Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-06-11
INDUSTRY IN JAPAN.

VoKue-A Variety of Interesting Gossip
Especial Correspondence of the Globe.
YOKOHAMA, Japan, April 10.-Edward 5.
Morse, late of the Toxic university, in paper
which appeared in the Popular Science
Monthly, for March last, says: sit is dill
cult for one who has not travelled in Japan
to realize the almost universal state OF Guilt
walton the country is under. Having pop
ulation of SO, 000, 900, largely given to agrl-
culture, with an area not exceeding oO,Ooo
square miles, one may imagine how few
tracts of uncultivated land are found, and
one is amazed at the sight of ranges of hills
and mountains extending for miles, and all
terraced to their very SUBMITS for the cul-
tivation of wheat and other products"
The best authorities here estimate the
area of Japan in square miles at l6O,4I4.
The finance minister gives the total extent
of the country at 24,800 square RI, equiva-
lent to about 147, $50 square miles. He also
gives the area of land under cultivation at
2,7OO square ri, about 16, 075 square miles,
or less than IL per cent. of the whole sur
face of the land. These figures are taken
from the finance minister's letter to the
banks on the subject of the internal loan,
and are doubtless as exact as can be ascer-
tanned.
The cultivated lands of Japan, at least
such as 1 have seen, lie mainly in the val
leys and upon the sides, sometimes upon the
SUBMITS, of the lower hills. Even many of
these available places are neglected, while
the mountains rise rugged and brown, and
stretch away and away, defying cultivation
IS they defy the storm.
Mr. Morse's statement, if correct, leaves
but small hope for the future of Japan, since
it is to her increase in agricultural products,
more than to any other source, that we must
look for those immediate results whereby
revenue is to be received to pay all the ex-
penses incident to the changes taking place.
Granted for arguments sake that the availa-
bic land is already worked from whence is to
come any increase, except in improved
methods of cultivation ? And even this in
crease will be absorbed at home IN the many
sources of demand which the new order of
things naturally creates, and nothing will be
left for expectation and revenue.
Eventually, Japan will be great manu-
featuring nation. Her geographical position
and surroundings will always ensure cheap
transportation to and from her shores her
supply of coal and iron, and other minerals
furnish the raw material, and her cheap labor
the means for competing in the markets of
the world. During our war, cotton was taken
gffdA India TO America. 1t can be brought
to Japap, and the cloth returned at good
profits as SION as these people have acquired
the knoNIed.e Of manufacturing. There is
nothing iu The climate here as unfavorable
AS that of New England on the contrary,
there is much that is more favorable. And
few years hence when these stritty, in
dusfrious sad very clever people shall have
learntd more of machinery and processes,
America gnd England will suddenly find
their markets in Japan and other Asiatic
countries n the hands of a rival whose his
tory in all things Is measured by thousands
of years.
Fortunately but comparatively small por-
ton OF this country is under cultivation,
mainly because the means of transportation
from the interior to the coast are so poor
no roads, nothing but paths or tracks for
the passage of coolies with bamboo poles
and baskets
The government is extending its railroad
lines IS fast as its means will permit,
and when one trunk line shall be completed
across the principal islands, thousands of
the surplus population of the cities will go
to the interior and from the soil produce
grain, tea, silk, or something which will add
to the national wealth.
In japan, human labor is alone used in
tilling the sod, and to this more than to
ANYTHING lss is due the great difference in
the appearance CT the country, by reason of
it's many subdivisions and in the manner of
working the land. Grain raising is done
mora like orr gardening than our farming.
A patch uf barley or cheat. with its rows
about eighteen inches apart, carefully
worked, resembles much celery bed in
truck farm. Japanese farms look like So
many American vegetable gardens, separated
BY little ridges of earth instead of fences.
Rice plats ara from fifty to 100 feet wide, by
100 To zoe feet long, or of equivalent areas,
and OF such irregular shapes, that, in days
ride, scarcely two can be found alike. 1t
seems thet special effort has been made to
avoid straight lines and right angles.
Imagine the sports of CHECKER board made
OIL thin rubber. Stretch it first one way,
then the c:h.f, aud the spaces will not be
more irregular than the rice fields in this
country, horses and cattle, plows, drills,
mowers and reapers not being used. What
we cslI roads are unknown paths, here and
there through the grain fields, wide enough
for n man TO tread with his bamboo pole and
baskets, with an occasional one that will ad
NIT the passage of jenrickishas, are all the
roads TO he seen in miles of travel through
the farming districts. There are one or two
great thoroughfsres, built centuries ago by
the Tycoons and Daimios, running through
the empire like an old fashioned Pennsyl-
vania turnpike from Philadelphia to Erie;
but, unlike The turnpike, these have no
lateral roads, wide enough for wheels, to
serve as feeders.
The engineering skill shown in irrigating
heir backgrounds is noteworthy. One
wonders why an intelligence that could do so
much in this direction, should have done so
little in many less difficult but equally i'm
portant ones. One sees valley miles and
miles in length, and perhaps mile or more in
breadth st its lower end, gradually narrowing
as the heavy grade leads in between hills
400 or 500 feet high, with every foot irrigat-
ed by the water of little stream, which,
carried from plat to plat, nowhere washes
the land, and yet is nowhere entirely stopped
in its course.
hoe, eight inches wide by eighteen
long, attached at an angle of % degrees to
short bamboo handle, and a crude sort of a
sickle constitute Japanese farmers stock
of agricultural implements. The straw to