The terrace cultivation of China has been noticed by nearly all writers upon this country, and, like most other subjects, it has been either much exaggerated or undervalued. It appeared to me to be carried to the greatest perfection on the hill sides adjacent to the river Min near Foo-chow-foo; at least I was more struck with it there than any where else. On sailing up that beautiful river, these terraces look like steps on the sides of the mountains, one rising above another, until they sometimes reach six or eight hundred feet above the level of the sea. When the rice and other crops are young, these terraces are clothed in luxuriant green, and look like a collection of gardens among the rugged and barren mountains. The terrace system is adopted by the Chinese, either for the purpose of supplying the hill sides with water where paddy is to be grown, or to prevent the heavy rains from washing down the loose soil from the roots of other vegetables. Hence these cuttings are seen all over the sides of the hills, not exactly level like the rice terraces, but level enough to answer the purpose of checking the rains in their descent down the mountain. For the same reason, the sweet potato and some other crops which are grown on the hills are always planted in ridges which run cross-ways or horizontally; indeed, were the ridges made in a different direction, the heavy rains which fall in the early summer months would carry both the loose soil and crops down into the plains.
Rice is grown on the lower terrace ground, and a stream of water is always led from some ravine and made to flow across the sides of the hills, until it reaches the highest terrace, into which it flows and floods the whole of the level space. When the water rises three or four inches in height, which is sufficiently high for the rice, it finds vent at an opening made for the purpose in the bank, through which it flows into the terrace below, which it floods in the same manner, and so on to the lowest. In this way the whole of the rice terraces are kept continually flooded, until the stalks of the crops assume a yellow ripening hue when the water being no longer required, it is turned back into its natural channel, or led to a different part of the hill, for the nourishment of other crops. These mountain streams, which abound in all parts of the hilly districts, are of the greatest importance to the farmer; and as they generally spring from a high elevation in the ravines, they can be conducted at pleasure over all the lower parts of the hills. No operation in agriculture gives him and his labourers more pleasure than leading these streams of water from one place to another and making them subservient to their purposes. In my travels in the country the inhabitants often called my attention to this branch of their operations, and I pleased them much when I expressed my admiration at the skill with which they executed it. The practice is not confined to the paddy fields; for I remember once, when superintending the planting of some large trees and shrubs in the garden of Messrs. Dent & Co. in Hong-kong, after I had given them a large supply of water at the time they were put into the ground, I desired the gardener to repeat the dose next morning. But, on the following day, when I returned to the spot I was surprised to find a little stream divided into many branches, and meandering amongst the roots of the newly planted trees. As there was no stream there before, I went up to examine its source, and found that it had been led from a neighbouring ravine; a work more easy than carrying a large supply of water in buckets, and at the same time more effectual.
Several other summer crops are cultivated in the lowlands. In the southern provinces, for instance, we find large quantities of the Nelumbium speciosum grown for its roots, which are much esteemed; the Trapa bicornis, the castoroil plant, Scirpus tuberosus, Convolvulus reptans, and several other vegetables, for which there is a great demand in all Chinese towns. The sugar cane also is extensively grown both in the provinces of Quantung and Fokien, and probably in other parts of the empire.
In the district of Kiangsoo my attention was directed to a plant called Tein-ching, which is largely cultivated by the inhabitants for the sake of its blue dye. In the southern provinces a great deal of indigo (Indigofera) is grown and manufactured, in addition to a large quantity which is annually imported from Manilla and the Straits. In the north, however, the plant which we call indigo is never met with, owing, I suppose, to the coldness of the winters; but its place is supplied by the Tein-ching (Isatis indigotica), the leaves of which are prepared in the same manner as the common indigo. The colour of the liquid at first is a kind of greenish blue, but, after being well stirred up and exposed to the air, it becomes much darker. I suppose it is thickened afterwards by evaporation; but this part of the process did not come under my observation. I am very much inclined to believe that this is the dye used to colour the green teas which are manufactured in the north of China for the English and American markets: this, however, is only conjecture.
The summer productions of the hilly country are, of course, different from those of the plains. From the province of Fokien northward to the great valley of the Yang-tse-Kiang, the hills are amongst the most fertile in China. They are frequently terraced in the manner I have described, and their staple productions, if we except the rice which is grown on the lower terraces, are sweet potatoes and earth-nuts. In the southern provinces, when the winters are mild, the roots of the sweet potato frequently remain in the ground all the winter. In the north the cold is too severe, and consequently the natives are obliged to dig up and protect the roots. In April those roots which have been saved for "seed" are planted thickly in beds near the houses or in the corners of the fields. They begin to push out their young shoots immediately, and these are ready to be taken off by the beginning of May. In the mean time the ground on the hill sides has been prepared, and horizontal ridges or drills formed about two feet apart. About the 10th or 12th of May these cuttings are taken off and planted, and seem to grow as readily as couch grass. It is astonishing how well they succeed, considering the little care expended upon them; but we must keep in mind that this is the commencement of the rainy season at the change of the monsoon, that the sky is generally cloudy, that scarcely a day passes without frequent showers, and that consequently the air is saturated with moisture. The earth-nuts are grown most extensively in the southern provinces, more particularly in Fokien; while the sweet potatoes are better a little farther north, where they form the chief hill crop.
The winter crops in the neighbourhood of Macao and Canton consist of large quantities of our European vegetables, such as potatoes, peas, onions, and cabbages, which are grown for the supply of the Europeans who reside at Hong-kong or Canton: our potatoes are generally planted here in October, which is considered the best time to insure a good crop; but as they always sell well in the markets, the growers manage to keep up a succession during the greater part of the year. Several varieties of the cabbage tribe, which seem indigenous to China, are grown extensively in the fields at this season both in the south and north. These never produce a solid heart like our cabbages, and are of no value when imported to England; but the celebrated "Pak-tsae" or white cabbage of Shantung and Peking, is a very different plant; it is never grown in the south of China, but is produced in the summer months in the north. Large quantities of this delicious vegetable are brought south every autumn, in the junks which sail at the commencement of the north-east monsoon in October.
In the northern provinces the principal winter productions are wheat, barley, peas, beans, the cabbage oil plant, and various other vegetables of lesser note. These crops are grown on the hills as well as on the low lands, and on the ground which produces sweet potatoes in summer. In the Nanking district they fire generally sown or planted in October upon those lands which produce rice or cotton during the summer months. Frequently the sowing takes place before the cotton or the dry summer crops have been removed from the ground, and the young plants are seen coming up amongst these crops, and ready to take their place when they are removed. This is done in order to give a longer season for the ripening of the different crops, and is very generally practised in the northern districts. The wheat and barley ripen in Fokien in April, and in the neighbourhood of Shanghae about the middle of May. About Chinchew and Amoy the wheat crops are so poor that the labourers pull them up by the hand, in the same manner as we do in our moorlands in England and Scotland. They are of course much better in the rich district of Shanghae, but the varieties of both wheat and barley are far inferior to ours; and as the Chinese sow them too thickly, they are generally much drawn, and the heads and corn small. The beans and peas seem to be exactly the same as our field kinds, and are certainly indigenous to the northern parts of China. Very large quantities of the cabbage tribe are cultivated for the sake of the oil which is extracted from their seeds. They are planted out in the fields in autumn, and their seeds are ripe in April and May, in time to be removed from the land before the rice crops. It must not be supposed, however, that the whole of the land is regularly cropt in this manner, and that, as some writers inform us, it never for a moment lies idle, for such is not the case.
In the island of Chusan, and over all the rice country of Chekiang and Keangsoo, there are two plants cultivated in the winter months, almost exclusively for manure: the one is a species of Coronilla; the other is Trefoil, or clover. Large ridges, not unlike those on which gardeners grow celery, are thrown up on the wet rice fields in the autumn, and the seeds of the plants are dropt in, in patches at five inches apart, on the surface of the ridges. In a few days germination commences, and long before the winter is past the tops of the ridges are covered with luxuriant herbage. This goes on growing until April, when it is necessary to prepare the ground for the rice. The ridges are then levelled, and the manure plants are scattered in a fresh state over the surface of the ground. The fields are flooded, and the plough and harrow are employed to turn up and pulverise the soil. The manure, thus scattered over the ground and half-buried amongst mud and water, begins to decay immediately, and gives out a most disagreeable putrid smell. This mode of manuring is generally adopted in all the rice lands in this part of China, and the young paddy doubtless derives strong nourishment from the ammonia given out in the decomposition of this fresh manure.
Fire-wood is so scarce in the country that a great portion of the straw, cotton stalks, and grass, which would go to manure the fields, is used for firing, and, therefore, the plan of growing manure for the land is forced upon the farmers by necessity. The plan of using manure in a fresh state, instead of allowing it first to decay, has doubtless been found from long experience to be the best for the young paddy. The Chinese farmer is not a chemist; he knows little or nothing of vegetable physiology, but his forefathers have hit accidentally upon certain systems which are found in practice to succeed, and to these he himself adheres, and hands them down unchanged to his children.
When the first crop of rice is cut, the second, which has been planted in the alternate rows, is left to grow and ripen in the autumn; the ground is stirred up, and the stubble and part of the straw of the first crop is immediately worked up with the mud and water between the rows: this decays in the same manner as the trefoil in spring, and affords manure to the second crop. Prawns and fish of various kinds are frequently used for the same purpose and in the same way.