Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-08-29
F A r M IN G IN JAP A N
On Scale That Seems Microscopic From
American Standards.
Careful Attention to Details and to o
Limited Area Appears to BE
the Leading Features.
From the Chicago Record.

From the Chicago Record.
There can be no market for American
agricultural implements and machinery I'm
Japan for two very simple reasons First
the farms are not big enough, and second,
labor is too plenty. If a japanese farmer
should introduce modern reaper and self
binder upon his farm he would cut down
everything In the way Of crops while he
was turning it around, and there wouldn't
be anything left for him ard his family to
do all the rest of the season.
Most of the farming implements are of
a very primitive chara cter, and many are
homemade. Just as the New England
farmer used to white his AK helves before
the big log fire in the winter. so the jap
aEese farmer makes his own fails and
| rakes of bamboo and the handles for his
hoes, spades and sickles in cold and stormy
weather. The iron portion is fashioned at
the nearest blacksmith shop These tools
last for lifetime, they are kept with
great care, and are often passed down from
generation to generation. Everything Is
Gone by hand. You can travel all day in
some of the farming counties without see
ing horse or a mule or any other kind Of
a beast of burden, and goats and sheep
COWS and swine are equally scarce.
Japan is one vast garden, and as you look
over the fields you can imagine that they
are playing with the laws of nature and
raising samples of different kinds of vege-
tables ana grain. Everything is on d.min-
utive scale, and the work is as fine and ac-
curate as that applied to a closonne vase
What would an Illinois an Iowa farmer
think of planting his corn, wheat, oats and
barley In lunches and then, when it is
three or four inches high, transplanting
every spear of it in rows about as far apart
as you can stretch your fingers? A jap
arese farmer weeds his wheat fields just as
Connecticut farmer weeds his onion bed,
and cultivates his potatoes and barley with
as much care as Long Island farmer be-
slows upon his asparagus or his flowers.
The Harvesting of Wheat.
When grain is ripe it is cut with a sickle
close to the ground. The bottom ends are
carefully tied together with a wisp of
straw; the bunch is then divided and hung
over bamboo pole or a rope like Mon
days washing, to dry. sometimes in the
| field and sometimes in the back yard, and
even in the street in front of the house.
When it is thoroughly cured the heads Of
grain are cut off with a knife, and the
straws carefully bound up and laid
away in bundles. The heads are then
spread out Upon piece of straw mating
and beaten with fail. Another method
of thrashing is to take handfuls of straw
and pull them through mesh Of iron
Leedles.
After the thrashing is done the grain is
taken up in a sort of scoop basket made of
bamboo and shaken by one woman who
holds 1t high as her head, while another
woman stands with large fan which she
waves rapidly through the air and blows
the lighter chaff away from the heavier
grain they are falling. The richer
farmers have separators built upon prim-
tive plan and turned with a crank. Peo-
pie often winnow grain by pouring II from
SCOOP. upon fan three or four feet wide,
upon which 1t is tossed up and down gently
so as to leave the chaff in the air when 1t
falls. Another method of thrashing is to
beat the heads of grain upon a row of bam-
boo poles. Sometimes you see whole fam
lily at it.
Every variety of agriculture is carried on
in a manner similar to that 1 have de-
scribed, and the soil is in constant use. A
couple of acres are considered a large tract
of land for farming purposes. Most of the
farms are of smaller area, and the crops
are greatly diversified. Upon such a little
spot of land will be grown almost every
thing known to the vegetable kingdom; a
few square feet of wheat. barley, corn and
milet, a plat of beans perhaps ten feet
wide by twenty feet long, an equal amount
of potatoes and peas, then a patch OF
onions, about as big as grave, beets, let
tuce, satisfy. turnips. sweet potatoes, vege-
table oysters and other varieties of cereals
and roots occupy the rest Of the area.
Microscopic Farming.
The farmer looks upon his growing crop
every morning, just as an engineer will
inspect the movements of his machinery,
and If anything is wrong repairs it. II
weed appears in the bean patch he pulls 1t
up; If a hill of potatoes or anything else
fails, 1t is Immediately replanted. And when
he cuts down a tree he always plants
another to take its place. The artificial for
ests of Japan cover many, hundreds Of
square miles, and by this accuracy, econo-
my and care the prosperity Of the country
is permanently assured. AS one crop IL
harvested the soil is worked over. fortified
and replanted with something else.
The largest area of agricultural lands in
Japan Is devoted to raising rice, perhaps as
much nine-tenths of the whole. and, as
that crop requires great deal of water, the
paddles are banked up into terraces, one
above the other, and divided off into little
plats twenty-five or thirty feet square,
the water from flowing away when they
are flooded. All farming land is irrigated
by a system that is a thousand years old,
and some of the bitches are walled UP
with bamboo wicker work.
The farmers live in villages and their
farms are detached, sometimes a mile or
two and three miles away from their homes.
There are no fences or other visible signs of
division, but every man knows his own
land. for it has been in his family for gen.
erations 1rrigating bitches and little paths
are usually the boundary lines.
Theoretically all the land belongs to the
emperor, but the greater part of that under
cultivation has been held by the same fam
lilies for generations, and always descend
from the father to the oldest son.
The official statistics of Japan show that
there are II, 400,0oS men and 10,94s,G53 wo-
men engaged in agriculture which is more
than half the total population.