Vízügyi Közlemények, 1935 (17. évfolyam)

Kivonatok, mellékletek - Kivonat a 2. számhoz

I. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF RICE PRODUCTION IN THE HISTORY OF CIVILISATION. By Dr. J. CHOLNOKY. (Pages 177—180.) Civilisation arose in artificially irrigated regions, i. e. in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Mexico, Peru, and China. The writer explains the relation existing between rice production and Chinese civilisation, which gradually spread to a certain extent to the wheat-producing regions of North China, Japan, and Tibet. II. RICE. By K. GUBÁNYI. (Pages 181—215.) The essay is wholly the result of personal experience. Rice is the main food of one-half of mankind. In the last years the annual rice production of the different nations has risen to more than 1000 million quintals. Two kinds of rice are grown : the lowland rice, produced witli the aid of irrigation, and the highland rice, dependent only on natural rainfall. The production of rice has been developed during many centuries, and in all places where it is not of recent origin, very ancient methods and forms of implements are in use. The manner of growing rice in China, together with other branches of agriculture, is described in an encyclopaedia of 60 volumes dated 1607, and in a composition of 78 volumes published in 1737 by order of the Emperor Kien Lung. In 1850, the latter work was translated into French by Leon D. Hervy — Saint Demp, and published in Paris with reproductions of the original illustrations, under the title : „Recherches sur l'Agriculture et l'Horticulture". In Japan, where the annual rainfall is more than 1400 mm, the water of the rains, which are unequally distributed over the course of the year, is retained with great skill on the slopes, and highland rice is grown in real hanging gardens. There, just as elsewhere, the home of the lowland rice is the region of wide valleys and deltas. In that country the rice-fields, mostly of small extent, cover a total area of 3 million hectares. The method of cultivation and manipulation is shown in photos 1—16. 2