Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-04-03

The harvesting Of the rice is even more
difficult than harvesting wheat. After
the grain is cut. 1t has to be pulled from
the straw and be husked before it can
be used. If you will take a sheaf Of
ripe oats, and then pull them over a
cross-cut saw. fastened to a piece OF
wood about the height Of a table. so that
all the grains are torn of. you will have
a fair idea Of how the japanese get their
stili in the husks. and the husks have
to be taken of before it can be used.
rms is mostly done by hand. the grains
In the shell being put in a mortar and
pounded with a wooden pest'e until the
kernels are free. Some of the farmers
nave rice mills. worked by water, and
others hulling machines. worked by
hand Much of the rice is winnowed by
machinery, small hand mills being used
A good rice field ought to produce
forty bushels to the acre, and some Of
the best lands here produce more. Japan
has altogether almost 200 different kinds
OF rice. and 1t raises some of the best
rice of the world. It's finest varieties
are so valuable that much Of them are
exported to other countries. the nation
importing poorer kinds at lower prices
for Its own food.
The Japanese farmers seldom live on
their farms. They have little villages
OF wooden houses. matched with straw.
Here they come at night and from here
they go out in the morning to work. The
people generally work in gangs. You
seldom see man alone in the fields.
A whole family. father. mother, boys and
girls; all work together. There are many
exceedingly small. 1t is a poor part of
the United States where farmland Is
not worth 80 cents day and his board,
or where he gets less than SIS a month,
%ho nj
here without board are Is cents per day
for men and 10 cents for women, with
much less for children. The work goes
on from sunrise to sunset, and 1t is fully
as hard as. any on our farms at home.
Hands employed by the year receive
proportionately less. Including board. men
are paid about $5s year, or less than IS
month; the women get about $50.
or a little more than 81 month
In government report of 1905 see that
male farm laborers were getting less than
$50 year. and females less than $40.
There Is steady rise going On in wages
of all kinds, and these cannot remain as
they are.
to work only on alternate days. evoting
themselves to their own little tracts Of
land during the rest of the week. Boys
are often bound out to farmers for terms
ing little more during the time than their
board and clothes. OF late. understand,
there has been considerable movement
of the farming classes to the cities, and
just now there are many who are emil
grating to Korea and Manchura.
Indeed. the farmers of Japan are rapid
ly changing. There are public schools
everywhere and the boys and girls of the
country communities attend them Nearly
every man can read and write and most
Of the landholders know what is going on
as to scientific cultivation. The govern
ment is doing great deal along the lines
of agricultural education. 1t has big
agricultural colleges at Toxic and Sap
poro. and there are thirty-six smaller col
leges which are teaching theoretical and
practical farming in the towns and pre-
lectures. There are special colleges in
Kyoto devoted to the art of silk culture,
and instruction Is also given in tea rais-
ing and in the other specialties of japan
The government has three hundred and
ten travelling lecturers. who go from town
to town and from district to district
preaching advance agriculture to the
farmers and instructing them as to in
sects, fertilizers and various crops Some
of these men are present at every agricul-
tural show. and attend also to the expert
mental farming carried on at the public
expense.
Japan has now more than two hundred