The repeal of the Test Act, the admission of Quakers to Parliament in consequence of their being allowed to affirm instead of taking the oath (1832, when Joseph Pease was elected for South Durham), the establishment of the University of London, and, more recently, the opening of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge to Nonconformists, have all had their effect upon the body.
In south Germany the so-called Fruchtwechsel is practised, the fields being sown with grain crops every second year, and with pease or beans, grasses, potatoes, turnips, &c., in the intermediate years.
The principal articles of import are shirtings, drills, jeans and twills, opium, woollens, steel, lead, needles, J apanese sea-weed and sugar; and of export, wool, skins, beans and pease, straw braid, coal, dates, tobacco and rhubarb.
Its principal products are cotton, wheat and opium - the anti-opium decrees of 1906 had little effect on the province up to 1910 - and these it exchanges with the neighbouring provinces for coal, iron, salt, &c. Kao-liang, pulse, millet, maize, groundnut, barley, beans, pease, lucerne, and rape seed are also grown.
Indian corn was cultivated in the temperate and warm regions long before the advent of Europeans, who introduced wheat, rye, oats, beans, pease and the fruits and vegetables of the Old World, for each of which a favourable soil and climate was easily found.