Page:Farmers of forty centuries.djvu/251

Rh catty,” which is 440 bushels of 56 pounds per acre. The usual market price was stated to be $1.00, Mexican, per one hundred catty, making the gross value of the crop $79.49, gold, per acre. His land was valued at $60, Mexican, per mow, or $154.80 per acre, gold.

My interpreter informed me that the average well-to-do farmers in this part of Shantung own from fifteen to twenty mow of land and this amount is quite ample to provide for eight people. Such farmers usually keep two cows, two donkeys and eight or ten pigs. The less well-to-do or small farmers own two to five mow and act as superintendents for the larger farmers. Taking the largest holding, of twenty mow per family of eight people, as a basis, the density per square mile would be 1536 people, and an area of farm land equal to the state of Wisconsin would have 86,000,000 people; 21,500,000 cows; 21,500,000 donkeys and 86,000,000 swine. These observations apply to one of the most productive sections of the province, but very large areas of land in the province are not cultivable and the last census showed the total population nearly one-half of this amount. It is clear, therefore, that either very effective agricultural methods are practiced or else extreme economy is exercised. Both are true.

On this day in the fields our interpreter procured his dinner at a farm house, bringing us four boiled eggs, for which he paid at the rate of 8.3 cents of oar money, but his dinner was probably included in the price. The next table gives the prices for some articles obtained by inquiry at the Tsingtao market, May 23rd, 1909, reduced to our currency.