1930s China through American eyes

A vegetable garden in Nanking

Nanking (Nanjing), which has been the capital of China at various times in the past 2,000 years, is now again its center of government. Situated on the Yangtze River, it lies about two hundred miles inland from Shanghai. It is a city noted for its industries and products, especially for its silk. It can be reached by ocean steamers and is also an important import and export city. In the days of the Ming emperors, it was a much larger city than it is today. It was the largest walled city in the world but now occupies only a small part of the area enclosed.

In China, as in nowhere else, is the earth utilized for growing food. But little land lies waste except that given up to the graves of ancestors, and for this purpose nearly 20 percent of the entire area of China is utilized. Of pastures or meadows there are none, for land is too precious to be used for growing food just for animals alone. In China, there are no uncultivated roadsides, no groves or orchards, no waste land of any kind. China is cultivated like a garden. Every clod is pulverized and every plant carefully tended. When one crop approaches maturity, another is made ready. Or, already planted between the rows of the matured crop, is one not yet gathered. In this way several crops a year are raised on the same land.

[Photo provided to China Daily/Keystone View Company]