Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-02-10
AGRICULTURE IN JAPAN.
The PccuIiarjt;es Of FNymjpg-Crops that
are Readily GrOtUn.
New York Times.

ere AtCOtCftD NFOWHs
New York Times.
Agriculture in Japan is the chief industry,
and peculiar. Field farming has always
been unknown; the tillage is really gar
dening 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 we'll as summer crops, the thoroughness
Of spade or mattock cultivation and the
careful fertilizing yielding larger returns
and preserving the vigor of the soil better
than the more superficial western methods.
Irrigation is universally practioed
also, although the annual lain 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 archi-
peIago extends over fifteen degrees of lati-
tude, and the cultivated areas range from
the sea-level to ten thousand feet altitude.
Of the fifty million acres of tillable land,
less than One-fOurth IL as yet under cult
Walton, 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 extended and
will extend further with the increase of
roads and external commerce. Grazing is
still to come. Animal food has
been prohibited by poverty and relig
GUS tenets; horses and cattle have been very
few, vegetables and fish have been the sole
food; wooden clothing was formerly IN
known. Hence the farm yard as fertil-
iZer, has been wholly wanting, night soil
having been the principal reliance; the in
PRODUCTION of other fertilizers and Of farm
stock Will of course, work revolution. The
great staple of She country is rice, employ
ing more than half the titled area in sum
Tner; the alluylal and lowland spots aver
age forty bushels per acre, and sometimes
goes up TO sixty AID seventy. Wheat. Cf
the variety known as winter, is grown
everywhere, yielding twenty bush
els per acre; it is grown in
burrows cultivated by the mattock, cut by
a hand-knife, thrashed by the fail, win
moved by hand, and packed" in sacks;
ground in the most ancient of hand-mills.
It is eaten in the form of unfermented
cakes. An unsuccessful attempt was once
made to export it. Barley is more impor-
tant than wheat, and is grown and used in
much the same way. Sugar is produced
from Chinese sorghum; the crop is about
65,000,000 pounds, about half of the entire
consumption. Tobacco is also an impor-
tant product, and $4,000 worth was
exported in 1880. Beans, peas,
and other leguminous plants, more
than forty varieties in all, are
specially important class of food in
Japan. ChestnUts are also largely eaten.
The Irish potato is grown only near the
open ports for foreign consumption but
there are five varieties of the sweet potato,
and they are very cheap. The onion, pars-
nip, CARROT and turnip are staple foods;
lily bulbs are grown in several varieties
and eaten, and miscellaneous variety of
vegetables is grown on land which also
yields a rice crop in summer and a cereal
crop III winter, the common practice being
to SOW other things between" as pump
kins are sown with US. The i'm
portance of tea as a Japanese crop
is well known. Flax is not grown
in the country. Hemp of uncommonly
good quality is produced, but its i'm
portance is les5ened by the imperfectIon of
the methods of cleaning it from resinous
matter. The mulberry is extending its
area. There is, of course, room for for
eign tools and methods, but the thorough
ness of the existing hand-tillage is proved
by its results. With the mattock Cor
broad edged pick alone the soil is pulver-
lied until not 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 his COW for the eighth
time in the years. he works composts in,
and gives his growing crops three to ten
liquid applications at their roots. One acre
is said to have yielded seventy bushels of
rice, with three and one-half tons of straw,
and its owner was then preparing it for a
winter crop of not less size.