Out of 18 children who stool round watching me eat my noon day Tuneh there was only one girl 'The ages of these children, ranged from four to 13 the ages' within girls and boys play together—are any girls. Among a perhaps, fourteen who watched me stow myself in the cart by which I was travelling, two or three had pus sores on their necks and faces— inpatacgo contagioxa, the doctor said it was that alled them, and udded that while it sometimes was communicated to healthy persons, it more generally follows the use' unfit food. I aked what the people were eating and was told of various combinations of leaves and chai held together in a cake by a little red p'g-weed soup and T asked to be shown have samples with me of the cakes which were taken hot from under the inverted kuo's of some the homes visited. Tate some of the pigweed soup; that is not so. uns palatable. But the chat? biscuits, could not swallow and I gazged for several minutes after the attempt to wash it down with a drink of water, But I refrained from even tasting one common form of food in this Village—fried grasshoppers. One alley' in the village of Shao Ku is known as "spinners' row." 1 was told that in all of these houses gras shoppers were the principal form of diet. 1 turned into one, Grasshoppers fried was all there was to eat in the place. The one old the house was an advanced case of impataego. He had two handfuls cotton Tint which he was spinning. into thread. He was paying one per} cent. per day interest on the few coppers of capital necessary to finance him from lint to thread. His brothers were out begging. he: they would catch some grasshoppers their begging proved fruitless, kaoliang. At a little distance, th: effects of neither of these causes are apparent. Both millet and Kaoliang generally appear to be of normal height and thickness, but on inspection the millet heads prove to have the seed eaten off the stem in the middle of the head while the sap has been so extracted from the stalk that the seed which remains the hend is shrivelled. In the case of kaoliang, fine tall stalks bear 'a head which is nothing but cha! Farmers explain that the seed pattern was formed in the sheath during the dry spell while the stalk: was short and was so far vanced when the rains came that the moisture resulted entirely in a growth of stalk instead of a head Of seed. I do not pretend to say whether or not this explanation is correct, but I do know that for mile after mile the plots of kaoliang are worth practically nothing for anyig but cattle fodder.
Blight in other Crops Something of the same conditions are to be noted from the railway for about 40 miles around Lincheng.
T-did not have the opportunity to out into the fields and verify the causes. But to an experienced: eye] it is apparent that the kaoliang is both thin and diseased, the millet heads ragged, the beans and sweet potatoes suffering from some kind Of blight or mildew. The station master (who knew nothing of my identity) stated that the fall crop would be almost a total failure, due drought. The spring wheat, however, had been good, although not good enough to bring the price down to normal, Near Chufu I saw large swarms of grasshoppers and ome areas which had been devoured of every green thing. The populace was out in force beating the post into} the ground. Companies of perhaps 100 or more to a company, were to be seen in in every direction, some of the companies being led by the Kuomintang flag.
The drought and grasshopper affected area in southern Chili and] long the Shantung border, contains shout 1,500,000 mouths. From the} evidence in the villages visited by De. Tucker and myself, I conclude that one tenth of these people are advanced state of mal-nutri-soon at this moment. From the rellow complexions and distend-'El stomachs, another two-tenths are in such an tinder-nearished condition that it is no exaggeration to say that} they are slowly starving now. Scareely a farmer in the whole region Will have a crop more than] 1 third of what is necessary to maintain physical health until the next] harvest. They probably will not die! and probably that's the pity, of for how could one choose to live! under such privations. Practically speaking from January 1 to June 15 Four-fifths of that population wi need help. Nearly 1,250,000 will be partially starving.
The Well Digging Scheme There are reports from northern Shansi, from Honan, from other
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.