Pu-Mao nongzi 浦泖農咨

Pu-Mao nongzi 浦泖農咨 "Documents on the peasantry in Pu and Mao", is an agricultural treatise written during the late Qing period 清 (1644-1911) by 姜皋 Jiang Gao, courtesy name Xiaoqiang 小槍, from Yunjian 云間 (today part of Songjiang 松江, Shanghai).

The brief book specialises in the agricultural circumstances of the Yangtze Delta and the surroundings of Shanghai in particular. Pu 浦 is the abbreviation for Huangpu River 黃浦, which flows through the modern city of Shanghai, and Mao 泖 is the abbreviation for Lake Maohu 泖湖, the old name for Lake Dianshan 淀山湖, whose waters contribute to Huangpu River. Pu-Mao is thus the region between Shanghai and Lake Taihu 太湖, the most significant inland water of the lower Yangtze Region.

The text consists of 40 paragraphs referring to general rules of farming with the seasons, irrigation, methods of ploughing, sowing and replanting rice, fertilisation, weeding, and harvesting, and describes briefly various farming tools and minor crops like wheat, beans, legumes, oilseeds, but also speaks of economic matters like land prices, rents, labour pay, and credit interests.

Jiang's book is a valuable testimony of life in the countryside in Jiangsu on the eve of the First Opium War (1839-1842). It was first printed in 1834. Even if the book seems to have circulated to a certain extent in the region, only one single copy (guben 孤本) seems to have survived the onslaught of the Taiping 太平 turmoils (1850-1864) in the mid-century. It is owned by the Shanghai Library 上海圖書館.