Our first visit here was April 19th.  The nursery rice beds had been planted four days, sowing seed at the rate of twenty bushels per acre.  The soil had been very carefully prepared and highly fertilized, the last treatment being a dressing of plant ashes so incompletely burned as to leave the surface coal black.  The seed, scattered directly upon the surface, almost completely covered it and had been gently beaten barely into the dressing of ashes, using a wide, flat-bottom basket for the purpose.  Each evening, if the night was likely to be cool, water was pumped over the bed, to be withdrawn the next day, if warm and sunny, permitting the warmth to be absorbed by the black surface, and a fresh supply of air to be drawn into the soil.

Nearly a month later, May 14th, a second visit was made to this farm and one of the nursery beds of rice, as it then appeared, is seen in Fig. 159, the plants being about eight inches high and nearing the stage for transplanting.  The field beyond the bed had already been partly flooded and plowed, turning under “Chinese clover” to ferment as green manure, preparatory for the rice transplanting.  On the opposite side of the bed and in front of the residence, Fig. 156, flooding was in progress in the furrows between the ridges formed after the previous crop of rice was harvested and upon which the crop of clover for green manure was grown.  Immediately at one end of the two series of nursery beds, one of which is seen in Fig. 159, was the pumping plant seen in Fig. 157, under a thatched shelter, with its two pumps installed at the end of a water channel leading from the canal.  One of these wooden pump powers, with the blindfolded cow attached, is reproduced in Fig. 158 and just beyond the animal’s head may be seen the long handle dipper to which reference has been made, used for collecting excreta.

More than a month is saved for maturing and harvesting winter and early spring crops, or in fitting the fields for rice, by this planting in nursery beds.  The irrigation period for most of the land is cut short a like amount, saving in both water and time.  It is cheaper and easier to highly fertilize and prepare a small area for the nursery, while at the same time much stronger and more uniform plants are secured than would be possible by sowing in the field.  The labor of weeding and caring for the plants in the nursery is far less than would be required in the field.  It would be practically impossible to fit the entire rice areas as early in the season as the nursery beds are fitted, for the green manure is not yet grown and time is required for composting or for decaying, if plowed under directly.  The rice plants in the nursery are carried to a stage when they are strong feeders and when set into the newly prepared, fertilized, clean soil of the field they are ready to feed strongly under these most favorable conditions Both time and strength of plant are thus gained and these people are following what would appear to be the best possible practices under their condition of small holdings and dense population.