Agriculture

Abstract

Almost everything we know about agriculture during the Six Dynasties comes from one landmark work, the Qimin yaoshu (Essential Techniques [or Arts] for the Common People), completed sometime between 533 and 544. The author, Jia Sixie, was an estate owner and practicing farmer who had served the Northern Wei government as a middle-level official. It may seem an exaggeration to claim that an agricultural treatise should be classed among the written masterpieces of the Six Dynasties. The author of the Qimin yaoshu does not dazzle his readers with poetic ingenuity, nor does he expound subtle aesthetic or philosophical theories, nor offer esoteric instruction in the arts of transcendence.