One year double-cropping
The system of ‘one year double-cropping' is the same as the ‘new double-cropping' introduced earlier in the chapter. This technique appeared in the mid-Ming period and spread during the following centuries.
By the mid-nineteenth century, it had become the dominant crop pattern in Jiangnan. From an agronomic viewpoint, the system is undoubtedly superior to any alternate crop regimes. First, this new system is very well suited to the ecological environment of Jiangnan, making it possible for the system to spread everywhere in the region.17 Second, an important feature of the new system is that it entails rotating dry- and wet-field crop cultivation. Because the rotation of different crops can reduce the depletion of soil nutrients and even raise the soil's fertility, the new system improves land when it is used.18 The resulting improvement of the land means that comparatively small quantities of fertilizer and labour were needed to achieve a good yield. In addition, with a greater variety of second crops, the new system gave farmers more freedom to choose the crop best suited to the various local conditions, therefore allowing them to maximize their income.Economically, the major advantage of this new system is that it reduced the number of non-working days in the slack seasons, making farm work more continuous and more like industrial production. More importantly, under this regime the amount of labour inputs did not necessarily increase at the same rate as the growth in output. This was because winter crops (especially certain beans and rapeseed) need
comparatively less labour and investment. In absolute terms though, the new system needed more fertilizer than the single-cropping system, or double-cropping of rice and green manure plants.19 The spread of the new system caused a remarkable increase in yield per mu of rice.
During the two centuries under study, fertilizer use increased greatly for major crops, while labour inputs changed little. In fact, increasing labour input per mu of major crops ceased by the late sixteenth century. In this sense, Jiangnan agriculture clearly became more capital intensive. This new crop regime, therefore, represents a new kind of agricultural intensificationcapital intensification (mainly fertilizer), not labour intensification (Bozhong Li 1984, 1998: ch. 5). Because labour inputs increased more slowly than output, Jiangnan agriculture could escape from a ‘high-level equilibrium trap' or ‘involutionary growth'.20
The benefits of the ‘one year double-crops' can only be maximized when a particular set of conditions are met. Of these conditions, farm size is one of the most important.
3.2