Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/34

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
28
Village Life in Korea.

and very fertile, producing abundant crops of rice and other grains such as are common to the climate. Some of these fields have doubtless been yielding their crops to the faithful farmers ever since the days that Ruth went out to glean in the fields of Boaz. Everywhere the country abounds with many varieties of grass, much of which is most excellent pasture for cattle. The industry of cattle-raising could be made a source of great wealth to the people. It now affords a considerable income, but nothing to what it might be made, since there are thousands of acres of fine pasture lands which are not being utilized for any purpose except to produce annually a fine crop of grass, only to be cut down by the frosts of winter.

There are few plains that might be called large when taken into comparison with the size of the whole country. There is one in Kang-Won Province, across which I have traveled many times, which is some fifty miles in length and varies in width from five to twenty miles. This is composed of lava formation, the stone being unmistakably lava. It is surrounded by mountains, many of which rise to a height of several hundred feet, is well watered by many small streams, with one or two larger ones that might be called rivers plowing their way through canyons which are at some places more than a hundred feet deep. This plain reminds me of the great plains of the western part of the United States. The soil is almost devoid of sand, being composed of what is sometimes called "pipe clay," and I am quite sure that any one who has ever tried to cross it with a bicycle just after a rain will