Jan. 4,—"Farmers," said a great economist, are the founders of human "civilization, and where tillage begins other arts follow": I wish ihat the local powers-that-be would realize the truth of this and hasten up the present painfully slow process of getting the peasants back to the land. For days I have been seeing hundreds of Chinese trying to get through the barriers back to their neglected land: they know far better tian I do what is happening when the land is left uncared-for, even if they do not understand the scientific meaning of the processes evolved by their ancestors through the centuries, By now the cotton should be taken out of the ground and burnt, and all weeds eradicated in preparation for the spring, and if we want to know why—take the cotton aphids as an example. This race of pests is at present hibernating in the form of eggs left on the cotton stalks and their life cycle is just one of nature's many miracles. In early autumn the last generation of the race produces females who lay the eggs to preserve their kind during the winter: in early spring the eggs hatch out with the first warm weather, and the wingless aphids will batten on all the early weeds—particularly our old friend Shepherd's Purse in the fields, and the twisted, small-leafed Pagoda trees so popular in the villages: this first generation increases with startling rapidity, the young being born alive (cutting out the egg stage) and reproduction taking place by that amazing miracle of nature known as parthenogenesis—really meaning that the young have never had a father: later come the winged generations which quickly migrate to the summer cotton and all other vegetable matter in sight. And so the game goes on until the last generation of mothers lay the eggs for winter preservation, All very interesting but if the land is not cleaned up, how about the future of the human race who depend upon it for their sustenance?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.