"In the southern provinces the cotton plant will last for two or three years, but to the northward the seed must be sown annually."
The author then enumerates nine distinct varieties and their comparative qualities; after which he proceeds to the choice of seed, under which head he observes, that if the seed be steeped in water, in which eels have been boiled, the plant will resist the attack of insects. He then describes the three methods of broadcast, drilling, and dibbling, and gives a decided preference of the last, though it be the most laborious.
"The ground being well prepared, holes are to be made at the distance of a cubit from each other, and the lines a cubit apart. A little water is first to be poured in, and then four or five seeds, after which each hole is to be covered with a mixture of soil and manure, and firmly trodden down with the foot. In the other methods a roller is to be used."
The next process is weeding, loosening, and breaking fine the earth.—He then observes, "After the plants have attained some degree of strength and size, the most advanced and perfect plant should be selected and all the rest rooted out, for if two or more be suffered to rise together, they will increase in height without giving lateral shoots; the leaves will be large and luxuriant, but the pods will be few." He next proceeds to the pruning of the plants to make them bear copiously—gathering the pods—preparing and spinning the wool—weaving the cloth.—This abridged account I have given to shew, that they are not deficient in writings of this kind.
[63] See the plate facing page 37.
[64] The East India Company pays from thirteen to sixty tales per pecul for their teas; some tea of a higher price is purchased by individuals, but seldom or ever by the Company. A tale is six shillings and eight-pence, and a pecul is one hundred and thirty-three pounds and one third.
[65] The measurement annexed to each of the fifteen ancient provinces was taken from the maps that were constructed by a very laborious and, as far as we had an opportunity of comparing them with the country, a very accurate survey, which employed the Jesuits ten years. I do not pretend to say that the areas, as I have given them in the table, are mathematically correct, but the dimensions were taken with as much care as was deemed necessary for the purpose, from maps drawn on a large scale, of which a very beautiful manuscript copy is now in his Majesty's library at Buckingham-house, made by a Chinese, having all the names written in Chinese and Tartar characters.
[66] One of the streets in the suburbs of Canton is emphatically called Squeeze-gut-alley, which is so narrow that every gentleman in the Company's service does not find it quite convenient to pass.
[67] The great advantage of a potatoe crop, as I before observed, is the certainty of its success. Were a general failure of this root to take place, as sometimes happens to crops of rice, Ireland, in its present state, would experience all the horrors that attend a famine in some of the provinces of China.
[68] In the Canton jargon, second chop Englishmen; and even this distinction the Americans, I understand, have nearly forfeited in the minds of the Chinese.