Transplanting RiceTo get the maximum yield per plot and to make it possible to grow two crops in the same field, Chinese farmers grew rice seedlings in a seedbed and then, when a field was free, transplanted the seedlings into the flooded field. Because the Song government wanted to promote up-to-date agricultural technology, in the twelfth century it commissioned a set of twelve illustrations of the steps to be followed. This painting comes from a later version of those illustrations. (Tilling Rice, Yuan Dynasty [ink and colour on paper], Qi, Cheng [13th century] [attr. to]/Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., U.S.A./The Bridgeman Art Library)