Feb. 2.
Reapers of the North-China Daily News" will not have forgotten the accounts, some six or seven years ago, of the farming colonies and forest nurseries near Nanking, in which Professor Baillie, now, we believe, engaged in similar work at Mukden, was: so much interested. That undertaking, we are glad to learn, continues to thrive. Eighty- -three families are doing well in the colony, while the afforestation work is beginning to show some millions of promising young trees on Purple Mountain. But possibly the Nanking College of Agriculture and Forestry which grew out of these earlier schemes is destined to have even greater importance. The report for 1918- 19, which has just reached us, will be of interest to all who have any thought for China's cultural future. Not only does the College train students to carry on similar work in other provinces—it is noted with justifiable pride that in spite of interruption due! to the students' strike over the' Shantung question, the sericultural classes were held together, and the students completed their course—but it is conducting valuable experiments in the improvement of all kinds of seeds. Last year it sold $1,200 worth of foreign vegetable seeds, and about 200 Ib. of Chinese cabbage seed, improved by selection, were exported to America. From this source the Dean of the College, Mr. J. H. Reisner, confidently looks forward to a big and profitable business.
The most important work done by the College is unquestionably that connected with sericulture, mulberry tree growing and cotton. The increasing rivalry of Japan in the one field, the immense possibilities of China—already the third cotton-produeing country—in the other have for some years past attracted the eggs free from disease. On two years' working Mr. Reisner notes that not less than seventy per} cent. of the eggs resulted in diseased moths, and ''the chief undertaking of the Committee is the production of silk-worm eggs! according to the Pasteur method and distribution of these certified] side with this work the College eggs to the farmers." Side by is devoting great attention to the growing of improved mulberry, trees, in respect of which it is to receive an annual grant from the International Committee; after that the work is expected to be self-supporting. Good results, it! is interesting to note, have come from the production of mulberry by cuttings, a process hitherto unknown in China, which means a large saving of time. In respect of cotton, Mr. Reisner says that China is having a foreign cotton culture craze'? which, while it should tend in the long run to production of finer cotton, is by mo means without its dangers. The problem is to find which kind of foreign cotton best! suits which district. Two different sorts placed alongside each other quickly ''cross," with immediate deterioration all round.
Fortunately Chinese and foreign cotton do not cross. Not the least: part of the problem, if we are not mistaken, is that the Chinese farmer cannot afford to keep his ground clear for cotton alone. He must be growing something to bring in an income of some kind for all the months that the soil can be made to yield. The result is that the cotton is choked and does not attain the strength and fertility it would otherwise have. Agricultural banks appear to offer a solution, but when China is likely to get them is a dubious question.
We have not space, unfortunately, to follow the report in detail in the recorded efforts to improve native corn, rice, wheat, fruit, flowers and vegetables. The growing attention paid to its work by all missionary bodies is dwelt] upon with pleasure. versity where students may re ceive preliminary training before being sent to the Nanking and has further made it a personal contribution of $2,000 a year for five years. scholarships in the College while Shantung has three, and Kiangsi supports one in agriculture." has regretfully to be added that Peking, after promising $9,000 in 1915, has only managed to pay up $4,000, notwithstanding that the College is faithfully carrying out its side of the contract it Peking sent to it. Further work of the College will assuredly be watched with the interest it de-
To some thinkers China's future wealth depends not upon her much-advertised mineral resources, but upon her possibilities as a producer of food, silk, hides and the like. such institutions as the Nanking College are slowly but surely paving the wa:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.