Main Crops of Traditional Chinese Agriculture

The important grain crops of the pre-Qin period were corn, millet, rice, barley, soybeans, and hemp and mizuna (rice). By and large, the northern part of the country was dominated by corn and millet, while the southern part was dominated by rice. During the Warring States period, to adapt to the leisure system to the transition to continuous cropping system, soybean once and corn and listed as the main food. After the Han soybean to the direction of the development of side dishes, hemp and millet gradually withdrawn from the ranks of food. At the end of the period, wheat was first planted in the northwest and western minority areas, and later introduced into the Central Plains, with the development of continuous cropping and irrigation and moisture conservation farming techniques, the planting area continued to grow. However, corn was still the most important grain for a long period of time. Tang and Song economic center of gravity moved to Jiangnan, rice production developed rapidly. To the Song Dynasty, rice jumped to the top of the grain crop, wheat crop is also further development, rice, wheat replaced the traditional status of corn, rice and continue to this day. Originally planted in the southwest minority areas of sorghum, Song and Yuan period to the Yellow River Basin, became one of the important food crops. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, corn, sweet potatoes and potatoes native to the American continent were introduced to China and spread rapidly.

In ancient China, the raw materials for clothing were hemp, ramie, kudzu fiber, silk and fur. Cotton has been planted in the Han Dynasty at the latest, but long confined to the northwest, southwest and southern minority areas, the Tang and Song after the spread of the Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin from South China, the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, the rapid spread of the two generations, and finally achieved the status of the main raw materials for clothing.

In other cash crops and economic forests, the first tea, lacquer and sugar cane, peanuts, tobacco, imported from the American continent in the Ming Dynasty also quickly became an important cash crop. In addition, ancient China also cultivated a great variety of vegetables and fruit trees.