Advent of Chinese Agriculture
3 min readChina is the world’s largest center for crop cultivation.
As aforesaid, there are rice cropping relics unearthed from Daoxian county of Hunan province, the Yingde site of Guangdong province and the Wannian site of Jiangxi province dating back to 12,000-10,000 years ago, and some broomcorn millet relics from the Wu’ an site of Hebei province dating back to 10,000-8,700 years ago. It has also been found that China was the first country to crop millet, soybean, red bean, calabash, leek, water fennel, coarse grass linen, hemp, peach, apricot, among others. According to some specialists in studies of plant cultivation origins, there are at least 136 varieties of crops originally cultivated by the ancient Chinese people.
Zhou dynasty of the early ancient time witnessed great development of Chinese agriculture. As depicted in Classic of Poetry, there were already more than 10 varieties of cereal crops such as general, black or foxtail millet, corn, wheat, barley, soybean, and rice; vegetable varieties then amounted to some 40, including Nymphoides peltatum (Gmel.)O. Ktze., bitter lettuce, Malva verticillata L.(Chinese mallow); some 10 varieties of fruits, such as plum, date, walnut and Chinese goosebeery; the crops for clothing included arrowroot, ramee, hispid arthraxon, indigo plant and hemp, and other cash crops included mulberry, lacquer, wingceltis, pine, cypress, bamboo and some wild ones.
Moreover, the people had already initiated the system of crop rotation, with the emergence of specialized nurseries for vegetable and fruit tree seedlings and fish breeding ponds. There were even a group of livestock specialists including Bo Le,a legendary person in the Qin state during the Spring and Autumn period who excelled in evaluating horses. From the Warring States period to Western Han dynasty, due to the wide use of cattle iron implements for Iron colter for plowing with cattle cultivation and the shaping of intensive cultivation techniques, the development of the Chinese agricultural production enjoyed a new leap. Meanwhile, agronomy, among 100 schools of thought, came into being as a newschool. According to History of Han Dynasty: Classified Record of Literature and Artthere were nine varieties of works on agronomy, most of which are now missing exceptthe four agronomic treatises in Master Li’s Spring and Autumn Annals: Focusing on Farming, Cultivating Farmland, Identifying Soil, and Observing Farming Days.
Fan Shengzhi’s Treatise on Agriculture in the end of Western Han dynasty became the first extant Chinese collection of agricultural works, also the earliest of the world. The collection summarizes systematically the Chinese agricultural production and theories of the early ancient time.It not only introduced quite a few integrated farming techniques such as“farmland deep-digging”for better resistance to drought and higher yield，but also established a paradigm of cropping description andsummary for the references of later generations in compilation of such comprehensive agricultural works，shaping Chinese agricultural study.
The middle ancient time was a period of great development for Chinese agriculture and agronomy，particularly in techniques of cultivation，seed selection and fertilizer application.Regarding great works and essays on agriculture and agronomy，there appeared Jia Sixie’s masterpiece Essentials for the Common People，Chinese first systematic and complete cultivation theories，Chinese first farm implement specific monograph Classic of Farm Implements，Chinese first tealeaf specific monograph Classic of Tea，and four agriculturists of Song and Yuan dynasties: Chen Fu, Court of Imperial Granaries represented by Meng Qi, Wang Zhen, and Lu Mingshan.
The late ancient time was the peak period for development of Chinese traditional agriculture and agronomy. In addition to the progress in agricultural technology, great works on the discipline were dramatically increased. Catalogue of Works on Chinese Agronomy by Wang Yuhu lists 497 agricultural books of Chinese ancient time, of which 283 were compiled during Ming and the early Qing dynasties taking up 57% of the total, including On Farming Addendum to Shen’s Treatise on Agriculture and Manual of Flower Growing, of which the most representative was Encyclopedia of Agricultural Administration by Xu Guangqi.
