216 Early Agriculture
2 farmland systems;
3 farming (management and administration, land reclamation, issuing almanacs
for enforcement, divination of seasons);
4 water conservancy;
5 agricultural implements;
6 cultivation;
7 sericulture;
8 extension of sericulture;
9 planting (cash crops);
10 animal husbandry;
11 processing and construction;
12 protection against disaster.
Many advanced thoughts on ecological and successful technologies were intro-
duced in this treatise, including presentation of the intercropping system. For
example, the well-known Tangua system has been shown to be the earliest practice
in formulation of agroforestry. In fact, similar practices had been implemented in
China and were recorded in the literature at least 200 years earlier than those
reported in Myanmar. A detailed description on planting crops is described in
Nong Zheng Quan Shu. During the first few years of establishment of young stands
of Chinese fir, cereal crops can be cultivated between the rows of trees. This tree/
crop interplanting system can accelerate the growth of both tree and crops to make
full use of space. Xu Guangqi also introduced the technology of making sheepfolds
on the banks of fishponds and sweeping the manure on the bank into the pond to
feed the fish.
In Zhi Huang Quan Shu (A Monograph on the Control of Locusts), written in
the Qing Dynasty, an example of using ducks to control pests was given: in a
mountain region, the locusts were caught by 700 ducks. Besides, raising ducks in
paddy fields could also help to catch other leafhoppers.
The Bu Nong Shu (Additional Farming Book), written more than 300 years
ago, stated that ‘The manure of human and other animals as well as ash and dirt
will become food and clothes soon if they are put into fields.’ Farming, animal
husbandry and composting were tightly combined in order to preserve biodiver-
sity in the agriculture system. Crop stalks, manure of human and animals, organic
wastes, etc. were put together to make compost, then applied into fields on the
basis of ‘come from soil, return to soil’. In this book an integrated system in the
low wetlands of Zhejiang Province was described in which grain crops and mul-
berry trees were planted and fish and livestock were raised. By the end of the Qing
Dynasty (1911), the Pearl River (Zhujiang) Delta had this kind of agroecosystem
developed in some 66,700ha, and by 1925, at the peak of Guangdong silk produc-
tion, 93,000ha of dykes were planted with mulberry. But a massive decline was
soon to set in with the worldwide Great Depression.
The excellent techniques used in the planning of farm landscapes of traditional
agriculture in China included information on tall and short crops, trailing and