Wood is scarce in China
In addition to lacking space,
China has a serious shortage of wood. Even a hundred years ago,
King noted that trees were scarce and small, and even those trees were
heavily utilized by cutting the lower limbs for firewood.
As a result of the wood
shortage, most buildings were traditionally made out of straw and
clay. Although the straw and clay tended to need frequent
replenishing, the old building materials were perfect for throwing in
the compost pit.
Farmers were also very
good at utilizing other types of plants for fuel. Woody vegetable
stems (especially rice straw) were frequently burned. Although I
approve of making full use of the resources at hand, King's description
of the cooking fire requiring one person to constantly feed it small
bits of straw sounds like a bit too much work.
Otherwise, King made the
Chinese traditional agriculture system look so rosy that
I find it hard to remember that, a century later, farming looks a lot
different. If you're interested in what's happened in the last
hundred years, you should check out the overview
on Wikipedia.
| This post is part of our Traditional Asian Farming lunchtime series.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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