and roots serving for the field producing the clover, thus giving a dressing of six to seven tons of green manure per acre, carrying not less than 37 pounds of potassium; 5 pounds of phosphorus, and 58 pounds of nitrogen.
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Fig. 166.—Smoothing the soil and pulling weeds after the first working of a field of transplanted rice, Japan.
Where the families are large and the holdings small,
so they cannot spare room to grow the green manure crop,
it is gathered on the mountain, weed and hill lands, or it
may be cut in the canals. On our boat trip west from
Soochow the last of May, many boats were passed carrying
tons of the long green ribbon-like grass, cut and
gathered from the bottom of the canal. To cut this grass
men were working to their armpits in the water of the
canal, using a crescent-shaped knife mounted like an
anchor from the end of a 16-foot bamboo handle. This was
shoved forward along the bottom of the canal and then
drawn backward, cutting the grass, which rose to the
surface where it was gathered upon the boats. Or material
for green manure may be cut on grave, mountain or hill
lands, as described under Fig. 115.
