width is only fourteen inches, and the weight between three and four
pounds. The fibre of the cotton stuff produced, especially in the
Kiung-sang and Chulla provinces, is highly esteemed by the Coreans, and
they say that it is much more durable and warmth-giving than that
produced either in Japan or China.

Of course the production of cotton could be greatly increased if more
practical systems were used in its cultivation, and if the magistrates
were not so much given to "squeezing" the people. To make money and to
have it extorted the moment you have made it, is not encouraging to the
poor Corean who has worked for it; therefore little exertion is displayed
beyond what is necessary to earn, not the "daily bread," for that they do
not eat, but the daily bowl of rice. There is much fertile land, which at
present is not used at all, and hardly any attention, and much less
skill, is manifested when once the seed is in the ground.

The Neapolitan _lazzaroni_, of world-wide reputation for extreme
laziness, have indeed worthy rivals in the Corean peasantry. The women
are made to do all the work, for by them the crops are gathered, and by
them the seeds are separated with the old-fashioned roller-gin. To borrow
statistics from the Commissioners' Report, a native woman can, with a
roller-gin, turn out, say, nearly 3 lbs. of clean cotton from 12 lbs. of
seed-cotton; while the industrious Japanese, who have brought over modern
machines of the saw-gin type, can obtain 35 lbs. of clean cotton from
140 lbs. of seed-cotton in the same space of time. Previous to being
spun, the cotton is prepared pretty much in the same way as in Japan or
China, the cotton being tossed into the air with a view to separating the
staple; but the spinning-wheel commonly used in Corea only makes one
thread at a time.