Chinese government to confirm the people in the love of all antiquated things, if once acknowledged to be useful, without endeavouring to discover a better method. When the Chinese break up any fallow ground, they use the mattock. With this instrument, also, they clear the corn fields of weeds, root up shrubs, and reduce the soil to a more equable condition of density or compactness. Such ap pears to have been used among the aborigines of China, as it was among other nations, of which mention is made, both in the works of profane authors, and the sacred writings. Thus the Latin sarculum appears to have been an instrument like the mattocks depicted in Chinese paintings, and those now in use in China; and Isaiah, predicting the fall of Jerusalem by the Assyrians, says: : "With arrows and with bows shall men come thither; There is considerable propriety in using mattocks in the cultivation of hills, because a spade would not suit the general hardness of the ground, nor serve to uproot the shrubs effectually. These instruments are thus used in China, in what is termed terrace cultivation, a system which exists in hilly districts, but which is not carried to the marvellous extent that has been supposed. On this subject Dr. Abel, who visited the country for botanical purposes, remarks :— "While passing through the mountainous provinces of the empire, we naturally looked for that far-famed terrace cultivation, which has led to the notion of China being one vast garden, with hills terraced from the base to the summit. The wild and wooded tracts which were occasionally passed, at length convinced us that they do not often attempt to cultivate a surface naturally sterile or difficult, except in the immediate vicinity of towns; and that the terracing of hills is generally confined to those lower situations, where an accumulation of their degraded surface affords a soil naturally productive." Another important instrument to the Chinese husbandman is the harrow. This is provided with three rows of teeth, and a handle to support the labourer, who stands upon them to add to their weight. The object of the harrow is similar to that of the plough in China. It is simply to diffuse the soil in water, so as to produce an equable solution, or, in simpler terms, to make mud wherein to plant the rice. In some parts of the country, the plough is drawn through the soil by human strength; in others, by oxen, asses, and mules, contrary to the laws of humanity, yoked together indiscriminately. In the province of Canton the soil is ploughed by means of a buffalo, of a dark grey colour, which is called by the Chinese shuey-new, or "water-ox," from its propensity for muddy shallows, where it wallows in the mire. When sufficient rain has fallen to allow the rice fields to be laid under water, they are subjected to the plough; the buffalo and his driver wading through the field up to their knees from morning to night. Preparatory to planting, the rice is sown thickly in some richly-manured corner. It there germinates in two or three days; and when about ten inches in height, the young plants are removed to the fields prepared for their reception. The process of transplanting exhibits a perfect division of labour. One person takes up the young shoots and hands them to another, who conveys them to their destination. They are there received by a party of labourers, some of whom dibble holes, into which they drop the plants by sixes, while others follow to settle the earth about the roots. The labour must be any thing but agreeable, for the men are compelled to wade ankle-deep in mud and water, and to preserve a stooping position, till they have completed their task. Use, however, has rendered the work familiar; and it is said, that a man is able, by an ordinary exertion of his powers, to set from twenty to twenty-five plants within the minute. Sir George Staunton also represents, that the Chinese peasantry are better able to support labour, with slight intermission, than the lower classes in Europe, from the circumstance, that they are more temperate. For the most part, he says, they are sober men, and marrying early, they are less liable to corrupt the springs of life by vicious habits. After the rice is planted, the field is kept watered according as it requires. Any unusual deficiency of water would be fatal to the grain; and hence the Chinese have provided against that contingency, by furnishing canals and conduits to each field, for the purpose of irrigation. The Chinese excel in their contrivances for raising this water, in the irrigation of their land; and it is probable, that the origin of these inventions is very remote. One of these inventions is a species of chain-pump, and is thus described in Staunton's Embassy This pump consists, in the first place, of a hollow trough of a square make. Flat and square pieces of wood, corresponding to the dimensions of the trough, are fixed to a chain, which turns over a roller, or small wheel, placed at each extremity of the trough. The square pieces of wood fixed to the chain move with it round the rollers, and lift up a volume of water equal to the dimensions of the trough, and are therefore called the lifters. The power used in working this machine is applicable in three different ways. If the machine be intended to lift a great quantity of water, several sets of wooden arms are made to project from various parts of the lengthened axis of the rollers over which the chain and lifters turn. These arms are shaped like the letter T, and made round and smooth, for the foot to rest upon. 'The axis turns upon two upright pieces of wood, kept steady by a pole stretched across them. The machine being fixed, men, treading upon the projecting arms of the axis, and supporting themselves upon the beam across the uprights, communicate a rotatory motion to the chain, the lifters attached to which draw up a constant and copious stream of water. The chain-pump is applied to the purpose of draining grounds, transferring water from one cistern to another, or raising it to small heights out of rivers or canals. Another method of working this machine is, by yoking a buffalo to a large horizontal wheel, connected by cogs with the axis of the rollers over which the lifters turn. A small machine of the kind is worked merely by the hand, with the assistance of a trundle and simple crank, such as are applied to a common grindstone, fixed to one end of the axis of the chain-pump. This last method is general throughout the empire. Every labourer is in possession of such a portable machinee-an instrument to him not less useful than a spade to an European peasant." Two A more simple method of irrigation in China, is the bucket worked by means of a band. men lay hold upon two strings, fill the bucket by lowering it into the canal, or conduit, and empty the contents into the field. This process |