permit not only the whole of any rain to be retained upon the field when so desired, but it is completely distributed over it, thus causing the whole soil to be uniformly charged with moisture and preventing washing from one portion of the field to another. Such provisions are shown in Figs. 133 and 138.
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Fig. 156.—Residence compound and farm buildings of Mrs. Wu, Kashing, China.
Extensive as is the acreage of irrigated rice in China,
Korea and Japan, nearly every spear is transplanted; the
largest and best crop possible, rather than the least labor
and trouble, as is so often the case with us, determining
their methods and practices. We first saw the fitting of
the rice nursery beds at Canton and again near Kashing
in Chekiang province on the farm of Mrs. Wu, whose
homestead is seen in Fig. 156. She had come with her
husband from Ningpo after the ravages of the Taiping
rebellion had swept from two provinces alone twenty
millions of people and settled on a small area of then
vacated land. As they prospered they added to their holding
by purchase until about twenty-five acres were acquired,
an area about ten times that possessed by the usual
prosperous family in China. The widow was managing her
place, one of her sons, although married, being still in
school, the daughter-in-law living with her mother-in-law
and helping in the home. Her field help during the summer
consisted of seven laborers and she kept four cows
for the plowing and pumping of water for irrigation. The
