192
NOTES AND QUERIES
was about 0.1 acre and it has been estimated that the area of land occupied per capita was 0.45 acre. By that time intensive farming techniques had been developed on cultivation of vegetables, but only on a small scale.
An attempt has been made to trace the influence of farming techniques of the ancient tribes on the present agriculture. The discovery of prehistoric stone implements, prehistoric village sites and disused rice fields indicates early inhabitancy of farming people. It was found that at least half of the implements were made of stone which could not be found locally in the New Territories. Probably the makers of these tools came from other parts and brought the materials with them.2 Finn suggests that the Hong Kong finds belong to the middle of the Second Millennium B.C.3
According to the Chinese history, this region was occupied by the tribes of the Nam Viet group in 2,000 B.C. Their farming practice was known as "knife cultivation and fire weeding” (刀耕火種), that is to clear the natural vegetation with knife and to burn the weeds with fire. Some villagers still believe that burning the vegetation on the hill will help increase the fertility of their fields. Continuation over centuries of clearing vegetation on the hills has resulted in disappearance of primary forests in this territory.
The early Chinese settlers paid much attention to the control of soil erosion. Most of the fields left by them on slopes are terraced and nearly all the fields are surrounded by bunds for the purpose of conserving soil, water and plant nutrients. It was estimated that not less than 75% of these fields were well irrigated for planting rice and the rest for dryland field crops, vegetables and fruit trees.
Owing to allocation of the major portion of the cultivated land to rice growing, the early settlers built a large number of weirs and irrigation channels to divert water from streams through channels into the fields. Fields situated on an upper course usually have the first priority on use of the water. The water seeping from the fields is re-diverted by the second weir and so on. Thus, the water can be used again and again, i.e. the longer the stream, the fuller the use of water.
Vegetables grown on well-drained land were irrigated by the manual method. The grower carried the water in wooden buckets fitted with a tube and a rose head to sprinkle water on vegetables.