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Show New Revolution Stirs China as Farmers Learn Modern Methods From U. S. Expert About 2,000,000 mow on the outwash plain along the river is fertile with plenty of available water. The Peng river is diverted to this land by irrigation ir-rigation dttches of carefully laid stones without cement or other bind- PrimitiveTools,Hand Cultivation Limit Yield of Tiny Plots By BARROW LYONS Western Newspaper Union Correspondent Probably no man has planned practical farming on so vast a scale as Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk, assistant chief of the U. S. soil conservation conser-vation service, who has just returned from a year in China. His plans envisage revolutionizing the agriculture of Chinese provinces the size of several states; of freeing several hundred millions of farmers from the soil so that they can build new industries for China; of seeding 30,000,000 acres of eroded hillsides with grasses, legumes and hardy trees; of educating the masses away from the farming traditions of many centuries through demonstrations of what can be done. Dr. Lowdermilk has a record of solid achievement behind him. With other experts of our Soil Conservation Conserva-tion service, he has helped American Amer-ican farmers increase the yields of their own fields. The average in- When farmers try to work together, they generally get to quarreling, he feels. He is likely not to like the way his neighbor does things. Just the same, when he sees the village next to his, which has adopted adopt-ed the new ways of farming, prospering pros-pering as he never thought possible, he is moved to giving consideration' to the advantage of cooperative action. ac-tion. Then, too, he has heard of the strange things that are happening happen-ing in the cities, where cooperative industries have sprung up to make implements of war for Chiang Kai-shek's Kai-shek's armies. And when he thinks about it for a while, cooperation becomes be-comes worth trying, although at first the hazards seem extreme. 'Bombing' With Grass Seed. Perhaps the most spectacular of the plans developed by Dr. Lowdermilk Lowder-milk and his experts is the project for reclaiming almost a third of China, which has been ruined for cultivation by deforestation and erosion. ero-sion. These intrepid pioneers propose pro-pose that after the war, when airplanes air-planes and pilots become available, this land be seeded with clay pellets pel-lets which contain the seeds of grass and leguminous herbs and hardy trees. After the war the Chinese hope to drop millions of seeds upon the washed out slopes of China when they are damp and soft after rains, so that the pellets will sink in and stick, and the seeds will grow. The chief difficulty will be to obtain enough seeds. In one year the United Unit-ed States Soil Conservation service managed to get 800,000 pounds of grass seed for soil reclamation in TERRACED SLOPES, built with much painful labor, are being ruined by erosion, as gulleys cut through the steep lands. This scene is in the province of Shensi. Dr. Lowdermilk Low-dermilk is standing in the foreground, fore-ground, making a survey. ing. The spring floods generally wash out many of the stones and wreck the diversion works, so that, on the average, only one-third of the area can count on a water supply sup-ply each year. Another 2,000,000 mow on the sides of the lower mountains consist of steep slopes, some of them 80 per cent slopes, which are cultivated, but suffering rapid soil erosion. About 3,000,000 mow are too high for agriculture, agri-culture, but are capable of growing forests, if properly cared for, and now produce abundant water supply. Concrete Highway Needed. The farmers have cleared the intermediate in-termediate slopes and are raising meager crops upon them. These slopes can be used for growing grass upon which sheep can pasture. But there is at present no means of marketing the sheep from the lower hills, or lumber from the higher hills. Concrete highways will be the answer. But in handling the land surface sur-face the lessons learned from the Tennessee Valley experiment point the way to reclamation. Penghsien is to be a model guinea pig county for China. Dr. Lowdermilk and his experts laid the foundations for a vast demonstration of replacing loose stone diversion ditches with cement channels and making over the face of the valley so that its crops will never fail. Near Sian, in the Province of Shensi, an actual demonstration was begun. Bench terracing that would conserve both soil and moisture was put in with improvised plows and tools; grass was planted along the "vs?- t FARMERS WATCH a demonstration demonstra-tion in American agricultural methods meth-ods in Hwang Lung Shan region of Shensi province. At first skeptical, they became interested when larger harvests proved superiority of Yankee ways. creased yield in the last 10 years in this country, due to soil and water wa-ter conservation has been about 20 per cent, in some cases running up to 300 per cent. It was this realistic demonstration which led the Chinese to borrow him for a year. The basic reason China has remained re-mained a backward country is that it requires four farm families to support five families of the population. popula-tion. In the United States, one farm family raises enough food for five families itself and four others. Let's put it differently. In China 210,000,000 acres of cultivated land and that is nearly all thaf China can find to cultivate supports, after a fashion, about 400,000,000 people. In other words, less than half an acre, per person is used to grow food for the Qhinese. In the United States, 365,000,000 acres of cultivated land are used to support 133,000,000 people about 5 acres per person, or 11 times as much land per person for food as in China. Freeing Workers for Factories. Better use of China's land for farming would free millions for other oth-er pursuits. China must industrialize. industrial-ize. China can do so by freeing men and women from growing food. When Dr. Lowdermilk went to China, the Chinese government gave him a staff of eight agricultural experts. ex-perts. For several months he taught them from field manuals in soils, agronomy, irrigation engineering, ANOTHER VIEW of terraced land from a greater distance shows the character of this type of cultivation. As much of China is hilly, this method meth-od must be used. this country; but much more will be needed, if the job is to be done quickly in China. Cattle and Sheep Land. Beyond the Great Wall of China, built to keep out the nomad tribes that wandered over the great grassy areas of the west and north, still other food possibilities are open for the Chinese. Here they can raise blooded cattle and sheep for beef and mutton in great quantities. So the program shapes up like this, 1. soil conservation through bench terracing and the plant- ' ing of grass; 2. fruit and nut trees for the steeper slopes that should not be farmed with grain or row crops; 3. better irriga-' irriga-' tion; 4. reforestation of the mountains and development of water power; 5. improvement in fertilizers; 6, cooperative farming, farm-ing, which makes possible the introduction of modern machinery; machin-ery; 7. cement highways to make possible the exchange of products; 8. reclamation of eroded erod-ed lands with soil saving dams and revegitation; and 9. beef raising for the grassy plains and sheep for the hillsides. "I have utmost faith that the Chinese Chi-nese will do these things and solve their own problems," said Dr. Lowdermilk. Low-dermilk. "They are the best farmers farm-ers in the world, in the sense that they understand the nature of growing grow-ing things and are extremely hard working. Thir government is led by men determined to rehabilitate their country and develop its resources, re-sources, agriculturally and industrially. industri-ally. . "Let the rest of the world watch to its laurels when the Chinese have achieved their goals. Americans need not be smug. In our country we have the greatest area of fine farm land that exists on the face of the earth not even excepting the rich farm lands of the Ukraine. If we believe that no other nation is envious of this richest of all heritages, heri-tages, we are living in blissful ignorance. igno-rance. "It would be easy for us to take out of cultivation the poorest of our farm lands and still support a population popu-lation of 300,000,000 from the best of our farms. Some day we shall need that many people to defend our shores from young, strong nations envious of our wealth. That is ,a thought for our farmers and business busi-ness men and industrial workers to think about. It is also worth making mak-ing the Chinese our allies." . ' ' !- t A BULLOCK DRAGGING a stone roller is the threshing machine for these people in Shensi. '- ridges and crests to stop erosion; nut and fruit trees were planted on steeper slopes seeded with grass. Over an area of some 10,000 mow the yield was increased between May and October, and erosion was virtually virtu-ally stopped. Chinese farmers from miles around watched at first with deep skepticismbut skepti-cismbut in the fall, when the crops were gathered, they came to praise even to ask that similar work be done on their own farms. Three-Acre Farms. One of the great handicaps to modern farming in China lies in the j fact that farms are all small. The average farm in most of China is about 3.3 acres. In the Northwest the farms are larger about five acres each. This means that modern machinery cannot be used economically econom-ically unless villages can pool their land, and farm cooperatively. This is the pattern that is being advocated by the Chinese government, govern-ment, and is beginning to find acceptance. ac-ceptance. As the tremendously increased in-creased efficiency and profit of the use of modern machinery become be-come evident, there is no doubt that this type of farming will spread as rapidly as machinery can be obtained. ob-tained. (Farm machinery manufacturers manufac-turers take note.) But there, resistance arises from the intense individuality of the Chinese Chi-nese farmer. He is even more independent in-dependent and individualistic than j the American farmer. He likes to work his little farm by himself without with-out even hired labor, in most cases. WITH A BENT STICK for a plow, and two donkeys for power, this man turns the silty soil near Tiens-chui Tiens-chui in southern Kansu province. forestry, hydraulic engineering and farm economics, the methods by which the United States in recent years has made gains in- soil con-I con-I servation and productivity. Then I they went out into the land and got to work. ; One of their first surveys looked toward improving irrigation along ; the banks of the Peng river where it runs through fertile plains between high hills in Penghsien. The unit of land measurement in China is the "mow" about one-sixth of an acre. P 'I V4' r ! ' -L "" ' J REFUGEES RETURN to their home city, Changtch, Hunan province, prov-ince, in the heart of the "rice bowl" section of China. Japanese troops I were driven out after bitter fighting on December 9, last year, after holding it about a week Th city of Chang ten especially Important because through it great quantities of rice move annually. Freeing of these "rice bowl" cities Is one of the most important tasks In the grave problem of feeding the great Oriental nation in wartime. |