評論
打印
Rice has been cultivated in China for thousands of years.
在中國，種植水稻的歷史已有數千年。
It was from China that the techniques of rice cultivation spread throughout east Asia-Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan.
隨后，東亞地區的日本、韓國、新加坡和中國臺灣相繼從中國大陸引進了稻田的播種技術。
Year in, year out, as far back as history is recorded, farmers from across Asia have engaged in the same, relentless, intricate pattern of agriculture.
時間飛逝，回溯歷史，亞洲的農民們都同樣經歷了錯綜復雜的農業變遷。
Rice paddies are "built," not "opened up" the way a wheat field is. You don't just clear the trees, underbrush and stones and then plow.
稻田不同于麥田的“直接耕種”，稻田需要“開墾”，不僅僅需要清除樹木、低矮的灌木以及石頭，還需要耕犁。
Rice fields are carved into mountainsides in an elaborate series of terraces, or painstakingly constructed from marshland and river plains.
稻田通常建立在開墾過的梯田、改良后的沼澤以及河流經過的平原上。
A rice paddy has to be irrigated, so an elaborate series of dikes has to be built around the field.
稻谷種植需要灌溉，所以稻田必須修田埂，
Channels must be dug from the nearest water source, and gates built into the dikes so the water flow can be adjusted precisely to cover the right amount of plant.
稻田周圍需要修建水渠。這樣在灌溉時，水渠里的水流經田埂上開鑿的缺口，直接流進需要灌溉的每寸土地。
The paddy itself, meanwhile, has to have a hard clay floor; otherwise, the water will simply seep into the ground.
另外，稻田地的土質層內需要有硬土層，否則水就會全部滲透到地下。
But of course, you can't plant rice seedlings in hard clay, so on top of the clay, there has to be a thick, soft layer of mud.
但問題在于，稻種根本無法在硬土層上播種，因此在硬土層上還需要有一層厚度適中且柔軟的粘土，
And the claypan, as it's called, has to be carefully engineered so that it will drain properly and also keep the plain submerged at the optimum level.
粘土的作用在于保證種子始終處在濕度適宜的最佳狀況。
Rice has to be fertilized repeatedly, which is another art.
稻子還需要不間斷地施肥，這又是另一種藝術。
Traditionally, farmers used "night soil"(human manure) and a combination of burned compost, river mud, bean cake, and hemp-used carefully,
在過去，農民通常使用糞便和一種由豆殼餅、纖維植物燃燒后與河中淤泥形成的混合肥料來為稻田施肥。
because too much fertilizer or the right amount applied at the wrong time can be as bad as too little.
在使用的過程中，他們必須特別謹慎，因為一旦施肥過量或者選擇錯誤的時節進行施肥都會造成不小的損失。
