Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1888-02-18
JAPANESE FARMS.
Tho System OF Land Rents in Vogue In this
Miknd0's Dominions.

Mikado's Dominions.
The farms all look like the market
gardens near our cities. The pillow is
used only in few localities. and then
not for loosening the soil but to throw
up beds Issw the first one to-day
near this place. All ground is dry and
perfectly prepared. The spade and
fork are unknown, but spade-like hoes
and forks do all the digging. Not q
weed is ever seen. and not foot Of
ground is ever wasted. Between the
rice pa tches the little ridges which
confine the flooding waters are planted
in peas or some other crop.
The land Is all double cropped. In
May the wheat and barley is har-
vested Immediately follows rice. corn.
millet or something else. One sees rice
sweet potatoes, eggplant millet Of sew
eral varieties, turnips, carrots, tarro.
beans. cotton, lilies, squash. sesamum,
maize or Indian corn. buckwheat
hemp, fax for white cordage, sugar
cane, dishrag plant tea plant indigo,
mulberry, pear trees, and many other
varieties of food crops side by side in
little tiny fields and in all stages Of
maturity. In the large. low-lying
river valleys the rice fields are appar-
emily Of great extent; but on close OBJ
servation one sees that even here few
fields are much over one-eighth to one
quarter of an acre in size.
In one locality l saw tea plantations
of good many acres, the possessions
of single man. But these are excep-
tions. l saw rice being harvested in
Toxic October is the regular harvest
month for this great staple. 1t is the
great crop Of the country. Formerly
all rents were paid in rice. i1
All lands belong to the Government;
the farmer pays so much of the crop in
lieu Of taxes. Under the new and bet
Ter system of government all rents. +
e.. taxes. are paid in money. Former
~ comparatively few daimios held
the entire country in fief, paying to
the government so many sacks Of rice.
They let the land to the tenants, tith-
ing every thing. and virtually owned
tie masses. The daimios are now q
thing of the past. and tenants pay fixed
rents to persons who rent tracts of
greater or less size. The farmer now.
although he is bound down in abject
poverty, neither feels like nor has the
air of a slave.
Lands are fortified to some extent by
application of solid manures. but the
great dependence is upon them in a
liqGi form. Every thing is saved
that can be made to enrich
til" crop; all rich soil is
carefully preserved. Conveniences
are erected along the highways and
byways. so as to prevent any waste.
Coarse grass and refuse straw is burned
and the ashes mixed in the watts. Deep
holes are sometimes simply sunk in
the ground, but more generally pits
walled with stone or wood are sunken
near every field Into this the manure
is deposited to ripen and perfect itself.
Men. boys and women then carry it In
pals on the two ends of bearing
pole over the shoulders to the fields.
and with it water growing crops.
When one meets one of these liduin
manure carriers on the road it is safe
TO hold ones nose until the windward
has been gained. Women and mon
on their knees weed the fields as al
home we weed tiny flower bed
Carter H. Harrison, in Chicago Mail.