scenes not widely different from those we had just left. The journey
was continuously among fields of rice, with Korean features strongly
marked but usually under better and more intensified culture, and
the season, too, was a little more advanced. Here the plowing was
being done mostly with horses instead of the heavy bullocks so
exclusively employed in Korea. Coming from China into Korea, and
from there into Japan, it appeared very clear that in agricultural
methods and appliances the Koreans and Japanese are more closely
similar than the Chinese and Koreans, and the more we came to see of
the Japanese methods the more strongly the impression became fixed
that the Japanese had derived their methods either from the Koreans
or the Koreans had taken theirs more largely from Japan than from
China.
It was on this ride from Moji to Nagasaki that we were introduced to
the attractive and very satisfactory manner of serving lunches to
travelers on the trains in Japan. At important stations hot tea is
brought to the car windows in small glazed, earthenware teapots
provided with cover and bail, and accompanied with a teacup of the
same ware. The set and contents could be purchased for five sen, two
and a half cents, our currency. All tea is served without milk or
sugar. The lunches were very substantial and put together in a neat
sanitary manner in a three-compartment wooden box, carefully made
from clear lumber joined with wooden pegs and perfect joints. Packed
in the cover we found a paper napkin, toothpicks and a pair of
chopsticks. In the second compartment there were thin slices of
meat, chicken and fish, together with bamboo sprouts, pickles, cakes
and small bits of salted vegetables, while the lower and chief
compartment was filled with rice cooked quite stiff and without
salt, as is the custom in the three countries. The box was about six
inches long, four inches deep and three and a half inches wide.
These lunches are handed to travelers neatly wrapped in spotless
thin white paper daintily tied with a bit of color, all in exchange
for 25 sen,--12.5 cents. Thus for fifteen cents the traveler is
handed, through the car window, in a respectful manner, a square
meal which he may eat at his leisure.
XVII
RETURN TO JAPAN
We had returned to Japan in the midst of the first rainy season, and
all the day through, June 25th, and two nights, a gentle rain fell
at Nagasaki, almost without interruption. Across the narrow street
from Hotel Japan were two of its guest houses, standing near the
front of a wall-faced terrace rising twenty-eight feet above the
street and facing the beautiful harbor. They were accessible only by
winding stone steps shifting on paved landings to continue the
ascent between retaining walls overhung with a wealth of shrubbery
clothed in the densest foliage, so green and liquid in the drip of
the rain, that one almost felt like walking edgewise amid stairs
lest the drip should leave a stain. Over such another series of
steps, but longer and more winding, we found our way to the American
Consulate where in the beautifully secluded quarters Consul-General
Scidmore escaped many annoyances of settling the imagined petty
grievances arising between American tourists and the ricksha boys.
Through the kind offices of the Imperial University of Sapporo and
of the National Department of Agriculture and Commerce, Professor
Tokito met us at Nagasaki, to act as escort through most of the
journey in Japan. Our first visit was to the prefectural
Agricultural Experiment Station at Nagasaki. There are four others
in the four main islands, one to an average area of 4280 square
miles, and to each 1,200,000 people. The island of Kyushu, whose
latitude is that of middle Mississippi and north Louisiana, has two
rice harvests, and gardeners at Nagasaki grow three crops, each
year. The gardener and his family work about five tan, or a little
less than one and one-quarter acres, realizing an annual return of
some $250 per acre. To maintain these earnings fertilizers are
applied rated worth $60 per acre, divided between the three crops,
the materials used being largely the wastes of the city, animal
manure, mud from the drains, fuel ashes and sod, all composted
together. If this expenditure for fertilizers appears high it must
be remembered that nearly the whole product is sold and that there
are three crops each year. Such intense culture requires a heavy
return if large yields are maintained. Good agricultural lands were
here valued at 300 yen per tan, approximately $600 per acre.
When returning toward Moji to visit the Agricultural Experiment
Station of Fukuoka prefecture, the rice along the first portion of
the route was standing about eight inches above the water. Large
lotus ponds along the way occupied areas not readily drained, and
the fringing fields between the rice paddies and the untilled hill
lands were bearing squash, maize, beans and Irish potatoes. Many
small areas had been set to sweet potatoes on close narrow ridges,
the tops of which were thinly strewn with green grass, or sometimes
with straw or other litter, for shade and to prevent the soil from
washing and baking in the hot sun after rains. At Kitsu we passed
near Government salt works, for the manufacture of salt by the
evaporation of sea water, this industry in Japan, as in China, being
a Government monopoly.
Many bundles of grass and other green herbage were collected along
the way, gathered for use in the rice fields. In other cases the
green manure had already been spread over the flooded paddies and
was being worked beneath the surface, as seen in Fig. 216. At this
time the hill lands were clothed in the richest, deepest green but
the tree growth was nowhere large except immediately about temples,
and was usually in distinct small areas with sharp boundaries
occasioned by differences in age. Some tracts had been very recently
cut; others were in their second, third or fourth years; while
others still carried a growth of perhaps seven to ten years. At one
village many bundles of the brush fuel had been gathered from an
adjacent area, recently cleared.
A few fields were still bearing their crop of soy beans planted in
February between rows of grain, and the green herbage was being
worked into the flooded soil, for the crop of rice. Much compost,
brought to the fields, was stacked with layers of straw between,
laid straight, the alternate courses at right angles, holding the
piles in rectangular form with vertical sides, some of which were
four to six feet high and the layers of compost about six inches
thick.
Just before reaching Tanjiro, a region is passed where orchards of
the candleberry tree occupy high leveled areas between rice paddies,
after the manner described for the mulberry orchards in Chekiang,
China. These trees, when seen from a distance, have quite the
appearance of our apple orchards.
At the Fukuoka Experiment Station we learned that the usual depth of
plowing for the rice fields is three and a half to four and a half
inches, but that deeper plowing gives somewhat larger yields. As an
average of five years trials, a depth of seven to eight inches
increased the yield from seven to ten per cent over that of the
usual depth. In this prefecture grass from the bordering hill lands
is applied to the rice fields at rates ranging from 3300 to 16,520
pounds green weight per acre, and, according to analyses given,
these amounts would carry to, the fields from 18 to 90 pounds of
nitrogen; 12.4 to 63.2 pounds of potassium, and 2.1 to 10.6 pounds
of phosphorus per acre.
Where bean cake is used as a fertilizer the applications may be at
the rate of 496 pounds per acre, carrying 33.7 pounds of nitrogen,
nearly 5 pounds of phosphorus and 7.4 pounds of potassium. The earth
composts are chiefly applied to the dry land fields and then only
after they are well rotted, the fermentation being carried through
at least sixty days, during which the material is turned three times
for aeration, the work being done at the home. When used on the rice
fields where water is abundant the composts are applied in a less
fermented condition.
The best yields of rice in this prefecture are some eighty bushels
per acre, and crops of barley may even exceed this, the two crops
being grown the same year, the rice following the barley. In most
parts of Japan the grain food of the laboring people is about 70 per
cent naked barley mixed with 30 per cent of rice, both cooked and
used in the same manner. The barley has a lower market value and its
use permits a larger share of the rice to be sold as a money crop.
The soils are fertilized for each crop every year and the
prescription for barley and rice recommended by the Experiment
Station, for growers in this prefecture, is indicated by the
following table:
FERTILIZATION FOR NAKED BARLEY.
Pounds per acre.
Fertilizers. N P K
Manure compost 6,613 33.0 7.4 33.8
Rape seed cake 330 16.7 2.8 3.5
Night soil 4,630 26.4 2.6 10.2
Superphosphate 132 9.9
----------------------
Sum 11,705 76.1 22.7 47.5
FERTILIZATION FOR PADDY RICE.
Manure compost 5,291 26.4 5.9 27.1
Green manure,
soy beans 3,306 19.2 1.1 19.6
Soy bean cake 397 27.8 1.7 6.4
Superphosphate 198 12.8
----------------------
Sum 9,192 73.4 21.5 53.1
====== ===== ==== =====
Total for year 20,897 149.5 44.2 100.6
Where these recommendations are followed there is an annual
application of fertilizer material which aggregates some ten tons
per acre, carrying about 150 pounds of nitrogen, 44 pounds of
phosphorus and 100 pounds of potassium. The crop yields which have
been associated with these applications on the Station fields are
about forty-nine bushels of barley and fifty bushels of rice per
acre.
The general rotation recommended for this portion of Japan covers
five years and consists of a crop of wheat or naked barley the first
two years with rice as the summer crop; in the third year genge,
"pink clover" (Astragalus sinicus) or some other legume for green
manure is the winter crop, rice following in the summer; the fourth
year rape is the winter crop, from which the seed is saved and the
ash of the stems returned to the soil, or rarely the stems
themselves may be turned under; on the fifth and last year of the
rotation the broad kidney or windsor bean is the winter crop,
preceding the summer crop of rice. This rotation is not general yet
in the practice of the farmers of the section, they choosing rape or
barley and in February plant windsor or soy beans between the rows
for green manure to use when the rice comes on.
It was evident from our observations that the use of composts in
fertilizing was very much more general and extensive in China than
it was in either Korea or Japan, but, to encourage the production
and use of compost fertilizers, this and other prefectures have
provided subsidies which permit the payment of $2.50 annually to
those farmers who prepare and use on their land a compost heap
covering twenty to forty square yards, in accordance with specified
directions given.
The agricultural college at Fukuoka was not in session the day of
our visit, it being a holiday usually following the close of the
last transplanting season. One of the main buildings of the station
and college is seen in Fig. 217, and Figs. 218, 219 and 220, placed
together from left to right in the order of their numbers, form a
panoramic view of the station grounds and buildings with something
of the beautiful landscape setting. There is nowhere in Japan the
lavish expenditure of money on elaborate and imposing architecture
which characterizes American colleges and stations, but in equipment
for research work, both as to professional staff and appliances,
they compare favorably with similar institutions in America. The
dormitory system was in vogue in the college, providing room and
board at eight yen per month or four dollars of our currency. Eight
students were assigned to one commodious room, each provided with a
study table, but beds were mattresses spread upon the matting floor
at night and compactly stored on closet shelves during the day.
The Japanese plow, which is very similar to the Korean type, may be
seen in Fig. 221, the one on the right costing 2.5 yen and the other
2 yen. With the aid of the single handle and the sliding rod held in
the right hand, the course of the plow is directed and the plow
tilted in either direction, throwing the soil to the right or the
left.
The nursery beds for rice breeding experiments and variety tests by
this station are shown in Fig. 222. Although these plots are flooded
the marginal plants, adjacent to the free water paths, were
materially larger than those within and had a much deeper green
color, showing better feeding, but what seemed most strange was the
fact that these stronger plants are never used in transplanting, as
they do not thrive as well as those less vigorous.
We left the island of Kyushu in the evening of June 29th, crossing
to the main island of Honshu, waiting in Shimonoseki for the morning
train. The rice-planted valleys near Shimonoseki were relatively
broad and the paddies had all been recently set in close rows about
a foot apart and in hills in the rows. Mountain and hill lands were
closely wooded, largely with coniferous trees about the base but
toward and at the summits, especially on the South slopes, they were
green only with herbage cut for fertilizing and feeding stock. Many
very small trees, often not more than one foot high, were growing on
the recently cut-over areas; tall slender graceful bamboos clustered
along the way and everywhere threw wonderful beauty into the
landscape. Cartloads of their slender stems, two to four inches in
diameter at the base and twenty or more feet long, were moving along
the generally excellent, narrow, seldom fenced roads, such as seen
in Fig. 223. On the borders and pathways between rice paddies many
small stacks of straw were in waiting to be laid between the rows of
transplanted rice, tramped beneath the water and overspread with mud
to enrich the soil. The farmers here, as elsewhere, must contend
against the scouring rush, varieties of grass and our common
pigweeds, even in the rice fields. The large area of mountain and
hill land compared with that which could be tilled, and the
relatively small area of cultivated land not at this time under
water and planted to rice persisted throughout the journey.
If there could be any monotony for the traveller new to this land of
beauty it must result from the quick shifting of scenes and in the
way the landscapes are pieced together, out-doing the craziest
patchwork woman ever attempted; the bits are almost never large;
they are of every shape, even puckered and crumpled and tilted at
all angles. Here is a bit of the journey: Beyond Habu the foothills
are thickly wooded, largely with conifers. The valley is extremely
narrow with only small areas for rice. Bamboo are growing in
congenial places and we pass bundles of wood cut to stove length, as
seen in Fig. 224. Then we cross a long narrow valley practically all
in rice, and then another not half a mile wide, just before reaching
Asa. Beyond here the fields become limited in area with the
bordering low hills recently cut over and a new growth springing up
over them in the form of small shrubs among which are many pine. Now
we are in a narrow valley between small rice fields or with none at
all, but dash into one more nearly level with wide areas in rice
chiefly on one side of the track just before reaching Onoda at 10:30
A. M. and continuing three minutes ride beyond, when we are again
between hills without fields and where the trees are pine with
clumps of bamboo. In four minutes more we are among small rice
paddies and at 10:35 have passed another gap and are crossing
another valley checkered with rice fields and lotus ponds, but in
one minute more the hills have closed in, leaving only room for the
track. At 10:37 we are running along a narrow valley with its
terraced rice paddies where many of the hills show naked soil among
the bamboo, scattering pine and other small trees; then we are out
among garden patches thickly mulched with straw. At 10:38 we are
between higher hills with but narrow areas for rice stretching close
along the track, but in two minutes these are passed and we are
among low hills with terraced dry fields. At 10:42 we are spinning
along the level valley with its rice, but are quickly out again
among hills with naked soil where erosion was marked. This is just
before passing Funkai where we are following the course of a stream
some sixty feet wide with but little cultivated land in small areas.
At 10:47 we are again passing narrow rice fields near the track
where the people are busy weeding with their hands, half knee-deep
in water. At 10:53 we enter a broader valley stretching far to the
south and seaward, but we had crossed it in one minute, shot through
another gap, and at 10:55 are traversing a much broader valley
largely given over to rice, but where some of the paddies were
bearing matting rush set in rows and in hills after the manner of
rice. It is here we pass Oyou and just beyond cross a stream
confined between levees built some distance back from either bank.
At 11:17 this plain is left and we enter a narrow valley without
fields. Thus do most of the agricultural lands of Japan lie in the
narrowest valleys, often steeply sloping, and into which jutting
spurs create the greatest irregularity of boundary and slope.
The journey of this day covered 350 miles in fourteen hours, all of
the way through a country of remarkable and peculiar beauty which
can be duplicated nowhere outside the mountainous, rice-growing
Orient and there only during fifteen days closing the transplanting
season. There were neither high mountains nor broad valleys, no
great rivers and but few lakes; neither rugged naked rocks, tall
forest trees nor wide level fields reaching away to unbroken
horizons. But the low, rounded, soil-mantled mountain tops clothed
in herbaceous and young forest growth fell everywhere into lower
hills and these into narrow steep valleys which dropped by a series
of water-level benches, as seen in Fig. 225, to the main river
courses. Each one of these millions of terraces, set about by its
raised rim, was a silvery sheet of water dotted in the daintiest
manner with bunches of rice just transplanted, but not so close nor
yet so high and over-spreading as to obscure the water, yet quite
enough to impart to the surface a most delicate sheen of green; and
the grass-grown narrow rims retaining the water in the basins,
cemented them into series of the most superb mosaics, shaped into
the valley bottoms by artizan artists perhaps two thousand years
before and maintained by their descendants through all the years
since, that on them the rains and fertility from the mountains and
the sunshine from heaven might be transformed by the rice plant into
food for the families and support for the nation. Two weeks earlier
the aspect of these landscapes was very different, and two weeks
later the reflecting water would lie hidden beneath the growing and
rapidly developing mantle of green, to go on changing until autumn,
when all would be overspread with the ripened harvest of grain. And
what intensified the beauty of it all was the fact that only along
the widest valley bottoms were the mosaics level, except the water
surface of each individual unit and these were always small. At one
time we were riding along a descending series of steps and then
along another rising through a winding valley to disappear around a
projecting spur, and anywhere in the midst of it all might be
standing Japanese cottages or villas with the water and the growing
rice literally almost against the walls, as seen in Fig. 226, while
a near-by high terrace might hold its water on a level with the
chimney-tops. Can one wonder that the Japanese loves his country or
that they are born and bred landscape artists?
Just before reaching Hongo there were considerable areas thrown into
long narrow, much-raised, east and west beds under covers of straw
matting inclined at a slight angle toward the south, some two feet
above the ground but open toward the north. What crop may have been
grown here we did not learn but the matting was apparently intended
for shade, as it was hot midsummer weather, and we suspect it may
have been ginseng. It was here, too, that we came into the region of
the culture of matting rush, extensively grown in Hiroshima and
Okayama prefectures, but less extensively all over the empire. As
with rice, the rush is first grown in nursery beds from which it is
transplanted to the paddies, one acre of nursery supplying
sufficient stock for ten acres of field. The plants are set twenty
to thirty stalks in a hill in rows seven inches apart with the hills
six inches from center to center in the row. Very high fertilization
is practiced, costing from 120 to 240 yen per acre, or $60 to $120
annually, the fertilizer consisting of bean cake and plant ashes, or
in recent years, sometimes of sulphate of ammonia for nitrogen, and
superphosphate of lime. About ten per cent of the amount of
fertilizer required for the crop is applied at the time of fitting
the ground, the balance being administered from time to time as the
season advances. Two crops of the rush may be taken from the same
ground each year or it is grown in rotation with rice, but most
extensively on the lands less readily drained and not so well suited
for other crops. Fields of the rush, growing in alternation with
rice, are seen in Fig. 45, and in Fig. 227, with the Government salt
fields lying along the seashore beyond.
With the most vigorous growth the rush attain a height exceeding
three feet and the market price varies materially with the length of
the stems. Good yields, under the best culture, may be as high as
6.5 tons per acre of the dry stems but the average yield is less,
that of 1905 being 8531 pounds, for 9655 acres, The value of the
product ranges from $120 to $200 per acre.
It is from this material that mats are woven in standard sizes, to
be laid over padding, upholstering the floors which are the seats of
all classes in Japan, used in the manner seen in Fig. 228 and in
Fig. 229, which is a completely furnished guest room in a first
class Japanese inn, finished in natural unvarnished wood, with walls
of sliding panels of translucent paper, which may open upon a porch,
into a hallway or into another apartment; and with its bouquet,
which may consist of a single large shapely branch of the purple
leaved maple, having the cut end charred to preserve it fresh for a
longer time, standing in water in the vase.
"Two little maids I've heard of, each with a pretty taste, Who had
two little rooms to fix and not an hour to waste. Eight thousand
miles apart they lived, yet on the selfsame day The one in Nikko's
narrow streets, the other on Broadway, They started out, each happy
maid her heart's desire to find, And her own dear room to furnish
just according to her mind.
When Alice went a-shopping, she bought a bed of brass, A bureau and
some chairs and things and such a lovely glass To reflect her little
figure--with two candle brackets near-- And a little dressing table
that she said was simply dear! A book shelf low to hold her books, a
little china rack, And then, of course, a bureau set and lots of
bric-a-brac; A dainty little escritoire, with fixings all her own
And just for her convenience, too, a little telephone. Some oriental
rugs she got, and curtains of madras, With 'cunning' ones of lace
inside, to go against the glass; And then a couch, a lovely one,
with cushions soft to crush, And forty pillows, more or less, of
linen, silk and plush; Of all the ornaments besides I couldn't tell
the half, But wherever there was nothing else, she stuck a
photograph. And then, when all was finished, she sighed a little
sigh, And looked about with just a shade of sadness in her eye: 'For
it needs a statuette or so--a fern--a silver stork Oh, something,
just to fill it up!' said Alice of New York.