ive and attempt so colossal an
enterprise is proof enough of genuine greatness. No feeble folk could
even have planned such an undertaking.

On this trip into the heart of China, however, I have noticed a number
of things of decidedly practical value in addition to the merely
curious things I have just reported. In the first place, I have been
simply amazed to find that these Chinese farmers around Peking,
Nankou, and Tien-tsin are far ahead of some of our farmers in the
matter of horsepower help in plowing.

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Coming up from Peking to Nankou, I found farmers in almost every field
busy with their fall plowing or late grain sowing, and while there
were dozens and dozens of three-horsepower plows, I saw only one or
two one-horsepower plows on the whole trip. This is all the more
surprising in view of the fact that labor is so cheap over here--15
cents a day American money would be a good wage for farm hands--but
evidently the farmers realize that although plow hands are cheap, they
must have two or three horses in order to get the best results from
the soil itself. One-horse plows do not put the land in good
condition. With two, three, or four horses or donkeys (they use large
donkeys for plowing, even if small ones for riding) they get the land
in good condition in spite of the fact that they cannot get the good
plows that any American farmer may buy. I rode donkey-back through
some farming country yesterday and watched the work rather closely.
The plows, like those in Korea, have only one handle, but are much
better in workmanship. Here they are made by the village
carpenter-blacksmith, and have a large steel moldboard in front, and
below it a long, sharp, broad, almost horizontal point.

The Chinese farmers, it should also be observed in passing, fully
realize the importance of land rolling and harrowing. It is no
uncommon sight to see a man driving a three-horse harrow. It is also
said that for hundreds of years the Chinese have practised a suitable
rotation of crops and have known the value of leguminous plants.

Nankou Pass, China.

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XIII

FROM PEKING TO THE YANGTZE-KIANG

I shall have to go back to Peking some time. You must hurry out of the
city, men tell you there, or else ere you know it the siren-like Lure
of the East will grip you irresistibly; and I felt in some measure the
soundness of the counsel. The knowledge that each day the long trains
of awkward-moving camels are windin