'30th September.
The " Year-Prospects.
The matter of principal interest at this season in this part of China at least is the year prospects." that is, the outcome of the harvest. What that may finally prove to be is till highly une-train, owing to the extraordinary differences in reg' apart in time and amount of 1 in the arrival or otherwis~ of the destructive army-worm. which is popularly suppose! to arrive in the mist." Some of the earlier millet, a most all of the later millet, a great deal of maize, and in some places such crops "s sweet potatoes (usually refused by these voracio is creatures) have suffered. There is such a prevalence of late and "low-lying crops" pea-nuts. beans, and cotton, "te., that the food grains will be scant. and partly for that reason, and because there isno known limit to these conditions, the price of grain has not fallen perceptibl with the arrival of the new erop—a rare phenomenon except in years of absolute starvation, Added to this ix the observed fact that the cot of living while wages do not increase and do, which makes a bad outlook. The autumnal rains immediately about here have bern ti riely and "adequate, so that everyone is rushing about to plant wheat, which can be done as early xs the festival in the middle of the eighth moon and the-earlier the crop is in, the better the plant grows; and the more grain for food, and the more silk for feeding Early planting, however, has the disadvantage that it invites attack hated and destructive mole et. To circumvent him the farmers very generally adopt the plan of using arsenic, called hsin-shih, or trustworthy: stone, because it is sippossd to be a sure killer, This is accomplished by re lucing quantity of the ch aper red sorghum toa bruised condition and soaking it in water in which the arsenic has been dissolved. The wheat grains are tuan rubbed in, avd the whole is put thr ugh the drill. The mole-cricket is delighted to see so goo! a meal in prospect, but, he never takes a second yet the race lives on!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.