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HUGH D. R. BAKER
point in history at which the clans arrived, and with their subsequent development. Grant gives some maps plotting the regions of land of various qualities, dividing the land into categories according to the number of catties of paddy per dau chung per crop it can produce.38 Best quality land produces 300 catties and upwards per dau chung, and then he grades the qualities down in units of 50 to 150 catties per dau chung, the lowest category of production worth his recording.
The region of the New Territories which has the largest area of double-cropping land is the Kam Tin Valley, settled largely by the earliest comers to the district—the Tangs. The land is not all of the best quality, about two-thirds falling into the category of moderate productivity (200–250 catties per dau chung),40 but for sheer size, with good water supply, it is the best region of the New Territories. In the early thirteenth century the lineage segmented, one branch hiving off to the Ping Shan area, where again was a large region of paddy-growing land, double-cropping with moderate productivity,42 fairly well watered, and close enough to the parent village to be within the range of easy communications. Three generations later another branch hived from Kam Tin and established itself in Ha Tsuen.43 I have no information as to the quality of the soil in the area (though from Grant it would seem that productivity might not be very high44), but there is a large quantity of land. The Tangs thus secured to their near-exclusive possession the whole of the agricultural land in the Southwestern corner of the New Territories. When later other groups hived off to found villages on the Eastern side of the New Territories at Lung Kwat Tau in about 1368 A.D.,45 and at Tai Po Tau perhaps two generations earlier,47 they were less fortunate. Not only were they out of the immediate power sphere of the Tang Clan but they moved into an area where other clans were already settled or in the process of settling.
The Hau48, who were the next of the clans to arrive, settled in an area which was well watered but rather too low-lying to be safe against flood. They appear to have had little power, and after an initial period of growth, when they founded several new villages,49 seem to have lost all impetus. Their land is of good quality, but when they expanded to Ping Kong,50 Kam Tsin,51 and Yin Kong,52 they did so along a line of poorer quality soil,53 arguing perhaps prior settlement in the nearby rich Sheung Shui