What is the Bray book? There is a 1983 book on rice, but no 1986 book
that I could find.
I already mentioned the potato a while ago, suggesting that you look at
The Social and Economic History of the Potato.
Ricardo Duchesne wrote:
> I don't want to suggest that the potato was planted only in the
> regions (Shandong and Zhili/Hebein), regions which P so happened
> to mention (accidentally) as areas of substantial demographic
> growth after 1750. As we will see below, it came to occupy a
> critical role in Shandong but am not sure about Zhili/Hebei.
> Anyways, I don't need to establish an exact correlation between
> the demographic dynamics of just these regions and the potato. I
> think that, if the potato was grown in some lands in some southern
> (rice-growing) regions, it was precisely as a means of famine-relief,
> since the potato could grow on marginal lands not used for rice.
>
> But in addition to the evidence I already forwarded from Mote (1999)
> three weeks ago, I have additional textual evidence from the great
> Francesca Bray, foremost English scholar on Chinese agriculture,
> that "sweet potatoes were in cultivation in Fukien and Yunnan by
> mid-16th" (428). Now, it so happens that, according to Marc Elvin,
> Yunnan, which is in the north-west, was one of the few areas in
> late 18th century China where productivity per area could still be
> increased using traditional technologies and "where the population
> rose from 3.1 to 6.3 million between 1775 and 1825 in response to
> opportunities in farming" (1983/1992, p147).
>
> And, here's the evidence given by Bray on *Shandong* and the
> overall significance of the potato: "The rapidity with which the sweet
> potato spread throughout China in the 17th and 18th centuries is,
> however, clear enough proof of its late introduction. The sweet
> potato had many advantages to offer: it was high yielding,
> nutritious, had a pleasant flavour, was more resistant to drough
> than the native Chinese tubers, and *grew well on poor soils*. By
> the 18th it was grown in all the Yangtze provinces and Szechwan
> had become a leading producer; by 1800 it accounted for *almost
> half the year's food supply of the poor of Shantung [Shangdon]*.
> The sweet potato did not take long to become the *third most
> important food crop in China* after rice and wheat*" (532).
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
