Farmers of Forty Centuries; Or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and Japan

by F. H. King

While the values which have been given above, expressing the sum total of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium applied annually to the cultivated fields of Japan may be somewhat too high for some of the sources named, there is little doubt that Japanese farmers apply to their fields more of these three plant food elements annually than has been computed. The amounts which have been given are sufficient to provide annually, for each acre of the 21,321 square miles of cultivated land, an application of not less than 56 pounds of nitrogen, 13 pounds of phosphorus and 37 pounds of potassium. Or, if we omit the large northern island of Hokkaido, still new in its agriculture and lacking the intensive practices of the older farm land, the quantities are sufficient for a mean application of 60, 14 and 40 pounds respectively of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium per acre, and yet the maturing of 1000 pounds of wheat crop, covering grain and straw as water-free substance, removes from the soil but 13.9 pounds of nitrogen, 2.3 pounds of phosphorus and 8.4 pounds of potassium, from which it may be computed that the 60 pounds of nitrogen added is sufficient for a crop yielding 31 bushels of wheat; the phosphorus is sufficient for a crop of 44 bushels, and the potassium for a crop of 35 bushels per acre. Dr. Hopkins, in his recent valuable work on "Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture" gives, on page 154, a table from which we abstract the following data:

APPROXIMATE AMOUNTS OF NITROGEN, PHOSPHORUS AND POTASSIUM REMOVABLE
PER ACRE ANNUALLY BY
Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium,
pounds. pounds. pounds.
100 bush. crop of corn 148 23 71
100 bush. crop of oats 97 16 68
50 bush. crop of wheat 96 16 58
25 bush. crop of soy beans 159 21 73
100 bush. crop of rice 155 18 95
3 ton crop of timothy hay 72 9 71
4 ton crop of clover hay 160 20 120
3 ton crop of cow pea hay 130 14 98
8 ton crop of alfalfa hay 400 36 192
7000 lb. crop of cotton 168 29.4 82
400 bush. crop of potatoes 84 17.3 120
20 ton crop of sugar beets 100 18 157
Annually applied in Japan, more than 60 14 40

We have inserted in this table, for comparison, the crop of rice, and have increased the crop of potatoes from three hundred bushels to four hundred bushels per acre, because such a yield, like all of those named, is quite practicable under good management and favorable seasons, notwithstanding the fact that much smaller yields are generally attained through lack of sufficient plant food or water. From this table, assuming that a crop of matured grain contains 11 per cent of water and the straw 15 per cent, while potatoes contain 79 per cent and beets 87 per cent, the amounts of the three plant food elements removable annually by 1000 pounds of crop have been calculated and stated in the next table.

APPROXIMATE AMOUNTS OF NITROGEN, PHOSPHORUS AND POTASSIUM
REMOVABLE ANNUALLY PER 1,0000 POUNDS OF DRY CROP SUBSTANCE
Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium,
pounds. pounds. pounds.
Cereals.
Wheat 13.873 2.312 8.382
Oats 13.666 2.254 9.580
Corn 13.719 2.149 6.676
Legumes.
Soy beans 30.807 4.070 14.147
Cow peas 25.490 2.745 19.216
Clover 23.529 2.941 17.647
Alfalfa 29.411 2.647 14.118
Roots.
Beets 19.213 3.462 30.192
Potatoes 15.556 3.210 22.222
Grass.
Timothy 14.117 1.765 13.922
Rice 9.949 1.129 6.089

From the amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium applied annually to the cultivated fields of Japan and from the data in these two tables it may be readily seen that these people are now and probably long have been applying quite as much of these three plant food elements to their fields with each planting as are removed with the crop, and if this is true in Japan it must also be true in China. Moreover there is nothing in American agricultural practice which indicates that we shall not ultimately be compelled to do likewise.

X

IN THE SHANTUNG PROVINCE

On May 15th we left Shanghai by one of the coastwise steamers for Tsingtao, some three hundred miles farther north, in the Shantung Province, our object being to keep in touch with methods of tillage and fertilization, corresponding phases of which would occur later in the season there.

The Shantung province is in the latitude of North Carolina and Kentucky, or lies between that of San Francisco and Los Angeles. It has an area of nearly 56,000 square miles, about that of Wisconsin. Less than one-half of this area is cultivated land yet it is at the present time supporting a population exceeding 38,000,000 of people. New York state has today less than ten millions and more than half of these are in New York city.

It was in this province that Confucius was born 2461 years ago, and that Mencius, his disciple, lived. Here, too, seventeen hundred years before Confucius' time, after one of the great floods of the Yellow river, 2297 B. C., and more than 4100 years ago, the Great Yu was appointed "Superintendent of Public Works" and entrusted with draining off the flood waters and canalizing the rivers.