The long spell of dry weather so favourable to the ingathering of wheat delayed the planting of rice, the sprouting of the cotton plant, and the growth of the Into tobacco plants. In some places water was exhauated to plant the rice, leaving ponds, creeks, and rivulets muddy and impure. Here and there local showers had made the transplanting of some young rice possible. The Grought which extended from seventy below this city to beyond Tssoyanghsien, about one hundred miles north, made a general transplanting impossible." Where any had been planted out it was patched and dying. The out-look was bad. Rivers until 2 day or so ago were unnavigable. Salt could not reach the stations. The price had increased cent per cent since the middle of May. Oil and things had risen in price. The orchards were yielding but little fruit, and that small, except those by the rivers, which were kept well watered by coolie Inbour.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.