National Geographic Magazine/Volume 16/Number 2/The Wonderful Canals of China
THE WONDERFUL CANALS OF CHINA
By U. S. Consul George E. Anderson, Hangchau, China
THERE are several features in the canal system of China, especially of the Imperial or Grand Canal, which can be studied with profit by the people of the United States. One of these is the use of the canal for the production of food in addition to its uses as a means of transportation. Allied to this is the use of the muck which gathers at the bottom of the waterway for fertilization. Another is the use of every particle of plant life growing in and around the canal for various purposes.
The Chinese secure a vast quantity of food of one sort or another from their canals. To appreciate the exact situation with respect to the waterways, it must be realized that the canals of China cover the plain country with a network of water. Leading from the Grand Canal in each direction are smaller canals, and from these lead still smaller canals, until there is hardly a single tract of 40 acres which is not reached by some sort of a ditch, generally capable of carrying good-sized boats. The first reason for this great network is the needs of rice cultivation. During practically all of the growing season for rice the fields are flooded. Wherever a natural waterway can be made to irrigate the rice fields it is used, but, of course, from these to the canals or larger rivers there must be waterways. Where natural streams cannot thus be adapted the Chinese lead water in canals or ditches to the edge of their fields and raise it to the fields of rice by the foot-power carriers which have been described so often by tourist writers. However the water is supplied to the rice, it is evident that there must be a waterway leading to the field and back to a principal stream, which is generally a branch canal. These waterways naturally take up a considerable portion of the land, and the Chinese make as profitable use of them as of the land itself.
The first use of the waterways is for fishing. The quantity of fish taken from the canals of China annually is immense. The Chinese have no artificial fish hatcheries, but the supply of fish is maintained at a high point by the fact that the flooded rice fields act as hatcheries and as hiding places for the young fish until they are large enough to look out for themselves. In the United States this fish propagation annex to the canals is probably neither possible nor needful in view of the work done by the state and national bureaus; but in China it is nothing less than providential.
Along the canals in China at any time may be found boatmen gathering muck from the bottom of the canal. This muck is taken in much the same manner that oysters are taken by hand on the Atlantic coast. In place of tongs are large, bag-like devices on crossed bamboo poles, which take in a large quantity of the ooze at once. This is emptied into the boat, and the process is repeated until the boatman has a load, when he will proceed to some neighboring farm and empty the muck, either directly on his fields — especially around the mulberry trees, which are raised for the silk-worms — or in a pool, where it is taken later to the fields. From this muck the Chinese farmer will generally secure enough shellfish to pay him for his work, and the fertilizer is clear gain. The fertilizer thus secured is valuable. It is rich in nitrogen and potash and has abundant humus elements. This dredging of the canals for fertilizers is the only way by which the Chinese have kept their canals in reasonably good condition for centuries. The fertilizer has paid for itself both ways. Recently there were complaints filed at Peking that the ashes from the steam launches plying on the canals were injuring the muck for fertilizing purposes, and the prob- lem has been considered a serious one by the Chinese government.
In addition to securing fertilizers from the canals, and thus keeping the canals in condition, the farmers help keep them purified by gathering all floating weeds, grass, and other vegetable debris that they can find upon them. Boatmen will secure great loads of water plants and grass by skimming the surface of the canal. The reeds growing along the canals are used for weaving baskets of several grades and for fuel. In short, no plant life about the canal goes to waste.
Where there are so many canals there is more or less swamp ground. In China this is utilized for the raising of lotus roots, from which commercial arrowroot is largely obtained. There is no reason why much of the waste swamp land in the southern portion of the United States should not be used for a similar purpose, and the commercial returns from a venture of this sort in that part of the country ought to be satisfactory. Where the canals of China widen, by reason of natural waterways or for other reasons, the expanse of water not needed for actual navigation is made use of in the raising of water nuts of several varieties, especially what are known as water chestnuts. These nuts are raised in immense quantities. They are, strictly speaking, bulbs rather than nuts. They are rich in arrowroot and are prolific, an acre of shallow water producing far more than an acre of well cultivated soil planted in ordinary grain or similar crops. These nuts, also, could be produced to advantage in the United States where there is land inundated for the growing season to a depth which will give ordinary water plants a chance to thrive and which is not capable of being drained for the time being. The nuts or bulbs are toothsome when roasted, and are wholesome, but probably would be more valuable in the United States for the manufactured products which can be secured from them.
There are duck farms all along the canals in China. These are profitable. Chinese canals, as a rule, considering the population upon them and their varied uses, are cleaner than canals in the United States. There are few if any factories to contaminate them. The Chinese use of certain sewage for fertilization also prevents contamination to a great extent. The canal water is used for laundry, bath, and culinary purposes indiscriminately. A canal in the United States could never be what it is in China, but the Chinese have a number of clever devices and ideas in connection with their canals which can be adopted in the United States with profit.
The Grand Canal system in China has existed in almost its present shape since about the time Columbus discovered America. The Grand Canal itself, extending from Hangchau to Pekin, is about a thousand miles long. Much of it is banked with stone, and all of it is in such condition that with the expendi- ture of a little money the system could be put upon a modern and effective basis. As it is, the canal handles prac- tically all the internal trade of China, and this trade is far greater than its for- eign trade. The coming of railroads will affect the canals somewhat, but not so much as may be imagined, for the railroads will very largely build up a trade of their own. A little money will make China's canal system in the future what it has been in the past, the greatest on earth.