Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1884 — Farming in Corea. [ARTICLE]

Farming in Corea.

A correspondent in Eu San, Corea, writes as follows to the Celestial Emjui’e, a Chinese newspaper: I notice the Corean farmer is a different man from his Chinese brother; he has richer land and is by no means so industrious. The Corean plow is simply a large shovel held upright, with a slanting beam, to the end of which the yoke lines of his cow are made fast. The plow is very clumsy and hard to hold, and not near as good or convenient as the Chinese plow. The Corean harrow is simply a wooden frafne, and would be useless on dry ground, but the fields are harrowed when flooded, and it levels the soft lumps of earth fairly well. The rice planting is done different from China. The rice plants, tied up in neat bundles, are scattered over-tiie field for the convenience of the planters who form a line at one end of the field —men, women and children, each hold-, ing a bundle of rice plants in the left hand—-the plant being pressed into the soil with the right hand. The motions of taking the plant from the left hand and planting it is done faster than the ticking of a watch. While the planting is going on a song is being sung by one of the men or women, and all join in a chorus, which appears-to come in after about four words, and they lighten the hard labor of rice planting,which is done in a stooping position, and iu a field of mud aud water.