Farmers of forty centuries; or, Permanent agriculture in China, Korea and Japan . Fio. 133. Rice fields on the plains of the Yangtse-kiang being flooded prepara-tory to transplanting rice. the valley. The distance between the rows of rice is scarcely onefoot, so that counting those in the foreground will furnish anothermeans of measuring. There are more than twenty little fieldsshown in front of the house and reaching but half-way to it, andthe house was less than 500 feet from the camera. There are more than 11,000 square miles of fields thus gradedin the three main islands of Japan, each pro
Farmers of forty centuries; or, Permanent agriculture in China, Korea and Japan . Fio. 133. Rice fields on the plains of the Yangtse-kiang being flooded prepara-tory to transplanting rice. the valley. The distance between the rows of rice is scarcely onefoot, so that counting those in the foreground will furnish anothermeans of measuring. There are more than twenty little fieldsshown in front of the house and reaching but half-way to it, andthe house was less than 500 feet from the camera. There are more than 11,000 square miles of fields thus gradedin the three main islands of Japan, each provided with rims, withwater supply and drainage channels, all carefully kept in the bestof repair. The more level areas, too, in each of the three countries, 2U RICE CULTURE IN TILE ORIENT. GAINS FROM IRRIGATION WATER 245 have been similarly thrown into water level basins, comparativelyfew of which cover large areas, because nearly always the holdingsare small. All the earth excavated from the canals and drainagechannels has been levelled over the fields unless needed for leveesor dikes, so that the original labour of construction, added to thatof maintenance, makes a total far beyond our comprehension andnearly all of it is the product of human effort.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectagriculture, bookyear
