Fan Shengzhi Shu (Fan Shengzhi Book) is a collective name of important agricultural
masterpieces at the end of the Western Han Dynasty (206BC-8AD). The author lived
in the reign of Emperor Chengdi of the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD). This book was
compiled based on the agricultural experience and techniques in the Yellow River
drainage area, containing the principles to cultivation, selection of planting
time, methods to deal with seeds, methods to store, plant and reap specific
seeds and the methods to distinguish seeds, etc. Among those, the methods to
plant individual crops were written in great detail.
The crops recorded include thirteen kinds:
gramineous crop, millet, wheat, rice, barnyard grass, soybeans, bean, Xi hemp,
hemp, melon, Makino bottle gourd, dasheen and mulberry. The methods to
distinguish seeds, also called the methods to distinguish fields, are also
highlighted in the book. There are other methods written in details, such as
seed washing, field cultivating, wheat planting, melon planting and mulberry
engrafting, which are scientific.
In the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534), Jia
Sixie often quoted it in his Qi Min Yao Shu (Essential Techniques for the
Peasantry). Many people collected and recompiled it in the Qing Dynasty
(1644-1911).