Daily Life in China                  

Crops Drying at Chinese home:

Just about every farm house has a cement front patio.  Crops are dried on the patio or if no patio is available on the road.  Rt 319 and all other roads have miles of crops drying.  For corn, the kernels will be removed by a hand operated machine (see picture 3 under houses).  For rice some put it on the road to be run over by vehicles others use hand threshers which is a long pole with a short stick tied on at the top.  The rice is beaten with the top shorter stick.  The chaff is sorted just dumping a pail full onto the ground and letting the wind blow the chaff to the side.  There are a zillion small farms in China so the overall crop of small farmers adds up.  I have not seen an agribusiness farm yet.   It's the same for cotton.  A zillion farmers have a small lot for cotton which is picked, the shell removed and fluff dried on tables or the ground.  The crop is brought to a small market.  Many farmers crop are bought up put on a truck to a larger village and consolidated with other local loads until a cargo truck is filled.  That goes off to some small or medium city with a factory in need of cotton.  It' s the same for most crops; some for local consumption and the rest for a modest cash crop.