Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/152

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130
Village Life in Korea.

fields and carrying the products on their backs. The Koreans know nothing of the use of milk and butter, and so the cows are not milked, but are used only for work and for beef. They are very gentle and of large size, as large as the best to be found in any part of the United States. They are kept in stables attached to the farmer's house.

The plow now in use would doubtless be recognized by Elisha as being like the one he left in the field when he west with Elijah. It is made of a beam and a foot piece, which is tipped with an iron point. It has no handles except a stick through the top end of the foot piece. If it be for two cows, the beam is long enough to reach the yoke, which is tied on the necks of the cows with a bit of straw rope. If it be for only one ox, the harness consists of a pair of traces made of straw and a short yoke for the neck of the ox. I have not seen a pair of trace chains in this country. When our farmer needs traces he simply steps out to the straw stack, and in a short while he has made a pair such as his ancestors have used for centuries, and they are good enough for him.

As soon as the ground is warm enough the seed rice is most carefully sown. A small part of the field having been prepared and flooded with water, the rice seed, unhulled, are sown in it. The entire rice crop is transplanted when the young sprouts are about six inches high. Just think of the great amount of work this requires. Think of all the wheat in one of our wheat-growing States having to be transplanted when it is six inches tall, and you will have some idea