Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea, and Japan

by Franklin Hiram King

For more than 40,000 years, Asian farmers worked the same fields repeatedly without sapping the land's fertility and without applying artificial fertilizer! How they accomplished this miraculous feat is described by author Franklin Hiram King, a former official of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. King traveled to Asia in the early 1900s to learn how farmers in China, Korea, and Japan were able to achieve successful harvests century after century without exhausting the soil — one of their most valuable natural resources. This book is the result of his extraordinary mission.
A fascinating study of waste-free methods of cultivation, this work reveals the secrets of ancient farming methods and, at the same time, chronicles the travels and observations of a remarkable man. A well-trained observer who studied the actual conditions of life among agricultural peoples, King provides intriguing glimpses of Japan, China, Manchuria, and Korea; customs of the common people; the utilization of waste; methods of irrigation, reforestation, and land reclamation; the cultivation of rice, silk, and tea; and related topics.
Enhanced with more than 240 illustrations (most of them photographs), this book represents an invaluable resource for organic gardeners, farmer, and conservationists. It remains "one of the richest sources of information about peasant agriculture [and] one of the pioneer books on organic farming." — The Last Whole Earth Catalog .

Genres: Agriculture, History, Gardening, Nonfiction, Food, China, Travel

464 pages, Paperback

Published March 19, 2004

About the author

Agricultural Scientist most well-known for designing the cylindrical storage silo.

Reviews

[Robbie Engler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really makes you appreciate how proper farming should aim to be zero-waste.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating blend of turn-of-the-century steam and rail and rickshaw travelogue through the Far East, but entirely focused on a technical analysis of farming productivity and management. Pushes a central message that US practices of large low-labor farming were/are based on extractive depletion of the soil's resources, compared to the high-labor intensive cyclical management of compost - reuse of all wastes - and irrigation that have sustained generations on much less cultivated land area.

[Haiying · Rating 5 out of 5]

我一直很欣赏西方人的科学钻研精神。美国人在100年前，抱着世界和平、民族互信的信念，辗转深入清末中国和日韩，以第一手观察，非常详尽地研究、分析、比较、学习、记录、撰写“四千年农夫”文化，是漫长人类社会里闪亮着博爱与谦逊美德的一块瑰宝。

F.H.King非常公正客观，他有记录当时中国被西方国家割让租借地、恶意引入鸦片和香烟等事实，直言自己的批判。但是外国人在租借地引入很多科技改善环境和提升土地资源的行为，他一样认真记录下来。一个外国人为中国人架起她们的悠长历史与世界读者（包括中国人自己）的桥梁，让我们可以了解自己祖辈的智慧和勤奋，他亦劝诫想永续发展的美国人，需要“自我东方化”，堪称世界大同的典范。再看现在两国各种争端，什么胸襟格局，真是汗颜。

100年前，上海到杭州坐火车要整整25小时才能到达。现在高铁45分钟。其实，四千年保留下来的农耕传统，也就是改革开放30多年才跟随科技发展和城市化，不知不觉地从我们视野里消失。书中的很多东西我依稀记得小时候也看到过，比如河边挖淤泥、淤泥下密密麻麻的蛤蜊和螺狮、做煤球、弹棉花、独轮车、锄头…. 虽然一直是大城市长大，以前的城市并不像现在这么与土地生态隔绝。当然，我也增加很多“没用”的农耕知识 - 移苗、堆肥、套种、豆饼、苜蓿☘️养料、扦插… 虽然光看不练也没什么用，但是好好玩。

作者极推崇亚洲农耕文化里的废物利用的智慧。西方人花大量金钱精心制作肥料焚化炉垃圾，将粪便排入大海，中国人则将两者都用作肥料。他量化分析农民的安排和背后的逻辑，勤俭节约被King盛赞为优良品质。

100年前先辈的求生发展经验，现代都市人怕是一点都用不上了。除了感受来路，忆苦思甜，到底有什么意义呢？这个问题其实基本等同询问人生的意义。对于向死而生的虚无主义，一切皆空一切都是相。对于只活几十年的珍贵的这辈子，不断去体验去连接不同时空，是拓宽生命、充实岁月的最佳方剂。

书中有一幅老樱花树的图片，我认出应该是19年我出差时去看过的。历经100多年，物是人非花依然。

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three main ideas I think are to be learned here.
1. Erosion was still a problem, however it didn't become a critical problem for 4,000 years since due to the amount of canals silt could be recovered by dredging. This means that eroding highlands can be acceptable providing that those highlands themselves aren't being cultivated and that the resulting fertility can be recovered before it reaches the sea.
2. Yields per area can be greatly increased with more human labor if/when needed. This is no doubt familiar to anyone who has gardened, but it is a good case study in how farming methods are driven more by the economics of what pays versus the maximum physical yield per area.
3. All organic matter must be recovered and returned to the soil. All of it.

[Beth Dillon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I skimmed through most of this book as I was really only interested in the agricultural sections and King spent a lot of time detailing his travels as well as his observations throughout Asia but on the whole it was good. Basic message: compost, cover crop, rotate and interplant to maintain fertility. Considering that this book was written just over a 100 years ago, the underlying emphasis on the importance of maintaining soil fertility is pretty current and the methods discussed in the book (with some modifications) are still being practiced today.

[Gavin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and thoroughly detailed analysis of farming in China, Japan, and Korea in 1911 with practical recommendations for adopting elsewhere certain practices as may be learned there to improve soil quality and more frugally use resources. There is also a plee implicit to state not to tax farmers too heavily nor to subsidize them for fear crop prices might then fall. There is moreover the very optimistic vision of a world sharing its crops via the peaceful commerce of equals to mutual improvement.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating account of an agronomist's journey through the fields, gardens and villages of southeast Asia before the advent of modern agriculture (and fertilizers!). Makes it clear that the well-organised cycling of nutrients, including human manure, allows a high population density to be fed without much dependence on external inputs. More than a century old but still very relevant!

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is more a travelogue than it is a book on how Asian agriculture is practiced. It was originally written in 1918 with a new forward or something. Slightly deceptive in title. Disappointed.

[Roberto Bovina · Rating 4 out of 5]

China has a long history. This book tells about its tradition in farming. Tenant farmers were forty per cent of the total. Their system was labor-intensive, with two or three crops per year, and the continuous application of green manure, human waste (carried from the cities and villages), animal manure, and in a minimal part from commercial fertilizers. The average income was very scarse, near zero, for the poor farmer. He simply worked very hard to live, or survive, in a primitive way.

[Roberto · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like an anthropological/travelogue recording than a organic farming guide. Slightly deceptive title.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quotes:
The first condition of farming is to maintain fertility.

... during the winter and early spring, grain, cabbage, rape, peas, beans, leeks and ginger may occupy the fields

The tea orchards as we saw them on the steeper slopes, not level-terraced, are often heavily mulched with straw which makes erosion, even by heavy rains, impossible, while the treatment retains the rain where it falls, giving the soil opportunity to receive it under the impulse of both capillarity and gravity, and with it the soluble ash ingredients leached from the straw.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Precisely 100 years ago, the American author visited the eastern sections of China (along with Korea and Japan). He documented his journey with anecdotes, photos, and vivid prose.

I found the book intriguing as a glimpse into a traditional, organic agriculture system. Read my full review of Farmers of Forty Centuries (with an emphasis on permaculture) on my blog.

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great look at the organic farming systems in Asia from a century ago. Many of their practices and ways of life carry relevant, practical application for agriculture today. Most notably, their ingrained "no-waste" mentality in all areas of life. We can still learn much from this historic and cultural account. One of the best parts of the book is that it is filled with lots of black and white photographs that help convey their agriculture systems and way of life.

[Sue Putnam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very impressive observations of how the farmland of 40 centuries has not become depleted like in the USA, but remained fertile and productive without the use of chemical fertilizers &/or pesticides.
A confirmation that returning to the soil what you take out maintains a healthy outcome even after 40 centuries.