Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1883-02-16
lNIX AND FARMER, 1888.


Agriculture in Japan is the chief industry,
and peculiar. Field farming has always been
unknown the tillage il really gardening OF
the most thorough character, on garden farms
averaging half an acre in size, one-half the
entire population being farmers Much of
the land bears winter as well as summer crops
the thoroughness of spade or mattock cult
walton and the careful fertilizing yielding
larger returns and preserving tho vigor
of the soil better than the more super
fetal western methods irrigation is univer-
sally practiced also, although the annual rain.
fall is greater than on the regions of largest
precipitation in this country. The fee of the
land once in the feudal lord, is now held by
the farmer. The Japanese archipelago ex-
tends over fifteen degrees of latitude, and the
cultivated areas range from the sea level to
10000 feet altitude. OF the so, OO0 600 acres
of tillable land, less than one.fourth is as yet
under cultivation, owing to the lack of roads,
most of the carrying being still performed
by packing on the backs of mules and
men. But the cultivated area is extending
and will extend further with the increase of
roads and external commerce. Grazing is
still to come. Animal food has been prohib-
tied by poverty and religious tenets horses
and cattle have been very few, vegetables
and fish having been the sole food wooden
clothing was formerly unknown. Hence the
farmyard, as fertilizer, has been wholly
wanting, night soil having been the principal
reliance; the introduction of other fertilizers
and of farm stock will, of course, work a
revolution. The great staple of the country
is rice, employing more than half the titled
area in summer the alluvial and lowland
spots average 10 bushels per acre, and some
times go as high as GO and 20. Wheat, of
the variety known here as the winter is
grown everywhere, yielding 20 bushels per
acre it is grown in burrows, cultivated by
the mattock, cut by a hand knife, thrashed
by the fail winnowed by hand, and pack
ed in sacks ground in the most ancient of
hand mills, it is eaten in the form of infer
mented cakes. An unsuccessful attempt was
once made to export it. Barley is more i'm.
portant than wheat, and is grown and used
in much the same way. Sugar is produced
from Chinese sorghum the crop is about
$4,000, 600 pounds, about half of the entire
consumption. Tobacco is also an important
product, and $4,000 worth was exported in
1880. Beans, peas, and other leguminous
plants, more than 40 varieties in all, are a
specially important class of food in Japan.
Cbestnuts are also largely eaten. The Irish
potato is grown only near the open ports for
foreign consumption, but there are five vari-
cites of the sweet potato, and they are very
cheap. The onion, parsnip carrot and tur-
MP are staple toOus lily Dulbs are grown IN
several varieties and eaten, aud miscellane-
Gus variety of other vegetables is grown on
land which also yields rice crop in summer
and cereal crop in winter, the common
practice being to SOW other things between"
as pumpkins are sown with us. The impor-
lance of tea as Japanese crop is well known
Flax is not grown in the country. Hemp of
uncommonly good quality is produced, but
its importance is lessened by the imperfecton
of the methods of cleaning it from resinous
matter. The mulberry is extending its area.
There is, of course, room for foreign tools
and methods, but the thoroughness of the ex-
listing hand tillage is proved by its results
With the mattock Cor broad. edged pick
alone the soil is puIyerized until not a lump
is left, and with the little old Chinese pillow
the soil is gone over four to eight times. The
farmer is seen blowing with bis COW for the
eighth time in the year; he works composts
in and gives his growing crops three to ten
liquid applications at their roots. One acre
is said to have yielded 20 bushels of rice,
with 81 tons of straw, and its owner was
then preparing it for winter crop of not less
giza