Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/842

822 close union of these two constituent elements of our world. That is the fundamental idea of our agricultural and hydraulic philosophy.

The distribution of water by canals dates, in China, from the fabulous epoch. Having been carried on before letters and literature existed, we do not know what method was at first employed. In the year 2300 according to our annals, in the reign of the Emperor Yao, China was visited by a deluge extending over the whole empire. It lasted nine years, during which the whole country was a submarine domain. The waters of this flood were drained away by the enterprise of the Emperor Yu, our Noah, who employed seven years in dividing the country into nine regions, separated from one another by artificial water-courses which were like natural frontiers. After the water had been withdrawn he had the qualities of the lands of each province examined, and the products ascertained which they could afford; established the unit of land measure, and fixed nine classes of imposts, graduated according to the fertility of the lands and their situation. The conditions thus established lasted ten centuries.

In 1100 the prime minister of the Emperor Wou-Weng, Tcheou-Kung, constructed norias, or hydraulic machines of simple design and working, by which water was raised to a height to which it had never been carried before, and made reservoirs and canals for irrigation. Water was conducted, by means of machinery, from the wells to the dry hill-tops, and water provision was assured for times of drought. Agriculture, in consequence, flourished. Other measures of Tcheou-Kung comprised the promulgation of laws respecting the boundaries of properties and the prevention of trespasses. The fields were divided into squares called wells, from their resemblance to the Chinese character signifying a well, surrounded and furrowed by ditches so arranged that eight farmers, each tilling his own tract, united in cultivating the ninth, interior tract, which belonged to the state, and the produce of which paid their rent.

The system succeeded to a marvel. Each tenant was proprietor of about fifteen acres, the whole product of which belonged to him, while the state was really proprietor of the whole, and had, as a landlord, the income of the ninth tract. Besides this, each farmer had some 3,350 square metres of ground for his farm-yard and his mulberry-trees. Thus he always enjoyed a surplus of provision, of pork and poultry for food, and silk for clothing. No one at this time was richer or poorer than another, but a complete social equality existed, and every one, they say, was satisfied. The dynasty under which this system was established fell into decay about 600 when a period of feudal oppression set in that lasted for two hundred years. At the end of that time