extra growing-room. But poverty and governmental inaction caused much
to lie idle. There were two annual crops in the north, and five in two
years in the south. Perhaps two-thirds of the population cultivated the
soil. The methods, however, remained primitive; but the great fertility
of the soil and the great industry of the farmer, with generous but
careful use of fertilizers, enabled the vast territory to support an
enormous population. Rice, wheat, barley, buckwheat, maize, kaoliang,
several millets, and oats were the chief grains cultivated. Beans,
peas, oil-bearing seeds (sesame, rape, etc.), fibre-plants (hemp,
ramie, jute, cotton, etc.), starch-roots (taros, yams, sweet potatoes,
etc.), tobacco, indigo, tea, sugar, fruits, were among the more
important crops produced. Fruit-growing, however, lacked scientific
method. The rotation of crops was not a usual practice, but grafting,
pruning, dwarfing, enlarging, selecting, and varying species were well
understood. Vegetable-culture had reached a high state of perfection,
the smallest patches of land being made to bring forth abundantly. This
is the more creditable inasmuch as most small farmers could not afford
to purchase expensive foreign machinery, which, in many cases, would
be too large or complicated for their purposes.

The principal animals, birds, etc., reared were the pig, ass, horse,
mule, cow, sheep, goat, buffalo, yak, fowl, duck, goose, pigeon,
silkworm, and bee.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, the successor to the Board
of Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce, instituted during recent
years, is now adapting Western methods to the cultivation of the
fertile soil of China, and even greater results than in the past may
be expected in the future.