for fuel, but I could see that the Chinese is a poorer variety than
our American cotton, and is cultivated more poorly. Instead of
planting in rows as we do, the peasants about Shanghai broadcast in
"lands" eight or ten feet wide, as we sow wheat and oats. About
Shanghai they do not use the heavier two and three horse plows I found
about Peking; consequently the land is poorly broken to begin with,
and the cultivation while the crop is growing amounts to very little.
No sort of seed selection or variety breeding has ever been attempted.
No wonder that {141} the stalks are small, the bolls small and few in
number, and the staple also very short.

From my observation I should say that with better varieties and better
cultivation China could easily double her yields without increasing
her acreage. There is likely to be some increase in acreage, too,
however, because farmers who have had to give up poppy culture are in
search of a new money crop, and in most cases will take up cotton.

As I have said before, the coolie class wear padded clothes all
winter, and as they have no fire in their houses, they naturally have
to wear several suits even of the padded sort. I remember a speech
Congressman Richmond P. Hobson made several years ago in which he
spoke of having seen Chinamen with clothes piled on, one suit on top
of another, until they looked like walking cotton bales. Some of his
hearers may have thought this an exaggeration, but if so, I wish to
give him the support of my own observation and that of a preacher. As
a Chinaman came in the street-car in Shanghai Friday my missionary
host remarked: "That fellow has on four or five suits already, and
he'll put on more as the weather gets colder."

Mr. Currie, the English superintendent of the International Cotton
Mills at Shanghai, told me as I went through his factory that the
Chinese men and women he employs average about 12 cents a day
(American money), but that from his experience in England he would say
that English labor at 80 cents or a dollar a day is cheaper. "You'd
have more for your money at the week's end. One white girl will look
after four sides of a ring spinning frame; it takes six Chinese, as
you see. Then, again, the one white girl would oil her own machine;
the Chinese will not. In the third place, in England two overseers
would be enough for this room, while here we must have seven."

Hong Kong.

{142}

XV

FAREWELL TO CHINA

With this