e the chief grains cultivated. Beans,
peas, oil-bearing seeds (sesame, rape, etc.), fibre-plants (hemp,
ramie, jute, cotton, etc.), starch-roots (taros, yams, sweet potatoes,
etc.), tobacco, indigo, tea, sugar, fruits, were among the more
important crops produced. Fruit-growing, however, lacked scientific
method. The rotation of crops was not a usual practice, but grafting,
pruning, dwarfing, enlarging, selecting, and varying species were well
understood. Vegetable-culture had reached a high state of perfection,
the smallest patches of land being made to bring forth abundantly. This
is the more creditable inasmuch as most small farmers could not afford
to purchase expensive foreign machinery, which, in many cases, would
be too large or complicated for their purposes.

The principal animals, birds, etc., reared were the pig, ass, horse,
mule, cow, sheep, goat, buffalo, yak, fowl, duck, goose, pigeon,
silkworm, and bee.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, the successor to the Board
of Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce, instituted during recent
years, is now adapting Western methods to the cultivation of the
fertile soil of China, and even greater results than in the past may
be expected in the future.

Sentiments and Moral Ideas

The Chinese have always shown a keen delight in the beautiful--in
flowers, music, poetry, literature, embroidery, paintings,
porcelain. They cultivated ornamental plants, almost every house,
as we saw, having its garden, large or small, and tables were often
decorated with flowers in vases or ornamental wire baskets or fruits or
sweetmeats. Confucius made music an instrument of government. Paper
bearing the written character was so respected that it might not
be thrown on the ground or trodden on. Delight was always shown in
beautiful scenery or tales of the marvellous. Commanding or agreeable
situations were chosen for temples. But until within the last few
years streets and houses were generally unclean, and decency in public
frequently absent.

Morality was favoured by public opinion, but in spite of early
marriages and concubinage there was much laxity. Cruelty both
to human beings and animals has always been a marked trait in
the Chinese character. Savagery in warfare, cannibalism, luxury,
drunkenness, and corruption prevailed in the earliest times. The
attitude toward women was despotic. But moral principles pervaded the
classical writings, and formed the basis of law.