Page:Farmers of forty centuries.djvu/364

346 high because of its most favorable distribution and the high summer temperatures. In the period of early growth, April, May and June, there are 4.18 inches; but in the period of maximum growth, July and August, the rainfall is 11.4 inches; and in the ripening period, September and October, it is 3.08 inches, while during the rest of the year but 1.06 inch falls. Thug most of the rain comes at the time when the crops require the greatest daily consumption and it is least in mid-winter, during the period of little growth.

As our train left Tientsin we traveled for a long distance through a country agriculturally poor and little tilled, with surface flat, the soil apparently saline, and the land greatly in need of drainage. Wherever there were canals the crops were best, apparently occupying more or less continuous areas along either bank. The day was hot and sultry but laborers were busy with their large hoes, often with all garments laid aside except a short shirt or a pair of roomy trousers.

In the salt district about the village of Tangku there were huge stacks of salt and smaller piles not yet brought together, with numerous windmills, constituting most striking features in the landscape, but there was almost no agricultural or other vegetation. Beyond Pehtang there are other salt works and a canal leads westward to Tientsin, on which the salt is probably taken thither, and still other salt stacks and windmills continued visible until near Hanku, where another canal leads toward Peking. Here the coast recedes eastward from the railway and beyond the city limits many grave mounds dot the surrounding plains where herds of sheep were grazing.

As we hurried toward the delta region of the Lwan ho, and before reaching Tangshan, a more productive country was traversed. Thrifty trees made the landscape green, and fields of millet, kaoliang and wheat stretched for miles together along the track and back over the flat plain beyond the limit of vision. Then came fields planted with