Luzhi Water Town Farming Tools Museum

Luzhi Water Town Farming Tools Museum

Passing through the stone archway courtyard of Wansheng Rice Shop, you arrive at the “Leisi Hall,” where old-style rice farming tools and grain processing equipment from the Jiangnan region are displayed, forming a unique “Farming Tools Museum” with distinct water town charm. The development of Chinese farming tools evolved from primitive slash-and-burn implements to those combining copper, iron, wood, and bamboo, and then to small-scale handicraft-produced tools, spanning a long historical period.

The Wu region [encompassing the entire Wu dialect area], located in the Yangtze River Delta on China’s southeast coast, is one of the earliest areas in China to use farming tools and is famed as a land of fish and rice. Agriculture here primarily focused on rice cultivation, earning the ancient praise of “When Suzhou and Huzhou have good harvests, the whole country has enough to eat.” Excavations at the Hemudu cultural site in Yuyao, Zhejiang, uncovered rice remains and farming tools made of stone and bone, fully confirming that the Wu region had entered the hoe-farming agricultural stage over 7,000 years ago. Using stone axes to clear trees and land, stone adzes to dig soil, and stone sickles to harvest grain marked a qualitative leap as primitive agriculture transitioned from hunting and fishing to cultivation.

In places like Suzhou’s Caoguoshan, cultural sites from the Majiabang, Songze, and Liangzhu periods, dating back over 5,000 years, have yielded a large number of stone knives and sickles with wooden handles, shouldered and perforated stone spades, as well as plow-shaped and weeding tools.

By the late Liangzhu culture period, with the invention of smelting techniques, a series of bronze farming tools emerged for land clearing, plowing, intertillage, management, and harvesting. This marked a new chapter in the reform of farming tools, greatly boosting productivity and social progress.

After the Six Dynasties period, farming tools in the Wu region saw significant advancements, evolving from rudimentary to more refined designs, and gave rise to China’s earliest specialized treatise on farming tools — the “Leisi Jing” (Plow Classic) written by the famous Tang Dynasty poet Lu Guimeng of Luzhi. It provides detailed descriptions of the Jiangdong plow, which has been in continuous use to this day, symbolizing the high achievements of Tang Dynasty farming implements.

The history of farming tools is also a history of agricultural and social development. The long and storied legacy of Wu region farming tools is a treasured part of the brilliant Wu culture.