The rainy season had not begun and in many fields there was planting and transplanting where water was used in separate hills, sometimes brought in pails from a nearby stream, and in other cases on carts provided with tanks.  Holes were made along the crests of the ridges with the blade of a narrow hoe and a little water poured in each hill, from a dipper, before planting or setting.  These must have been other instances where the farmers were willing to incur additional labor to save time for the maturing of the crop by assisting germination in a soil too dry to make it certain until the rains came.

It appears probable that the strong ridging and the close level rows so largely adopted here must have marked advantages in utilizing the rainfall, especially the portions coming early, and that later also if it should come in heavy showers.  With steep narrow ridging, heavy rains would be shed at once to the bottom of the deep furrows without over-saturating the ridges, while the wet soil in the bottom of the furrows would favor deep percolation with lateral capillary flow taking place strongly under the ridges from the furrows, carrying both moisture and soluble plant food where they will be most completely and quickly available.  When the rain comes in heavy showers each furrow may serve as a long reservoir which will prevent washing and at the same time permit quick penetration; the ridges never becoming flooded or puddled, permit the soil air to escape readily as the water from the furrows sinks, as it cannot easily do in flat fields when the rains fall rapidly and fill all of the soil pores, thus closing them to the escape of air from below, which must take place before the water can enter.

When rows are only twenty-four to twenty-eight inches apart, ridging is not sufficiently more wasteful of soil moisture, through greater evaporation because of increased surface, to compensate for the other advantages gained, and hence their practice, for their conditions, appears sound.

The application of finely pulverized earth compost to fields to be planted, and in some cases where the fields were already planted, continued general after leaving Shanhailkwan as it had been before.  Compost stacks were common in yards wherever buildings were close enough to the track to be seen.  Much of the way about one-third of the fields were yet to be, or had just been, planted and in a great majority of these compost fertilizer had been laid down for use on them, or was being taken to them in large heavy carts drawn sometimes by three mules.  Between Sarhougon and Ningyuenchow fourteen fields thus fertilized were counted in less than half a mile; ten others in the next mile; eleven in the mile and a quarter following.  In the next two miles one hundred fields were counted and just before reaching the station we counted during five minutes, with watch in hand, ninety-five fields to be planted, upon which this fertilizer had been brought.  In some cases the compost was being spread in furrows between the rows of a last year’s crop, evidently to be turned under, thus reversing the position of the ridges.