the ground was irrigated, to release the land for one to follow. The homes are in villages a mile or more apart and often the holdings or rentals are scattered, separated by considerable distances, hence easy portability is the key-note in the construction of this irrigating outfit. The bucket is very light, simply a woven basket waterproofed with a paste of bean flour. The windlass turns like a long spool on a single pin and the standard is a tripod with removable legs. Some wells we saw were sixteen or twenty feet deep and in these the water was raised by a cow walking straight away at the end of a rope.
The amount and distribution of rainfall in this province, as indicated by the mean of ten years' records at Tsingtao, obtained at the German Meteorological Observatory through the courtesy of Dr. B. Meyermanns, are given in the table in which the rainfall of Madison, Wisconsin, is inserted for comparison.
| Mean monthly rainfall. | Mean rainfall in 10 days. | |||
| Tsingtao, Inches. |
Madison, Inches. |
Tsingtao, Inches. |
Madison, Inches. | |
| January | .394 | 1.56 | .131 | .520 |
| February | .240 | 1.50 | .080 | .500 |
| March | .892 | 2.12 | .297 | .707 |
| April | 1.240 | 2.52 | .413 | .840 |
| May | 1.636 | 3.62 | .545 | 1.207 |
| June | 2.702 | 4.10 | .901 | 1.366 |
| July | 6.637 | 3.90 | 2.212 | 1.300 |
| August | 5.157 | 3.21 | 1.719 | 1.070 |
| September | 2.448 | 3.15 | .816 | 1.050 |
| October | 2.258 | 2.42 | .753 | .807 |
| November | .396 | 1.78 | .132 | .593 |
| December | .682 | 1.77 | .227 | .590 |
| Total | 24.682 | 31.65 | ||
While Shantung receives less than 25 inches of rain during the year, against Wisconsin's more than 31 inches, the rainfall during June, July and August in Shantung is nearly 14.5 inches, while Wisconsin receives but 11.2 inches. This greater summer rainfall, with persistent fertilization and intense management, in a warm latitude, are some of the elements permitting Shantung today to feed 38,247,900 people from an area equal to that upon which Wisconsin is yet feeding but 2,333,860. Must American agriculture ultimately feed sixteen people where it is now
