diluted form, to beds of leeks at the rate of 16,000 gallons per acre, all carried on the shoulders in such pails as stand in the foreground. The material is applied with long-handled dippers holding a gallon, dipping it from the pails, the men wading, with bare feet and trousers rolled above the knees, in the water of the furrows between the beds. This is one of their ways of “feeding the crop,” and they have other methods of “manuring the soil.”
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Fig. 41.—Boat load of human waste in canal on Honam Island, brought from Canton and being used in feeding winter vegetables.
One of these we first met on Honam Island. Large
amounts of canal mud are here collected in boats and
brought to the fields to be treated and there left to drain
and dry before distributing. Both the material used to
feed the crop and that used for manuring the land are
waste products, hindrances to the industry of the region,
but the Chinese make them do essential duty in maintaining
its life. The human waste must be disposed of. They
return it to the soil. We turn it into the sea. Doing so,
they save for plant feeding more than a ton of phosphorus
(2712 pounds) and more than two tons of potassium (4488
pounds) per day for each million of adult population. The
mud collects in their canals and obstructs movement. They
