Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/50

 economy observed; notwithstanding which the people in many provinces are reduced to the most abject state of want and misery, many dying of actual starvation, and thousands emigrating every year, in order to procure a precarious subsistence abroad.

It is true that China is in some parts hilly, and in others marshy; that wild men and wild beasts occupy the higher regions, and reeds and rushes the lower; in such situations we do not of course expect to find fertility; yet the vallies and the level plains, which are by no means circumscribed, are proverbially productive, and in some favoured spots, the fertility is amazing. Barrow says, "that an acre of land, in China, with proper culture, will afford a supply of rice for ten persons, for a whole year, in the southern provinces; and sufficient for the consumption of five in the northern; allowing each person two pounds a day." This estimate may be considered high; but on minute enquiry of the natives, who are acquainted with the cultivation of the interior, it appears, that an acre of land in China, well cultivated, will produce 3600 pounds of rice, in two crops, per year; which is equal at two pounds a day, to the sustenance of five individuals. But the Chinese peasantry generally cannot calculate on two pounds of rice a day, or scarcely one, and are obliged to make up the deficiency by sweet potatoes, pulse, or any thing else that will satisfy hunger. The observation of travellers, who have visited the country, tends to shew, that the borders of the grand canal, and the two gigantic streams—the Yellow River, and the Yang-tsze-keang—are extraordinarily productive, yielding two crops in the year, without needing to lie fallow