Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 December 1890 — Agriculture in Ancient China. [ARTICLE]

Agriculture in Ancient China.

In 1100 B. G. the Prime Minister of the Emperor Wou-Weng, TcheouKung, constructed norias, or hydraulic machines of simple design and work-, ina, by which water was raised to a height to which it had never been carried before, apd made reservoirs and canals for irrigation. Water was conducted by means of machinery from the wells to the dry hilltops, and water provision was assured for times of drouth. Agriculture, in consevuence, flourished.

Other measures of Tcheou-Kung comprised the promulgation of laws respecting the boundaries of properties and the prevention of trespasses. The fields were divided into squares "called wells, from their resemblance to the Chinese character signifying a well, surrounded and furrowed by ditches so arranged that eight farmers, each tilling his own tract, united in cultivating (he ninth, interior tract, which belonged to the state, and the produce of which paid their rent. The system succeeded to a marvel. Each tenant was proprietor of about fifteen acres, the whole product of which belonged him, while the state was really proprietor of the whole, and had, as a landlord, the income of the ninth tract. Besides this, each farmer had some 3,350 square meters of ground for his farmyard and his mulberry trees. Thus he always enjoyed a surplus of provisions, of pork and poultry for food, and silk for clothing. No one at this time was richer or poorer than another, but a complete social equality existed, and every one, they say, was satisfied.—Gen. Tcheng Ki'Tong, in Popular Science.