State Agricultural Society. 259 



Six or eight acres is a large farm. Divided by belts or lines of care- 

 fully tended grass, instead of fences, these garden farms present a fin- 

 ished picture of the highest cultivation. Two and even four crops are 

 obtained yearly from the same ground by alternating grain and vege- 

 tables. Liquid manure is freely used; ashes, oil cake, night soil, lime 

 from bones and oyster shells, even human hair from the barbers, is care- 

 fully saved. 



WAGES. 



The wages of the lowest description of laborers averages about sixty 

 cash (thirty cents) per month, and the cost of maintenance is from a 

 dollar to a dollar and a half. Artisans, such as carpenters and black- 

 smiths, receive five dollars a month, with a corresponding increase in 

 the cost of maintenance. 



In the j'ear one thousand and thirteen of our era, Tchin-Tsoung pub- 

 lished the census of the industrial population, and reported twenty-one 

 million nine hundred and sixty-six thousand nine hundred and sixty-five 

 engaged in agricultural pursuits, not including women or young people 

 under twenty-one years of age. In the year seventeen hundred and 

 thirty-two the imperial taxes were removed from the tenants of farms 

 and placed upon the larger proprietors; and for the further encourage- 

 ment of a class of such vital importance to the Empire, it was decreed 

 that the Governor of every city or village of a certain number of inhab- 

 itants should send to the Court the name of the most successful farmer, 

 distinguished for good conduct and the good will of his neighbors, for 

 frugality, and freedom from excesses. This wise and diligent agricul- 

 turist was thereupon raised to the dignity of a mandarin of the eighth 

 order, by letters patent. He might visit the Governor, sit down in his 

 presence, and drink tea with him. Respected for the remainder of his 

 days, he should receive the honorable funeral of a mandarin on his de- 

 cease, and while his name was written on the tablets of his ancestors, it 

 would be cherished by the Government as of one who had rendered the 

 highest service to his country. 



JAPAN. 



Of all countries Japan is the most remarkable for the development of 

 her agricultural resources. There the agricultural interest has been 

 protected by the most enlightened conduct toward the producing classes, 

 who stand next in rank to the defenders of the State. A very interest- 

 ing paper on this subject, contributed by Hon. Horace Capron to the re- 

 port of the Department of Agriculture for eighteen hundred and seventy- 

 three, shows that even in wheat culture we have. much to learn from the 

 large experience of this thrifty and intelligent people. The well known 

 practice of the Japanese and Chinese in dwarfing plants, throwing their 

 strength into fruit or flowers, at the expense of wood or leaves, is ap- 

 plied to wheat, thus shortening and thickening the straw, increasing the 

 size of the heads, and rendering it less liable to lodge. 



Japan is far too tempting a subject to be more than touched upon here. 

 If "China is old, and immovably conservative," Japan, not younger in 

 years, but in the spirit which welcomes new truths in science and new 

 applications of these to the arts of life, is vigorous with an eternal youth. 



In Japan we have a stable civilization based upon absolutism, im- 

 periled by the existence of caste, isolated for unknown centuries from 

 intercourse with other countries, yet maintaining itself within narrow 

 limits by an almost universal, practical education, and the dignity ac- 



