There is no resource left them but to borrow, and with the fatal facility
of the Chinese for adopting this plan to relieve their immediate
necessities, they resort to it with a carelessness of spirit that is
perfectly astonishing to a Westerner. An Englishman, for example, with an
ordinary sense of honour will shrink from borrowing money, unless he has
in his mind some definite plan of being able to repay it at some period
in the near future. A Chinaman's mind being afflicted with turbidity is
not troubled with thoughts of this kind. He seems to be able to grasp but
one idea at a time, and that is that he is desperately pressed for money,
and that by bringing along the deeds of his farm, and depositing them with
a rich neighbour, sufficient money will be advanced him to meet his needs.
Beyond that he does not take the trouble to think, but he hopes that in
some indefinite way he will be able to pay the debt and redeem his deeds.
The light and airy way with which a man will borrow sums that he must know
he can never hope to repay is most charming for its naive simplicity,
especially when the high rate of interest that is demanded everywhere is
considered. Twelve per cent. is a moderate charge, and is asked where the
securities are of a first-rate character. Where these are slightly
doubtful, double amount is demanded and obtained, and even as much as
thirty-three per cent. is paid by persons who are in great straits, and
who wish to be accommodated for a short period of time. An ordinary farmer
that borrows at this ruinous rate of interest, unless he has a series of
exceptionally good years during which his crops have been most abundant
and luxuriant, can hardly hope to pay anything beyond that, and happy will
he be indeed if he has not occasionally to add some of the unpaid interest
to the original sum he borrowed, and thus add to the liabilities that he
is unable to discharge now.
This widespread existence of debt, which I may say is just as prevalent in
the cities as in the rural districts, is the cause of a great deal of
suffering, especially amongst the farmers, and comes very heavily upon the
girls. A farmer, for example, borrows fifty dollars (L5) from a well-to-do
man, with the stipulation that fifteen per cent. be paid for the use of
the money. When the time comes for the payment of the interest there is
not a spare dollar in the house. The year has been a bad one, and sickness
has been in the home and medicines have had to be bought. The result is,
all the money that had been gradually put aside to give to the
money-lender has vanished. The creditor insists, however, upon being paid;
he will not be put off, and when he is assured that they have no possible
way of raising money before the taking in of the next crop, he quietly
points to their little daughter, that with the guilelessness of childhood
is amusing herself in her own childish, simple way, whilst the discussion
is going on with her father and mother, about the money that has fallen
due.
This child is a sweet-faced little girl of about eight years old. She has
large black eyes, and a round fat little face, and a merry smile that
flashes across it and that gives it such a sunny look that she seems like
a sunbeam as she darts in and out of the house in the course of her
childish gambols. Both the father and the mother understand exactly what
the money-lender means by that significant motion, and without any further
discussion they promise that if he will come again in three days more,
they will pay not only the interest due to him, but the fifty dollars they
had borrowed from him.
Next morning the little girl, who is their only child, is asked if she
would not like to go into the great city a few miles away, and see the
sights and buy some rare toys that she knows can be got there. She dances
for very joy at the idea, and after breakfast she sets out in high glee
with her father to see the wonderful things in that great town and to
bring back a present for her mother, who bids good-bye to her with
tear-dimmed eyes, and a weight upon her heart as she takes a last
lingering look at her little one that she knows she will never set eyes
upon again.
Upon their arrival in the city, the father, instead of visiting the
toy-shops, makes his way to a large imposing-looking mansion where a
wealthy family resides, and after some bargaining the little girl is sold
to them to become their slave, and to be their absolute property to treat
and dispose of as they may deem right. When this transaction is finished
and seventy dollars have been transferred to the father, he tells his
little girl, who has been looking with wondering gaze at the glories of
the house to which she had been brought, to rest awhile and he will call
for her by and by when he has seen to some little business that he has to
do in a neighbouring street. She little dreams as he goes out of the great
door that she will never see him again, and never more will her mother's
eyes look down upon her with the light of affection beaming in them, nor
ever again will she see the flash of love illumining her face as she runs
to her with some childish grievance or some question that she wishes her
to answer. She is a slave now and has lost her freedom, and her new master
can dispose of her as he thinks best; and all this she suffers that the
debts of the home may be paid and the homestead may be saved from passing
into other hands.
The Chinese farms as a rule are small. This is almost entirely due to the
custom that prevails in China of the land being divided amongst the sons
when the father dies. The constant subdivision that has been going on
during the centuries of the past has resulted in the great diminishing in
the size of the holdings, and the leaving of many of the rural population
without any land at all.
There are of course many rich landowners who have invested their capital
in land, and who have a superabundance of it. Where the native banks are
uncertain and the modes of investment few and precarious, it has been
found that to buy up farms brings in after all the highest interest, and
is more to be relied upon than any other method of disposing of surplus
funds.
A large number of farms are just large enough to support a family, say,
of four or five people, but should the seasons be unfavourable, and the
crops be parched by the fiery-faced sun and gradually be scorched to death
in the fields, then sorrow comes upon the home, and the money-lender has
to be sought to give relief. A still more considerable number of farms are
too small even under the very best conditions to support the family. The
fields are too few, though cultivated with the deft and cunning hand of
the Chinese farmer, to produce food enough for the home, and so plans have
to be thought of by which the deficiency may be met, and food and clothes
provided for the wife and the little ones.
It is this widespread condition of affairs that has made the farmer in
this land one of the handiest men in all the four great divisions into
which society has been divided. The pressing needs of his home, and the
absolute necessity for some mode of increasing his income if he would keep
it together, have taxed his wits to the very utmost, and consequently have
developed his thought and his ingenuity.
Some of them open little shops, where they sell miscellaneous articles
that do not require a large capital to the neighbours and others who do
not care for travelling as far as the neighbouring city to make such small
purchases. Others, again, who have no money whatever to invest in even
such small enterprises as these, start for some great centre of trade and
there act as coolies. They become the beasts of burden of the whole city.
Their muscles have been toughened by toil on their farms and their minds
have been developed in their struggle with nature, so that they become
valuable auxiliaries in doing the heavy work connected with the business
of the town.
The favourite resorts of these farmers that are striving to keep a home
above their heads, are the great shipping ports, where foreign vessels
bring their cargoes from the four corners of the earth. Here labour is
abundant and better paid, and consequently the chances of saving money
considerably greater.
In Shanghai, for example, and Hongkong, the two greatest shipping ports in
this extreme East, it is intensely interesting to watch how the farmers
flock to them, to do the rough and dangerous work of loading and unloading
the steamers and sailing ships that come in almost daily from their ocean
voyages. Thousands of them congregate on the wharves and jetties waiting
to be called off to the ships that are lying in the stream. Usually they
are a rough-looking crowd, and, judged by a similar class of men that are
seen in our home ports, they would seem to be of a much inferior character
to those that we are accustomed to see there.
They are poorly clad, and their clothes are of such an unpicturesque
description and so badly fitting and usually so full of patches, that they
give one the impression that they must be the very refuse of the
neighbourhoods from which they have come. If they were Englishmen, we
would call them loafers and tramps who had gathered round the dock gates,
not really to get work, but to pose as members of the unemployed in order
that charity might be doled out to them.
But every man there is a _bona fide_ farmer, who has so studied the
mysteries of nature that he is able to wring her secrets out of her, and
cause the fields to be covered with luxuriant crops. They nearly all have
farms, and the wives and children are working them whilst they are away,
and living on the barest subsistence that will keep body and soul together
until they return with their hard-earned gains to drive away the wolf from
the door, and to satisfy the inexorable money-lender, who will have
nothing less than his pound of flesh.
[Illustration: A HARBOUR SCENE (HONG KONG).]
And bravely do the men toil at the work that is to bring independence to
their homes. Down in the deep holds of the great ships, with but small
intermissions the livelong day, the huge bales of goods are swung by
sturdy arms that seem made of iron into the lighters alongside, and at
last as the sun shows signs of setting, the men wipe the dripping
perspiration from their faces, and with laughter and jokes that show the
unconquerable pluck of these brave fellows they quit their work for the
day.
Other farmers, again, have heard of the golden legends that have been
wafted to them from the Straits and Java and Borneo, and from Sumatra,
which have told of the fortunes that are to be made there by men who are
willing to work. Those lands are to the Chinese what the fabled country
that was said to contain the Golden Fleece was to the Grecian heroes that
set sail to gain possession of it for themselves. They feel that if they
linger in their homes, poverty and hunger must be the lot from which there
is no escape, and so, leaving their farms to be worked by the women, they
set their faces towards the setting sun, and with their brains dancing
with visions of fortunes that they are to discover there, they start on
the long journey, in the hopes that in a very few years they will return
with money sufficient to pay off their debts, and with enough left to
enable them to live in comfort the rest of their lives. And so the lands
that lie about the equator, and the countless islands that look straight
up at the sun, and the Malay Peninsula, where the forests cover the land
and countless myriads of mosquitoes sing their high-keyed songs, men from
the great Empire of China abound throughout them all. They make the roads,
and they dig in the tin mines, and they pull the jinrickshaws, and they
seem to be the great workers everywhere. Who are these men that thrust
themselves so prominently upon the notice of the stranger and the
traveller? They surely must be the refuse of the land from which they have
come, for here they are the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. They
are nothing of the kind, for nearly every man you see is a farmer in that
great Empire of China, and through the stress of poverty and the desire to
save his home from distress, he has come to do any work, no matter how
menial, that will enable him to accumulate enough to return to his beloved
home to bring succour to those who are enduring whilst he is away.
The farmer is truly the handy man of China, for he seems to be able to
turn his hand to almost anything, and to succeed fairly well in whatever
he touches. He can turn sailor at a moment's notice, and he seems as
familiar amongst the ropes and in the management of the helm as he is
amongst the growing grain, that appears to recognize his presence and to
rustle and whisper with gladness as he passes unconcernedly with the air
of a master down through its midst. All the great fleets of boats that
cast their shadows upon the mighty rivers of China are manned and worked
by farmers, who, when their voyages are over, return home it may be for a
shorter or longer period, and aid the wives in the management of the few
fields, that they manage with the same tact and cunning touch of hand as
their husbands would do were they not compelled to go afield to earn
something to eke out the scanty produce that they are able to get out of
their farms.
The stranger from abroad travelling by the native boats that sail, say, up
the Yangtze for a thousand miles or more, is struck with the intelligence
and activity and pleasant, sociable character of the men that work the
boat. He is with them for weeks together, and he admires the quiet,
efficient way in which they manage the sails, or get out on the bank and
tow her against the stream when there is a head wind or perhaps a dead
calm. He never once suspects that they never spent any time as apprentices
in learning their business, but that every one of them, even including the
captain, is a born farmer, and that his real vocation is to till the
lands that his fathers have transmitted to him.
A picnic party is organized to ascend a mountain that rears its lofty head
above the plain that lies at its feet. The gentlemen can walk, but the
ladies must have sedan chairs to carry them up the narrow pathways trodden
by the feet of the buffaloes, and by those of the woodcutters who climb up
high on the hillsides to cut down fuel for the homes in the villages
below. The ordinary chair-bearers accustomed to carry on the level roads
would be no use on these rough and rocky ribands of pathways, that only
men who are surefooted and have the wind to mount up steep inclines could
travel with safety.
In this emergency a number of farmer lads are engaged, and though they do
not carry the chair as scientifically as the regular carriers, they will
fly up the steepest hill, and jump over chasms, and surmount boulders in a
way that these latter would never attempt. The process is a little rough
and one is apt to get somewhat shaken, but there is never any danger of
the men falling or of their precipitating their fare over the edge of a
precipice into the yawning ravine beneath.
Where the villages are near the great thoroughfares, the carrying of sedan
chairs is a very favourite method with the farmers of earning a few extra
cash to help to meet the expenses of the home. After the crops have been
gathered in, and the rush of work is over, they are accustomed to stand at
various points on the roadside, and watch for the coming of sedan chairs
that may be passing up or down. No sooner do they come opposite them than
they call out and ask the bearers whether they do not wish to engage some
one to give them a rest for a few miles and to carry their burden for
them. If the men they address have been carrying for some hours and have
grown weary, negotiations ensue which end in their dropping the chair on
the road, and its being hoisted on to the shoulders of the new men, who,
full of vigour and anxious to get their job finished, rush on like
racehorses over the rough, uneven road.
The payment for this toilsome labour is of the most meagre and
unsatisfactory description. One day I was travelling over one of these
great thoroughfares, and the men that were carrying me were becoming
somewhat exhausted. The road, which had been very much left to nature to
repair, was in a shockingly bad condition. It ran, moreover, through a
very hilly country, and sometimes it wound up the sides of hills, and
again it descended by rough, circuitous windings into the valley far
beneath. The men had the greatest difficulty in keeping from falling. The
chair on their shoulders was heavy, and the road was strewed with stones,
and tiny waterways that the rains and the streams from the hills had cut
into it had to be jumped. Very often I had to hold my breath in terror
lest in passing over the face of a sloping rock the men's feet should
slip, and I should find myself rolling down the hillside into a miniature
rapid that fretted and foamed as it whirled and tossed in its wild career
towards the plain below.
My two bearers, who would have trotted along on an even road with only an
occasional grunt, or a muttered expression as to the hardness of their lot
in life, broke into expressions of disgust as the various difficulties of
the way came one by one upon them; still they struggled manfully on, till
finally we reached a small oasis in the hills, where a few houses
embowered amid splendid banyan-trees offered refreshments to the
travelling public as well as to our panting, perspiring chair-bearers, who
dragged their weary limbs under the shadow of the great boughs of the
trees, and dropping the chair in the middle of the road, threw themselves
utterly exhausted and worn out on the benches that had been provided for
those who intended to purchase refreshments before they proceeded further
on their journey.
After sitting for a moment listless and drooping, with apparently no
strength to utter a word, one of my men held up his hand deftly fashioned
into the shape of a bowl, when the shopkeeper, who had kept a keen eye
upon the newcomers as possible customers, at once dipped out a bowlful of
steaming rice from a huge cauldron that was kept on the boil, and placed
it within the bowl-shaped fingers with a pair of chopsticks laid across
it, ready for the immediate use of the weary coolie. At the same time he
placed before him a tiny little platter in which were some nicely browned
strips of fried bean curds to act as appetizer to the rice, and to arouse
his flagging appetite.
After a few minutes of solemn stillness, when the only sounds that were
heard from the weary men were the music of the chopsticks and the
satisfied sighs as the rice was driven down their throats by the two
"nimble boys" (a pleasant title given by the Chinese to the chopsticks),
the faces of the men began to lighten up. The weary look vanished, smiles
covered the yellow visages, and soon jokes were cracked and bantering
language was tossed from table to table, until the air rang with the
echoes of their laughter.
At this juncture two farmers stepped out from a number who were hanging
about in a listless fashion, and asked my men if they did not wish to hire
for the next stage, which was about three miles long. At first they
pretended that they did not, but that was simply bluff and intended to
knock the price down. After some noisy discussion, the men said they would
carry for forty-five cash. It must be remembered here that one cash is the
thousandth part of two shillings. My men objected that the sum asked was
extravagant, and offered ten less. Another wordy contest ensued, when the
farmers came down to forty, whilst my men came up to thirty-eight.
Both sides refused to budge an inch, so my chair was once more hoisted
upon the shoulders of the chair coolies, and we issued from beneath the
branches of the banyan into the glare of the great sun, and the weary
march along the toilsome roads was once more begun. We had proceeded on
our journey fully a third of a mile, and the whole incident had passed
from my mind, when loud sounds of voices calling out were heard behind. In
an instant my men let the chair slip from their shoulders on to the road,
and stood quietly within the bamboo poles, as though they were expecting
some one. "What is the matter," I asked, "and why do you stop?" "Oh," one
of them replied, with a twinkle in his eyes, "the farmers have consented
to carry you this stage for thirty-eight cash, and so we are going to have
a rest."
By this time the men had come up, and putting on their straw sandals to
protect their feet from the rough stones, tightened their girdles, twisted
their tails round the crowns of their heads, and tossing the chair on to
their brawny shoulders, they started with a run on their three-mile race.
They might have been chair coolies all their lives, considering the easy
manner in which they manipulated the chair, and the perfect way in which
they kept step, and yet they were simple farmers, whose lives are spent in
the cultivation of the soil, but whose poverty has compelled them to
devise some rough methods to enable them to drive the wolf from their
doors. Some idea of the strain that has been put upon them may be gathered
from the fact that these men were willing to carry me for three miles and
walk back the same distance for the trifling sum of thirty-eight cash,
which was to be equally divided between the two, and which would thus give
each one a little under a halfpenny.
The Chinese farmer stands second to none in all the world. It would seem,
indeed, as though nature recognized in him a master hand, and that she
responded to his touch, and poured out her riches in willing obedience to
a mind that understood her and had learned her secrets. There is
nothing in the world of agriculture that a Chinese farmer does
not understand--that is, as far as the products of this land are
concerned--and he seems to know the peculiarities of each, and their moods
and their whims, and to be able to coax them to show their best face when
the time of the harvesting comes round.
This is all the more remarkable since he has really so few implements with
which to work the marvels he produces. These are the hoe, the plough, and
the harrow, and beyond these the Chinese farmer never dreams of desiring
any other. The first of these seems never to be out of his hands, for it
is the one upon which he relies the most, and the one that is really the
most effective implement that he possesses for the cultivation of the
soil. It really takes the place of the spade in England, though the latter
is never put to such extensive and general uses as the hoe. The Chinaman
can do anything with it but make it speak. A farmer well on in years can
easily be recognized amidst a number of working men by the curve his hands
have taken from holding the hoe in the many years of toil in his fields
with it.
With it, if he is a poor man and has no oxen to plough the ground, he
turns up the soil where he is going to plant his crops, and with it he
deftly, and with a turn of his wrist, levels out the surface so that it is
made ready for the seed. With a broad-bladed hoe he dips to the bottom of
a stream or of a pond, and he draws up the soft mud that had gathered
there, and with a dexterous swing he flings the dripping hoeful on to his
field near by to increase its richness by this new deposit. The stump of a
tree will send out its roots wandering for moisture underneath a choice
little plot where his potatoes are growing, and the farmer feels that
these are an infringement upon the rights of the plants that look to him
for protection. He seizes his hoe, and with a few sturdy strokes of its
keen, sharp edge driven into its very heart in a short time the stump has
vanished, and the roots have ceased tapping the moisture that the potato
tubers require for their own growth.
But it would take up too much space to describe all the thousand and one
ways in which this truly national implement is used by the farmers of
China. It is quite enough to say that without it they would be left quite
helpless, and if the agriculture of the country was to be carried on, some
other implement equally serviceable would have to be devised to take its
place. The plough and the harrow are of secondary importance to the hoe,
but still they occupy a prominent position in the agricultural economy of
the nation. They are of course antiquated, for they have come down from
the remote past untouched by any inventive genius during the long
centuries that have elapsed since they were devised in the early dawn of
Chinese history. To alter them, or even to make a suggestion that they
could be improved in any way, would be such a monstrous heresy that the
nation's hair would turn grey, and would cause the spirits of their
ancestors such misery and shame that there is no knowing what calamities
they might send upon the Empire to avenge their wrongs.
The ability of the farmer in this country is measured by the crops he is
able to produce. China is an old country, and for countless generations
the teeming populations have had to get their living out of the land.
There is no rest given it, for one rarely sees any of the fields being
allowed to lie fallow in order to give them time for recuperation. The
pressure of the hungry mouths is upon it, and to satisfy the needs of the
people they must go on indefinitely producing sustenance for them. It is
here where the genius of the Chinese farmer comes in. If hungry stomachs
can only be satisfied by a supply of food, so the impoverished, famished
land can be made to bear the strain upon its resources by putting into it
a liberal supply of manures.
This, after all, is the true secret of abundant crops. The land, in the
South of China at least, is mostly of a poor and indifferent character.
Along the courses of rivers and in the alluvial valleys it is rich enough,
and produces splendid crops year after year. But when you get beyond
these, and come into the hilly regions, you touch upon territories that
are exceedingly reluctant, excepting when they are liberally supplied with
manures, to produce crops that are worth the gathering.
The Chinese farmer has no scientific knowledge as to how he should best
develop his farm, but he knows by experience that unless the land is
coaxed and petted with an ample supply of manures, no acquaintance with
the art of farming will avail to cover it with the harvests that will keep
his family from hunger, and that will still leave a margin to be sold in
the market to bring enough to meet the incidental expenses of the home.
The list of fertilizers in China is a very brief one, and bones and
beancake are two important ones in it, but the one that stands the first
and foremost in the estimation of the farmers throughout the country is
nightsoil. This is the one that is universally used because it is the
cheapest, and also because it is the only really available one. The system
by which that important manure is collected and distributed is a
thoroughly perfect one, and ages of practice has made the managers of this
intricate business so well up in it that there is never any hitch in it.
The towns and cities, and any place indeed where a considerable population
has collected, are so relieved of their accumulations that the Government
is never called upon to interfere, nor are sanitary inspectors ever
appointed to see to their cleanliness or to prevent the people from
suffering from insanitary conditions.
A regular trade is carried on between the towns and the farms that lie in
all directions around them in this particular manure, and the farmers'
wives, who are the principal carriers of it, will come into town in the
early morning and carry it miles away to their houses in all directions
throughout the country places. On one occasion I had started out from a
large city of at least a hundred thousand people and had got a few miles
from it, when I overtook twenty or thirty young farmers' wives carrying
their purchases in buckets slung on bamboo poles resting on their
shoulders, and a merrier set of women it would have been difficult to have
met with.
They seemed quite unconcerned at the heavy loads they had to carry or the
miles that still lay between them and their homes, nor did they appear to
consider that there was any disgrace in having to perform the duties they
were doing. They seemed, indeed, to forget all about the toil they had to
endure, for they laughed and chatted and joked with each other till the
road echoed with the sound of their merry voices. The exercise, which was
severe, did not seem to fatigue them, for their eyes twinkled with humour
and their brown faces were covered with smiles, and they looked so good
humoured and full of pleasant thoughts that it was really a treat to look
upon them. Every day these women would come into the city until they had
carried enough to their little holdings to suffice for the crop they were
going to put in, and then they would have a respite until that had been
gathered and it was time to make preparations for the next one.
In the South of China there are two great crops in the year, that absorb
the greater part of the energies of the farmers whilst they are in the
fields. These consist of the rice which is the staple food for all classes
of society, and which occupies the place in the social economy of the
Chinese that wheat does in that of the English. The first is gathered in
July and the second in November, and from the time that the first crop is
put in during the month of April, until the second one is garnered, it may
be positively asserted that there is a continued tension on the mind of
the farmer.
[Illustration: CHINESE FARMERS.]
The planting of the rice is not the simple thing that the cultivation of
wheat is. This latter is sown in land that has been carefully prepared for
it, and after that it is left very much to nature to do the rest. The rain
falls, and the sun shines and the dews lay their diamond drops on the
growing grain, and the farmer looks at the miracles of changes that are
wrought upon it, until golden-hued he puts the sickle in and gathers it
into his barns. With the rice there is no such luxurious rest or waiting.
He first of all sows his seed in a plot of land that is full of water, and
they fall into the soft oozy mud at the bottom and take root. As the
little spires pierce above the surface, they have the most exquisite
light-green that the eye has ever been pleased to look upon. They grow up
rapidly with an airy look about them as though they were conscious that
the farmer is depending upon them for the whole of his rice crop during
this season. They do indeed constitute the stock from which he draws the
materials to fill his empty fields waiting to be planted with rice plants.
After they have grown to the height of five or six inches they are all
pulled up by the roots, and in little bundles of four or five they are
replanted in the larger fields that have been prepared for them, each
bundle standing apart from the rest about three or four inches. And now
the race of life begins with the several little bunches that have their
roots submerged in water, and their emerald pointed leaves looking up at
the blue sky. They started life together and grew up side by side, and now
marshalled in groups they are not rivals, but friendly competitors in the
race to show which shall give the best of beauty and power to the farmer
who is caring for them.
From this day until the hour when they are cut down golden-hued, there
must be no faltering in the care that is bestowed upon them. The water in
the field must always be kept up to a certain level, for should that fail
the serried ranks of rice would soon show how keenly they felt its loss,
by their drooping heads and distressed-looking manner, as the great sun
beat down upon them, and seemed to paralyze them with his scorching rays.
Water must be led in some way into the field, or if there is a stream
running close by, the endless water-wheel must be set in motion until
little rivulets have flowed in, and the gaping cracks in the mud are
closed up, and the thirsty roots have drunk their fill, and the drooping
stalks once more stand up erect and look the sun in the face without
flinching.
Every now and again, too, the farmer must walk between the marshalled
ranks and with his hands tenderly feel at the roots of each separate bunch
of the growing rice to remove any impediment there may be to the free
access of water to them. These roots seem like spoiled children that need
petting and coaxing and humouring in order to be willing to send up the
vital forces through the stalks above so as to help them to produce the
healthy heads of grain that are to give delight to the farmer when he
comes to gather in the harvest.
In addition to this precious crop that needs so much attention, the
cultivator has others that claim his thoughts and time. These are the
beans that are used in the manufacture of soy and in the making of bean
curds that are considered so important as condiments to be eaten with the
rice. There are also the sweet potatoes which in some of the poorer
counties are the staple food of all but the well-to-do. There are also
various kinds of vegetables which the Chinese are most expert in growing,
but the cultivation of these is considered as pastime when compared with
the incessant care and labour that have to be bestowed on the rice crop
from the very first day that the seed is cast upon the waters until the
moment when the fields are allowed to run dry, and the golden-hued stalks
rear their heads in the air with no more anxiety as to whether the rain
shall ever fall again or not.
The one element that causes the farmer most distress in his cultivation of
the rice is the uncertainty of the weather. When the rainy season has been
one in which abundance of rain has been poured down upon the earth, so
that the fountains that lie beneath the wells and close by the ponds are
filled to overflowing, then his mind is comparatively at rest. He knows
there is a perennial supply that can constantly be drawn upon, when the
water begins to ebb away in the fields where the rice is growing. Should
the showers that the thunderstorms pour down occasionally from the clouds
that gather so quickly in the sky come with any kind of regularity, his
mind is still more relieved, and he can think with equanimity of the day
that is coming when he will gather his precious crop into his garner.
Such an experience, however, as this is not one that falls very often to
the lot of the anxious farmer. The rainy seasons are apt to be capricious,
and to withhold the rich stores of rain and moisture without which not
only his rice, but his beans and his potatoes will be scorched in the
field and will wither and perish before his very eyes. It is pitiful to
watch the efforts that he has to make to try and preserve his crops from
destruction when the year is a dry one.
The days go by, and every morning his first looks are towards the hills
around which the clouds have gathered during the night. There seems a
great promise in the dense masses that have gathered around some lofty
peak, and it is hoped that to-day at last, after weary days of expecting,
the rain that is to save the crops will come down in abundant showers. The
sun by and by rises in a great red orb of scorching heat, and his rays
flash as though they had come straight from a furnace, and they touch the
clouds that have taken refuge on the hills, and slowly they vanish into
thin air and are gone.
Another day of heat, and the sun in a cloudless sky draws up the water
that is standing at the feet of the rice, and he looks upon the ponds and
they dissolve in vapour, and he touches the vines of the sweet potatoes
with his breath and they turn pale with anguish, and the tubers within the
ridges wither up and die for want of moisture. Days and sometimes weeks of
this go by, till one wonders at the vitality of nature that can endure
such a fiery ordeal and have anything left to tell the tale.
It is on such occasions as these that the profoundest grief and sorrow are
felt by the farmers. The dried-up ponds are dug still deeper to reach any
reserve of the precious fluid that may have sunk below the surface, and in
order to secure that none of that shall be absorbed by the sun, they carry
on their operations about the hours of midnight, when the air has become
slightly cooler, and when every drop of water can be saved for the dying
crops near by. It very often occurs that the farmers of a whole district
will be out in the dark nights, and with their hoes are busily engaged in
turning up every available spot of ground to discover whether there is any
water below. Where the ponds border on each other's fields, the fiercest
struggles will frequently take place for the possession of the discovered
treasure, and the night air will resound with the noise of battle, and
wounded men will be carried to their homes to add to the bitterness and
the grief that have already thrown their shadows there.
In the earlier part of this chapter it was stated that in consequence of
the custom of dividing the farms amongst the sons and not handing them
over to the eldest, as is done in England, a great many of them are too
small to support even a small family, whilst many of what might be called
the younger sons are left without any land whatever. It has become the
custom with many such people to rent lands from others who have a surplus
of such on their hands. It is the custom for rich men to invest their
money in the purchase of farms, which they let out to others to cultivate,
and taking one year with another they find this is a very profitable way
of disposing of the ready money they have at their command.
The system of letting out their lands is thoroughly Oriental and quite
different from that which is in vogue in the West. The landlords do not
charge any rent, but they share the produce with the tenant. This seems a
most equitable arrangement, for when the years are good both tenant and
owner mutually reap the benefit, whilst in the seasons when a scarcity of
rain prevents the ground from producing as much as it legitimately ought
to do, both parties share in the sorrow of diminished crops.
The rule that prevails very generally is for the landlord to take half the
crop after it has been gathered. The tenant provides seed, manure, and
labour, and for his use of the land he hands over a half of all that it
produces. It is very interesting to watch the proceedings that take place
when the times comes for harvesting the various kinds of crops during the
year. The tenant, with his wife and sons, if he has any, repairs to the
field where the grain is ready for the sickle. It is a time of great
rejoicing, as it is in all countries, and the months of labour and anxiety
are for the time being forgotten in the joy of the golden grain that is
now waiting to be gathered.
But another figure is there, who takes no share in the harvesting. He is
well dressed and does not have the air of a farmer about him. He has
taken his seat on a bank or some place where he can keep his eye upon the
whole of the joyous proceedings that are being carried on. Upon inquiry we
find that he is an agent of the landlord, and has come to receive his half
of the contents of the field. He has bags with him to put his share in,
and when the rice is cut and at once threshed on the field, the half is
duly measured and handed over to him.
By this arrangement all arrears of rent are avoided, and the distress of
feeling in debt to one's landlord is never experienced by the farmers of
China. That their life is an anxious and a troubled one, I have shown very
fully, and that sometimes their crops are too small to meet the needs of
the family. These are inevitable in the very nature of things, but there
is one thing that they are never troubled with, and that is excessive
rents. Rack-renting is a thing from which they are mercifully preserved,
and it is one sign of the common-sense of the Chinese, and of their
instinct for fair play both for landlord and tenant, that the present
system was initiated ages ago, and is still carried out all over the
country.