The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1882-11-22
RICE CULTURE IN JAPAN.
Primitive Methods of Culture Which are
Made to Yield Good Results.

Some account has been heretofore given
in these columns of the food Cor foods of the
Japanese, and of the extraordinary part
which rice millet, and other grains play in
their living, meat being so scarce thatalthough
the food of fish is remarkably common and
varied, the masses is still more than nine
tenths vegetable. Some account of modes
ofric culture may be interesting. Japan has
40 farms and farniers-or very few-the
country being chiefly mountain land, mostly
rugged and precipitous instead it is laid
out into gardens, the mountain sides being
terraced up to the tops, SO that the general
aspect of Japan is, nevertheless, one of high
culture. The farms, if one shonld call them
SO, are only little half-acre patches; the Jap
anese farmer is hereditary; he is merely the
thousandth repetition of the long ago tenant,
and he works with the same tools and meth
DDS as did his earliest ancestor substantially.
The pillow is of the scriptural pattern, drawn
by single bullock, the animal being led by
rope attached to its nose-ring, horses being
few in Japan; and although improved hand
implements of the light aud effective Ameri-
can pattern, which are unequaled anywhere
else in the world, may be introduced in
course of time, the conformation of the
country excludes reapers and such machines
drawn by animal power. Rice is still the
chief article of vegetable food it was once
the standard of exehangeable values, or the
practical money taxes were paid in it, and
the public treasury was, therefore only n big
granary of rice. The rice lands are without
fences, there being no live stock which
range, and are separated only by water
courses, the water indispensable for rice
growing having long ago been provided by
system of canals and sluices, the mountain
st.uarus Dciug tappva aud uarrieeis th-o-.,l.
bitches to the plains, aud the high. level lakes
being similarly drawn down through paved
conduits. Work begins in March, the pillow
making furrow four inches deep and six
wide, but hand labor ie more generally
used the tool being n clumsy thing shaped
like an "a" Water to depth of several
inches is next turned on, and, after several
| days. the rooted seed is transplanted in
/ punches in rows a few inches apart, the SOW
ing and sprouting having previously been
done ON a smaller piece of ground. After
| two months of generous flooding the plants
are allowed to dry, and the gathering comes
in October. Being first cut with an old-style
reeping- hook, the plants are "packed" into
the barn, where women and children beat
the grain out by striking the straw against a
row of wooden teeth farenough apart to catch
the rice-heads but not the straw. Tie straw
is used somewhat for fodder and largely for
matching and for making into bags The
rice, beaten with sticks and sifted, is run
through husk mill, which consists of two
bottomless bamboo baskets filed with bam-
boo splnts foot long. The upper basket,
resting on the lower, is turned by hand by o
handle fastened on one side, and the splnts.
which are charred on one end and stant
vertically in the two baskets, being held in
place by cement of mortar, operate as
teeth. Time being reckoned the cheapest of
commodities this rude contrivance answers
its purpose. The cleaned rice is packed in
120-pound straw bags, and is ready for
market, but it has to be pounded by hand in
amortar to finally clear the husls. The
age price of rice in Japan is 49, 40 to So. 80
per picul of 1884 pounds. The entire rico
crop of the country is about 81, G0f, 730
koku, equivalent to S,G3s, 600, 4C6 pounds,
valued at S3o5, IA, 1853. This quantity is
III times the rice crop of this country in
1870. The export from Japan is 9,lo2, 77S
pounds only, valued at S21o,8Gl approx
m.ssly.