Directory_and_Chronicle_1910 — Page 808

SHANGHAI

海上 Shang-hai

Although situate nearly midway between Hongkong and Tientsin, Shanghai was the most northerly of the "Five Ports" opened to foreign trade under the provisions of the British Treaty of Nanking, and for many years constituted the north- ern limit of the external trade of China. It lies in the alluvial peninsula formed between the main mouth of the Yangtze River and Hangchow Bay in the extreme south- east of the province of Kiangsu, in latitude 31° 15′ N, and longitude 121° 29′ east of Greenwich, and at the junction of the Hwangpu River with the ancient Woosung, the latter now reduced to the dimensions of an ordinary tidal creek, and known to foreigu residents as the Soochow Creek. The Foreign Settlement is situated some twelve miles above the junction of the Hwangpu with the most southern arm of the Yangtze, and at this junction is situated the town of Woosung, which a few years ago the Chinese Government formally converted into a separate port open to foreign commerce. Except as a place of call for the large steamers which now carry on the rapidly growing trans-Pacific trade of Northern China, and as a convenient place of anchorage for the larger craft while waiting for favourable tides or weather, this convenience is not much availed of, owing mainly to the constricted and exposed nature of the anchorage ground available within the entrance of the Hwangpu. As a river the Hwangpu is of comparatively recent origin, scarcely dating beyond the thirteenth century, before which it was merely an unimportant canal, the main drainage of the lower province being carried by the Woosung, and the relative importance of the two streams being the exact reverse of the present. Lower Kiangsu forms an immense plain, the gift of the Yangtsze, and which is still growing at the rate of approximately two square miles per annum: a few isolated hills, formerly constituting islands in the sea, alone rise from this plain, the nearest of which, the Fung-hwang shan, consisting of some six detached summits, none exceeding 250 feet in altitude, and distant from fifteen to twenty miles, are visible from the higher buildings of Shanghai.

This Kiangsu plain has been called the Garden of China, and the population is perhaps denser than in any other portion of the Empire of equal extent; estimates vary owing to the absence of any statistical sense on behalf of the Chinese as a nation, but by foreigners it has been usually accepted as from eight hundred to a thousand per square mile. The soil, consisting entirely of alluvium carried down by the Yangtze, is fairly fertile, and the land being easily irrigated owing to the numerous waterways which traverse it in every direction, heavy crops of the various staples are grown. Owing to the latitude and the fact that the rainfall is pretty well distributed through the year, two crops per annum are regularly produced, and these are of markedly different types, the spring crop, gathered in May or June, being similar to that of the northern temperate regions elsewhere; while the auturan crop, gathered in September and October, is as distinctly tropical or sub-tropical. The spring crops consist of wheat, two or three distinct varieties of barley, rape, and leguminous plants of various descriptions, beans and lucerne predominating. The latter are frequently ploughed into the land without gathering to make manure for the more valuable summer products. The summer crops consist mainly of cotton and rice; the cultivation of the former having of late years, owing to the growing demand for use at home, and for export to the western and northern provinces, as well as to Japan--where the cotton spinning and weaving industries have for several years past taken a firm hold considerably increased, accompanied by a similar decrease in the acreage under ri cultivation. This decrease is, however, to a certain extent counterbalanced by so increase in the production of winter wheat, partly owing to an enlarged acreage, hu probably more to improved cultivation, stimulated by the introduction of steam nor mills. Besides these staple crops there are grown during the summer peas and beans * several descriptions, oil bearing crops such as sesamum, and such domestic produc** cabbages, carrots, melons, cucumbers, brinjals, etc. Although Shanghai is immeande