부산대학교 도서관

In the 1920s and 1930s, most of the western missionary boards in China, influenced by the ideas of social gospel, initiated agricultural improvement movements in North China. Raymond T. Moyer incidentally involved himself with the movement and established the Agricultural Department of Ming-Hsien Schools, which was located in the Mid-Shanxi Basin. The practice of agricultural improvement by Moyer was mainly based on the empirical survey of loess soils. He investigated the distribution, classification, organic matter and physics of soils in Mid-Shanxi with the assistance of the American Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, Cornell University and Oberlin College. Agricultural practices such as the mechanics of tillage, programs of fertilization, and the selections of crop species were introduced, based on the findings of the soil surveys. Moyer's agricultural improvement model, which was based on these soil surveys, was more scientific and indigenous than those of agricultural missionaries in North China. It not only combined scientific positivism with social evangelism, but also compiled extensive data on the soils of Mid-Shanxi, developed the status of Moyer himself as an American agricultural specialist in China, helping him forge a career in post-war construction in the Far East, and assisted Ming-Hsien Schools to survive the political turmoil of post-war China and continue as an agricultural institution in Mid-Shanxi after 1951.