Untitled

202
EAST ASIA.
tea the Russians usually drink in their own is country taken direct to Odessa from
Hankow by the Suez Canal, and in answer to an inquiry that I made, he assured
me that even before the canal was it opened never passed through London.
"A better price is given by the Russians in Hankow than the English care
to pay. This is the real reason why the tea in Russia is superior to any found in
London ; for caravan tea is a delicacy even amongst the nobles in St. Petersburg."
(Gill, i. 176.)
OTHER AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE.
v
Of the seventy cultivated plants mentioned by explorers, the sugar-cane, cotton,
mulberry, wax, tallow, and varnish-tree, bcehmeria nettle, and especially the
bamboo, are economically of the first importance. In the south, the orange, peach,
and mulberry are the most productive fruit trees. Opium, although officially
interdicted, is cultivated in nearly all the provinces of the empire, and especially
in Hupeh, Sechuen, and Yunnan. During the American War cotton was largely
grown in the Lower Yang-tze region, to the detriment of other plants, which have
since recovered their ground.
Of all pursuits, agriculture holds in China the foremost place. The
Emperor himself is regarded as the first husbandman in the " Great and Pure
Empire," and till recently he was bound, towards the end of March, to plough
three furrows, dressed as a peasant. The work was continued by the imperial
princes, great mandarins, and. others invited to the ceremony, and the corn thus
grown was presented the following year to the God of Heaven, as the offering of
the whole nation. At the same time, the Emperor is in theory only the proprietor
of the land, which belongs really to the peasant and his posterity as an absolute
freehold.
LAND TENURE THE CHINESE COMMUNE.
Notwithstanding the pretended immutability of the Chinese people, the possession
of the soil has undergone almost more frequent changes amongst them than
elsewhere. In the first historic period the land was the common property of the
" Hundred Families," all able-bodied adults between their twentieth and sixtieth
year having a direct right to a share in the soil. Nevertheless the idea of private
property was gradually developed, to the advantage of the emperor and grandees,
and twelve hundred years before the present era the land was already divided into
appanages and fiefs, as happened later on in West Europe. 'Still the forests,
pastures, or open spaces remained undivided for every group of eight families, and
the Chinese commune was, on the whole, organized in much the same manner as
the modern mir of Great Russia. Some traces of this system still survive, not only
in China, but in Korea and some other countries affected by Chinese influences.
Towards the middle of the fourth century before the vulgar era another
change took place. Agriculturists were allowed to settle on any vacant spaces, and
set up landmarks, regardless of the communal limits. Thus the mir was dissolved
about the same time that the feudal system disappeared, and the peasantry became