and we tasted three very excellent brands, two of them lacking the
bitter flavor. It would appear that, in Japan, Korea and China there
should be a very bright future along the lines of horticultural
development, leading to the utilization of the extensive hill lands
of these countries and the development of a very extensive export
trade, both in fresh fruits and marmalades, preserves and the canned
forms. They have favorable climatic and soil conditions and great
numbers of people with temperament and habits well suited to the
industries, as well as an enormous home need which should be met, in
addition to the large possibilities in the direction of a most
profitable export trade which would increase opportunities for labor
and bring needed revenue to the people. In Fig. 242 are three views
at this station, the lower showing a steep terraced hillside set
with oranges and other fruits, holding out a bright promise for the
future.
Peach orchards were here set on the hill lands, the trees six feet
apart each way. They come into bearing in three years, remain
productive ten to fifteen years, and the returns are 50 to 60 yen
per tan, or at the rate of $100 to $120 per acre. The usual
fertilizers for a peach orchard are the manure-earth-compost,
applied at the rate of 3300 pounds per acre, and fish guano applied
in rotation and at the same rate.
Shizuoka is one of the large prefectures, having a total area of
3029 square miles; 2090 of which are in forest; 438 in pasture and
genya land, and 501 square miles cultivated, not quite one-half of
which is in paddy fields. The mean yield of paddy rice is nearly 33
bushels per acre. The prefecture has a population of 1,293,470, or
about four to the acre of cultivated field, and the total crop of
rice is such as, to provide 236 pounds to each person.
At many places along the way as we left Shizuoka July 10th for
Tokyo, farmers were sowing broadcast, on the water, over their rice
fields, some pulverized fertilizer, possibly bean cake. Near the
railway station of Fuji, and after crossing the boulder gravel bed
of the Fujikawa which was a full quarter of a mile wide, we were
traversing a broad plain of rice paddies with their raised tables,
but on them pear orchards were growing, trained to their overhead
trellises. About. Suduzuka grass was being cut with sickles along
the canal dikes for use as green manure in the rice fields, which on
the left of the railway, stretched eastward more than six miles to
beyond Hara where we passed into a tract of dry land crops
consisting of mulberry, tea and various vegetables, with more or
less of dry land rice, but we returned to the paddy land again at
Numazu, in another four miles. Here there were four carloads of beef
cattle destined for Tokyo or Yokohama, the first we had seen.
It was at this station that the railway turns northward to skirt the
eastern flank of the beautiful Fuji-yama, rising to higher lands of
a brown loamy character, showing many large boulders two feet in
diameter. Horses were here moving along the roadways under large
saddle loads of green grass, going to the paddy fields from the
hills, which in this section are quite free from all but herbaceous
growth, well covered and green. Considerable areas were growing
maize and buckwheat, the latter being ground into flour and made
into macaroni which is eaten with chopsticks, Fig. 243, and used to
give variety to the diet of rice and naked barley. At Gotenba, where
tourists leave the train to ascend Fuji-yama, the road turns
eastward again and descends rapidly through many tunnels, crossing
the wide gravelly channel of the Sakawagawa, then carrying but
little water, like all of the other main streams we had crossed,
although we were in the rainy season. This was partly because the
season was yet not far advanced; partly because so much water was
being taken upon the rice fields, and again because the drainage is
so rapid down the steep slopes and comparatively short water
courses. Beyond Yamakita the railway again led along a broad plain
set in paddy rice and the hill slopes were terraced and cultivated
nearly to their summits.
Swinging strongly southeastward, the coast was reached at Noduz in a
hilly country producing chiefly vegetables, mulberry and tobacco,
the latter crop being extensively grown eastward nearly to Oiso,
beyond which, after a mile of sweet potatoes, squash and cucumbers,
there were paddy fields of rice in a flat plain. Before Hiratsuka
was reached the rice paddies were left and the train was crossing a
comparatively flat country with a sandy, sometimes gravelly, soil
where mulberries, peaches, eggplants, sweet potatoes and dry land
rice were interspersed with areas still occupied with small pine and
herbaceous growth or where small pine had been recently set. Similar
conditions prevailed after we had crossed the broad channel of the
Banyugawa and well toward and beyond Fujishiwa where a leveled plain
has its tables scattered among the fields of paddy rice, this being
the southwest margin of the Tokyo plain, the largest in Japan, lying
in five prefectures, whose aggregate area of 1,739,200 acres of
arable lands was worked by 657,235 families of farmers; 661,613
acres of which was in paddy rice, producing annually some 19,198,000
bushels, or 161 pounds for each of the 7,194,045 men, women and
children in the five prefectures, 1,818,655 of whom were in the
capital city, Tokyo.
Three views taken in the eastern portion of this plain in the
prefecture of Chiba, July 17th, are seen in Fig. 244, in two of
which shocks of wheat were still standing in the fields among the
growing crops, badly weathered and the grain sprouting as the result
of the rainy season. Peanuts, sweet potatoes and millet were the
main dry land, crops then on the ground, with paddy rice in the
flooded basins. Windsor beans, rape, wheat and barley had been
harvested. One family with whom we talked were threshing their
wheat. The crop had been a good one and was yielding between 38.5
and. 41.3 bushels per acre, worth at the time $35 to $40. On the
same land this farmer secures a yield of 352 to 361 bushels of
potatoes, which at the market price at that time would give a gross
earning of $64 to $66 per acre.
Reference has been made to the extensive use of straw in the
cultural methods of the Japanese. This is notably the case in their
truck garden work, and two phases of this are shown in Fig. 245. In
the lower section of the illustration the garden has been ridged and
furrowed for transplanting, the sets have been laid and the roots
covered with a little soil; then, in the middle section, showing the
next step in the method, a layer of straw has been pressed firmly
above the roots, and in the final step this would be covered with
earth. Adopting this method the straw is so placed that (1) it acts
as an effective mulch without in any way interfering with the
capillary rise of water to the roots of the sets; (2) it gives deep,
thorough aeration of the soil, at the same time allowing rains to
penetrate quickly, drawing the air after it; (3) the ash ingredients
carried in the straw are leached directly to the roots where they
are needed; (4) and finally the straw and soil constitute a compost
where the rapid decay liberates plant food gradually and in the
place where it will be most readily available. The upper section of
the illustration shows rows of eggplants very heavily mulched with
coarse straw, the quantity being sufficient to act as a most
effective mulch, to largely prevent the development of weeds and to
serve during the rainy season as a very material fertilizer.
In growing such dry land crops as barley, beans, buckwheat or dry
land rice the soil of the field is at first fitted by plowing or
spading, then furrowed deeply where the rows are to be planted. Into
these furrows fertilizer is placed and covered with a layer of earth
upon which the seed is planted. When the crop is up, if a second
fertilization is desired, a furrow may be made alongside each row,
into which the fertilizer is sowed and then covered. When the crop
is so far matured that a second may be planted, a new furrow is
made, either midway between two others or adjacent to one of them,
fertilizer applied and covered with a layer of soil and the seed
planted. In this way the least time possible is lost during the
growing season, all of the soil of the field doing duty in crop
production.
It was our privilege to visit the Imperial Agricultural Experiment
Station at Nishigahara, near Tokyo, which is charged with the
leadership of the general and technical agricultural research work
for the Empire. The work is divided into the sections of
agriculture, agricultural chemistry, entomology, vegetable
pathology, tobacco, horticulture, stock breeding, soils, and tea
manufacture, each with their laboratory equipment and research
staff, while the forty-one prefectural stations and fourteen
sub-stations are charged with the duty of handling all specific
local, practical problems and with testing out and applying
conclusions and methods suggested by the results obtained at the
central station, together with the local dissemination of knowledge
among the farmers of the respective prefectures.
A comprehensive soil survey of the arable lands of the Empire has
been in progress since before 1893, excellent maps being issued on a
scale of 1 to 100,000, or about 1.57 inch-to the mile, showing the
geological formations in eight colors with subdivisions indicated by
letters. Some eleven soil types are recognized, based on physical
composition and the areas occupied by these are shown by means of
lines and dots in black printed over the colors. Typical profiles of
the soil to depths of three meters are printed as insets on each
sheet and localities where these apply are indicated by
corresponding numbers in red on the map.
Elaborate chemical and physical studies are also being made in the
laboratories of samples of both soil and subsoil. The Imperial
Agricultural Experiment Station is well equipped for investigation
work along many lines and that for soils is notably strong. In Fig.
246 may be seen a portion of the large immersed cylinders which are
filled with typical soils from different parts of the Empire, and
Fig. 247 shows a portion of another part of their elaborate outfit
for soil studies which are in progress.
It is found that nearly all cultivated soils of Japan are acid to
litmus, and this they are inclined to attribute to the presence of
acid hydro-aluminum silicates.
The Island Empire of Japan stretches along the Asiatic coast through
more than twenty-nine degrees of latitude from the southern
extremity of Formosa northward to the middle of Saghalin, some 2300
statute miles; or from the latitude of middle Cuba to that of north
Newfoundland and Winnipeg; but the total land area is only 175,428
square miles, and less than that of the three states of Wisconsin,
Iowa and Minnesota. Of this total land area only 23,698 square miles
are at present cultivated; 7151 square miles in the three main
islands are weed and pasture land. Less than fourteen per cent of
the entire land area is at present under cultivation.
If all lands having a slope of less than fifteen degrees may be
tilled, there yet remain in the four main islands, 15,400 square
miles to bring under cultivation, which is an addition of 65.4 per
cent to the land already cultivated.
In 1907 there were in the Empire some 5,814,362 households of
farmers tilling 15,201,969 acres and feeding 3,522,877 additional
households, or 51,742,398 people. This is an average of 3.4 people
to the acre of cultivated land, each farmer's household tilling an
average of 2.6 acres.
The lands yet to be reclaimed are being put under cultivation
rapidly, the amount improved in 1907 being 64,448 acres. If the new
lands to be reclaimed can be made as productive as those now in use
there should be opportunity for an increase in population to the
extent of about 35,000,000 without changing the present ratio of 3.4
people to the acre of cultivated land.
While the remaining lands to be reclaimed are not as inherently
productive as those now in use, improvements in management will more
than compensate for this, and the Empire is certain to quite double
its present maintenance capacity and provide for at least a hundred
million people with many more comforts of home and more satisfaction
for the common people than they now enjoy.
Since 1872 there has been an increase in the population of Japan
amounting to an annual average of about 1.1 per cent, and if this
rate is maintained the one hundred million mark would be passed in
less than sixty years. It appears probable however that the
increased acreage put under cultivation and pasturage combined, will
more than keep pace with the population up to this limit, while the
improvement in methods and crops will readily permit a second like
increment to her population, bringing that for the present Empire up
to 150 millions. Against this view, perhaps, is the fact that the
rice crop of the twenty years ending in 1906 is only thirty-three
per cent greater than the crop of 1838.
In Japan, as in the United States, there has been a strong movement
from the country to the city as a natural result of the large
increase in manufactures and commerce, and the small amount of land
per each farmer's household. In 1903 only .23 per cent of the
population of Japan were living in villages of less than 500, while
79.06 per cent were in towns and villages of less than 10,000
people, 20.7 per cent living in those larger. But in 1894 84.36 per
cent of the population were living in towns and villages of less
than 10,000, and only 15.64 per cent were in cities, towns and
villages of over 10,000 people; and while during these ten years the
rural population had increased at the rate of 640 per 10,000, in
cities the increase had been 6,174 per 10,000.
Japan has been and still is essentially an agricultural nation and
in 1906 there were 3,872,105 farmers' households, whose chief work
was farming, and 1,581,204 others whose subsidiary work was farming,
or 60.2 per cent of the entire number of households. A like ratio
holds in Formosa. Wealthy land owners who do not till their own
fields are not included.
Of the farmers in Japan some 33.34 per cent own and work their land.
Those having smaller holdings, who rent additional land, make up
46.03 per cent of the total farmers; while 20.63 per cent are
tenants who work 44.1 per cent of the land. In 1892 only one per
cent of the land holders owned more than twenty-five acres each;
those holding between twenty-five acres and five acres made up 11.7
per cent; while 87.3 per cent held less than five acres each. A man
owning seventy-five acres of land in Japan is counted among the
"great landholders". It is never true, however, except in the
Hokkaido, which is a new country agriculturally, that such holdings
lie in one body.
Statistics published in "Agriculture in Japan", by the Agricultural
Bureau, Department of Agriculture and Commerce, permit the following
statements of rent, crop returns, taxes and expenses, to be made.
The wealthy land owners who rent their lands receive returns like
these:
For paddy field, For upland field,
per acre. per acre.
Rent $27.98 $13.53
Taxes 7.34 1.98
Expenses 1.72 2.48
Total expenses $9.06 $4.46
Net profit 18.92 9.07
It is stated, in connection with these statistics, that the rate of
profit for land capital is 5.6 per cent for the paddy field, and 5.7
per cent for the upland field. This makes the valuation of the land
about $338 and $159 per acre, respectively. A land holder who owns
and rents ten acres of paddy field and ten acres of upland field
would, at these rates, realize a net annual income of $279.90.
Peasant farmers who own and work their lands receive per acre an
income as follows:
For paddy field, For upland field,
per acre. per acre.
Crop returns $55.00 $30.72
Taxes 7.34 1.98
Labor and expenses 36.20 24.00
------- -------
Total expense $43.54 $25.98
Net profit 11.46 4.74
The peasant farmer who owns and works five acres, 2.5 of paddy and
2.5 of upland field, would realize a total net income of $40.50.
This is after deducting the price of his labor. With that included,
his income would be something like $91.
Tenant farmers who work some 41 per cent of the farm lands of Japan,
would have accounts something as follows:
For paddy field, For upland field,
1 crop. 2 crops.
per acre. per acre.
Crop returns $49.03 $78.62 $41.36
Tenant fee 23.89 31.58 13.52
Labor 15.78 25.79 14.69
Fertilization 7.82 17.30 10.22
Seed .82 1.40 1.57
Other expenses 1.69 2.82 1.66
------------- -------
Total expenses $50.00 $78.89 $41.66
Net profit --.97 --.27 --.30
This statement indicates that tenant farmers do not realize enough
from the crops to quite cover expenses and the price named for their
labor. If the tenant were renting five acres, equally divided
between paddy and upland field, the earning would be $73.00 or
$99.73 according as one or two crops are taken from the paddy field,
this representing what he realizes on his labor, his other expenses
absorbing the balance of the crop value.
But the average area tilled by each Japanese farmer's household is
only 2.6 acres, hence the average earning of the tenant household
would be $37.95 or $51.86. A clearer view of the difference in the
present condition of farmers in Japan and of those in the United
States may be gained by making the Japanese statement on the basis
of our 160-acre farm, as expressed in the table below:
For paddy field. For upland field. Total.
For 80 acres. For 80 acres. 160 acres.
Crop returns $4,400.00 $2,457.60 $6,857.60
---------- ---------- ----------
Taxes $587.20 $158.40 $745.60
Expenses 1,633.60 744.80 2,378.40
Labor 1,262.40 1,175.20 2,437.60
---------- ---------- ----------
Total cost $3,488.20 $2,078.40 $5,561.60
Net return 916.80 379.20 1,296.00
Return
including labor 2,179.20 1,554.40 3,783.60
In the United States the 160-acre farm is managed by and supports a
single family, but in Japan, as the average household works but 2.6
acres, the earnings of the 160 acres are distributed among some 61
households, making the net return to each but $21.25, instead of
$1296, and including the labor as earning, the income would be
$39.96 more, or $60.67 per household instead of $3733.60, the total
for a 160-acre farm worked under Japanese conditions.
These figures reveal something of the tense strain and of the
terrible burden which is being carried by these people, over and
above that required for the maintenance of the household. The tenant
who raises one crop of rice pays a rental of $23.89 per acre. If he
raises two crops he pays $31.58; if it is upland field, he pays
$13.52. To these amounts he adds $10.33, $21.52 or $13.45
respectively for fertilizer, seed and other expenses making a total
investment of $34.22, $53.10 or $26.97 per acre, which would require
as many bushels of wheat sold at a dollar a bushel to cover this
cost. In addition to this he assumes all the risks of loss from
weather, from insects and from blight, in the hope that he may
recoup his expenses and in addition have for his services $14.81,
$25.52 or $14.39 for the season's work.
The burdens of society, which have been and still are so largely
burdens of war and of government, with all nations, are reflected
with almost blinding effect in the land taxes of Japan, which range
from $1.98, on the upland, to $7.34 per acre on the paddy fields,
making a quarter section, without buildings, carry a burden of $300
to $1100 annually. Japan's budget in 1907 was $134,941,113, which is
at the rate of $2.60 for each man, woman and child; $8.90 for each
acre of cultivated land, and $23, for each household in the Empire.
When such is the case it is not strange that scenes like Fig. 248
are common in Japan today where, after seventy years, toil may not
cease.
There is a bright, as well as a pathetic side to scenes like this.
The two have shared for fifty years, but if the days have been full
of toil, with them have come strength of body, of mind and sterling
character. If the burdens have been heavy, each has made the other's
lighter, the satisfaction fuller, the joys keener, the sorrows less
difficult to bear; and the children who came into the home and have
gone from it to perpetuate new ones, could not well be other than
such as to contribute to the foundations of nations of great
strength and long endurance.
Reference has been made to the large amount of work carried on in
the farmers' households by the women and children, and by the men
when they are not otherwise employed, and the earnings of this
subsidiary work have materially helped to piece out the meagre
income and to meet the relatively high taxes and rent.