CHAPTER V
The peasant cultivator of China spends a life of intermittent industry. In the north there is but one annual crop, but in the south two crops are grown. The principal cultivation being rice, he is perforce constrained to the system of co-operation, as, there being no fences, all the rice crop of a large flat area, sometimes minutely subdivided, must be reaped at the same time, so that when the crop has been removed the cattle and buffaloes may roam over the flat for what pasturage they can pick up before the flooding of the land and preparation for the next crop.
WAITING FOR CUSTOMERS.
In the event of any farmer being late with his sowing, he must procure seed of a more rapidly growing kind, some kinds of rice showing a difference of a month or more in the time that elapses from sowing to reaping. But even when the crop is down and growing, no grass that may be found on the edges of the paths or canals is allowed to go to waste. Small children may then be seen seated sideways on the broad backs of the buffaloes while the beasts graze upon the skirting pasture, the children preventing them from injuring the growing crops.
