The Foundations of Japan

o-Kuni (Land of plenteous ears of ri

ld in terms intelligible to a Western farmer. The Japanese have a special word for a rice field, ta, water field, written [Kanji: ta]. It will be noticed that the ideograph looks like a water field in four compartments. Another word, hata or hatake, [59] written [Kanji: hata],

n in the Po Valley and in Texas. Owing to the plentiful water supply of a mountainous land, cultivation proceeds with some degree of regularit

fields. But the first requisite of general rice culture is water. The ordinary rice crop

must be arranged to make good the loss of water by evaporation, by leakage and by the continual passing on of some of the water to other plots belonging to the same owner or to other farmers. The common nam

ing the favourite mochi (rice flour dumplings, which few foreigners are able to digest). It would be possible to collect in Japan specimens of rice under 4,000 different

of which is lower than that of paddy rice. The paddy and upland rice areas together make up more than a half of the cultivated land. The paddies which are not in situations favourable t

nsively cultivated though Japan is, the percentage of cultivated land to the total area of the country is, however, little more than half that in Great Britain[66]. This is because Japan is largely mountains and hills. Level land for rice paddie

s will have only their feet wet while others will be up to their necks. The ordinary procedure in making a paddy is to remove the top soil, beat down the subsoil beneath, and then restore the top soil-th

rly level ground.[67] There is no real need for these being of all sizes and patterns. They are what they are because of the degree to which their construction was conditioned by water-supply problems, the financial resources of those who dug t

into oblong fields of equal or relative sizes. These were then shared out according to what each man had contributed. In some cases a little compensation had to be given, for there were differences in the qualities as well as the areas of the holdings. But reasonable justice was eventually done all round, and ever afterwards a farmer, now that his holding was in adjoining tracts, might spend his time working in his paddies instead of in walking to

ubted greatly whether after adjustment he would find himself in possession of as valuable land as his own. Sometimes also he believed that his paddies were especially fortunate geomantically. [70] Yet, convinced by the arguments for adjustment, the peasant agreed to the proposed rearrangement, let his old tracts go and accepted in exchange neat oblongs out of the common stock. Sometimes so great was the change brought about in a village by adjustment that more

d off, and therefore produces a second crop of barley or wheat. The farmer has two advantages if, owing to adjustment or natural advantages, he is able to dry off his land. Of the first or rice crop, if he is a tenant farmer, he has had to pay his landl

the allotment holder to dig almost knee-deep in mud. Although much paddy is ploughed with the aid of an ox, a cow or a pony,[73] most rice is the product of mattock

r it has been heavily dosed with manure, and the farmer is not fastidious as to the source from which he obtains it. [74] And the sludge ordinarily contains leeches. Therefore the cultivator must work uncomfortably in sodden clinging cotton feet and leg coverings. Long

other farms the task of working the quagmire was being done by two persons with the aid of a disconsolate pony harnessed to a rude harrow. The men and women in the paddies kept off the rain by means of the usual wide straw hats and loose straw mantles

ariety of rice and the locality.[76] The seeds have usually been selected by immersion in salt water and have been afterwards soaked in order to advance germination. There is a little soaking pond on every farm. By the use of this pond the period in which the seeds are exposed to the depredations of insects, etc., is diminished. The seed bed itself is about the width of an onion bed, in order that weeds and insect pests may be easily reached. The seed bed is,

aised in ordinary paddies but surrounded by the rope and white paper streamers which represent a consecrated place. In not a few villages

ng that young children who are not at school are often left to their own devices. Sometimes they play by the ditch round the paddies and are drowned. Five such cases of drowning ar

about the end of August. All kinds of hoes are used in the sludge. They are usually provided with a wooden or tin float. But most of the weeding is done simply by thrusting the hand into the mud, pulling out the weed and thrusting it back into the sludge to rot. Th

addies and stroking the young rice with switches in order to make noxious insects rise. The creatures were captured by the young enthusiasts with

e paddies that have long been enjoying the best of quarters.) As harvest time approaches,[78] the paddies, because they are not all planted with the same variety of rice, are in patches of different shades. Some are straw colour, some are reddish brown or almost black. A poet spe

r much, but in August, when the ears are shooting, it is a different matter. The sun pours down and soon rots the rice lying in the warm w

allen stems across one another, to keep some of the ears out of the water. But he is not very successful. Rice may lie in the wet a week or even the best end of a fortnight without serious damage. But all that this means is that within the period specified it may not sprout. It must be damaged to some extent even by

partly in the sludge. We know how miserable a wet harvest is at home, but think of the slushy harvest with which most Japanese farmers struggle every year of their lives. The rice grower, although year in and year out he has the advantage of a great deal of sunshine, seldom gets his crop in without some rain. How does he manage to dry his October and

at either end of a pole on a man's shoulder or are piled up on the back of an ox, cow or pony. The height of t

g machines. After the threshing of the rice comes the winnowing, which may be done by the aid of a machine but is more likely to be effected in the immemorial way, by one person pouring the roughly threshed ears from a basket or skep while another worker vigorously fans the grain. The result is what is known as paddy rice. The process which follows winnowing is husking. This is done in the simplest possible form of ha

ice in the mortar with a heavy wooden beetle or mallet. Often the beetle is fastened to a beam and worked by foot. Or the polishing apparatus may be driven by water, oil or steam power. Constantly in the country there are seen little sheds in each of which a

st into the rice the tenants tendered. If when the instrument was withdrawn more than three husks were found adhering, the rice was returned to be recleaned. There are names f

to ceremonies. In order to produce clear saké the rice was polished. Then well-to-do people out of daintiness had their table rice polished. Now polished rice is the common food. Hal

TNO

founded with hara (prairie, wilderness, m

largest total yields are in Niigata, Hyogo,

e Appen

re. The average yield of ordinary rice in Japan in an ordinary year is 40? bushels. In the bumper year of 1920 the average yield was 41? bushels. In the year 1916 (to which most of the figures in this book, apart from the Appendix and footnotes, in which the latest

nd barley crops,

plants may be se

p and the income it yields ar

Appendi

rren waste,a tract of volcanic ash, or an area producing bamboo grass. Some of this land, however, could be cultivated after proper irrigation, etc. In this note, plains is employed in the ordinary acceptation of the word. Of such plains there are severa

addy water and reservoirs about 21 per cent. T

8 yen to 50 yen per tan. The average increase in yield alter adjustment is about 15 per cent., to which must be added the yi

s a maid informed her that the house was unlucky because a ce

million and a half acres had been adj

rop raised in the paddies between the harvesting of one rice crop and the planting out of the next belongs to the farmer. (All taxes and rates are pa

e Appen

e Appen

re 38,922,437 males a

e Appen

e Appen

apan to the end of October or beginning of November in the so

ing commences, is so critical a period that the weather conditions durin