Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea, and Japan

by F. H. King

Overview

For more than 40,000 years, Asian farmers worked the same fields repeatedly without sapping the land's fertility and without applying artificial fertilizer! How they accomplished this miraculous feat is described by author Franklin Hiram King, a former official of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. King traveled to Asia in the early 1900s to learn how farmers in China, Korea, and Japan were able to achieve successful harvests century after century without exhausting the soil — one of their most valuable natural resources. This book is the result of his extraordinary mission.
A fascinating study of waste-free methods of cultivation, this work reveals the secrets of ancient farming methods and, at the same time, chronicles the travels and observations of a remarkable man. A well-trained observer who studied the actual conditions of life among agricultural peoples, King provides intriguing glimpses of Japan, China, Manchuria, and Korea; customs of the common people; the utilization of waste; methods of irrigation, reforestation, and land reclamation; the cultivation of rice, silk, and tea; and related topics.
Enhanced with more than 240 illustrations (most of them photographs), this book represents an invaluable resource for organic gardeners, farmer, and conservationists. It remains "one of the richest sources of information about peasant agriculture [and] one of the pioneer books on organic farming." — The LastWhole Earth Catalog.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486436098
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	03/19/2004
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

	Introduction	1
I.	First Glimpses of Japan	14
II.	Grave Lands of China	48
III.	To Hongkong and Canton	60
IV.	Up the Si-kiang, West River	81
V.	Extent of Canalization and Surface Fitting of Fields	97
VI.	Some Customs of the Common People	118
VII.	The Fuel Problem, Building and Textile Materials	137
VIII.	Tramps Afield	167
IX.	The Utilization of Waste	193
X.	In the Shantung Province	216
XI.	Orientals Crowd Both Time and Space	261
XII.	Rice Culture in the Orient	271
XIII.	Silk Culture	311
XIV.	The Tea Industry	323
XV.	About Tientsin	330
XVI.	Manchuria and Korea	345
XVII.	Return to Japan	376
	Message of China and Japan to the World

Introduction

For more than 40,000 years, Asian farmers worked the same fields repeatedly without sapping the land's fertility and without applying artificial fertilizer! How they accomplished this miraculous feat is described by author Franklin Hiram King, a former official of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. King traveled to Asia in the early 1900s to learn how farmers in China, Korea, and Japan were able to achieve successful harvests century after century without exhausting the soil-one of their most valuable natural resources. This book is the result of his extraordinary mission. A fascinating study of waste-free methods of cultivation, Farmers of Forty Centuries reveals the secrets of ancient farming methods and, at the same time, chronicles the travels and observations of a remarkable man. A well-trained observer who studied the actual conditions of life among agricultural peoples, King provides intriguing glimpses of Japan, China, Manchuria, and Korea; customs of the common people; the utilization of waste; methods of irrigation, reforestation, and land reclamation; the cultivation of rice, silk and tea; and related topics. Enhanced with more than 240 illustrations (most of them photographs), this book represents an invaluable resource for organic gardeners, farmers, and conservationists. It remains "one of the richest sources of information about peasant agriculture [and] one of the pioneer books on organic farming."-The Last Whole Earth Catalog