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NOTES AND QUERIES
measure were then recorded and the tau chung for these districts was calculated at ten to the acre. With tenant farmers in these villages paying about the same tenant rentals as the rest of the New Territories the enhanced value of agricultural land to the owners in this section was considerable.
A curious method of land measurement called tam shui, which can be related to the tau chung in the manner described below, is conducted at Cheung Chau, an island about four miles by ferry from Hong Kong. Tam shui means "carry water". Here, the farmer measures his land by the amount of water needed to water his crops morning and evening. The island is dry and wells are dug which yield a good supply of water for cultivation purposes. This prevents padi being grown but allows general vegetable crops. The method used by the farmer is to have two wooden buckets suspended on a yoke across his shoulders. Each bucket holds about five gallons of water and has a rose at the end of the spout similar to the English watering can. He trots to his pool, presses the buckets into the water until full, trots out to his vegetable patch and waters his vegetables as he walks along. By the time he has completed thirty trips backwards and forwards, using sixty buckets of water he has then completed watering one tau chung of land. Tenant rentals are fixed on this basis.3
Kuk (穀)
Kuk is the Cantonese word for unhusked rice. It is also the medium through which tenant rentals are fixed.
Landowners and tenants usually agree to conclude a contract at Chinese New Year when most of the fields are lying fallow. Land leases or short contracts are then entered into which are operative after Chinese New Year. The rent is tied to kuk (unhusked rice) and the price it fetches in the open market after harvesting. The rate usually quoted is about half the annual production of the field, so that the tenant gets half the value. For example, if a field of one tau chung can produce four piculs of rice per crop twice a year then the rent payable is the value of two piculs of rice of the first crop and the value of two piculs of rice of the second crop, as calculated at the open market price after harvesting.
Botanically, rice is considered to be a tropical or subtropical