ABSTRACT
The Chinese are an agricultural people, and for about four thousand years have been practically self supporting from the productions of their own soil. Much of the grain is carried to the threshing floor on the backs or shoulders of men rather than hauled on waggons or carts or carried by animals. When their grains are harvested they must be stored, but very few of the peasant class have storehouses of any kind. Among the various kinds of Chinese productions none are perhaps more palatable than their melons. Chinese farming utensils, as well as those of all kinds of tradesmen, are very crude much likes those of Europe before the age of invention and machinery. They plough with a forked stick, one part of which is tipped with iron; their drag or harrow is often nothing more than a bunch of brush.
