34 LETTERS ON AGRICULTURE. 



If instead of barley the Japanese farmer could have grown a 

 leguminous winter fodder crop, such as the Egytian fellah has for 

 centuries cultivated, he could have prevented, in part at least, this 

 impoverishing process. 



With no animals to feed there has naturally been no development 

 of fodder crops in Japan, but the necessity to fertilize with seaweeds. 

 liquid manures, and straw ashes has given the peasant an appreciation 

 of the value of manures which is surprisingly in advance of that of 

 Western nations. 



Comparing the keen knowledge of fertilizers shown by the Japanese 

 peasants with that of the Greek. Italian, or Spanish farmers, or even 

 with the small farmers of our country, one appreciates how advanced 

 they are along these lines of farming and what an enormous waste of 

 nitrogenous materials is continually going on in Europe and America. 



The peasant classes of Japan are the cleanliest personally of any in 

 the world, and with an income which is so small that an American 

 farmer would starve to death on it, they live happily and surround 

 themselves with comforts which even many of our fairly well-to-do 

 people do not possess. When compared with the peasants of any 

 European country the Japanese live more comfortably by 50 per cent, 

 at an actual cost of less than half what the European spends. They 

 have learned by centuries of experience how to best utilize the vege- 

 table products of their country. Their bamboo utensils, mud-thatched 

 roofs, paper screen walls, cheap straw and rush mats, homemade, dura 

 hie clothing, exquisite inexpensive wood and lacquer work, and multi- 

 tude of pliable paper articles are some of the luxuries in which, com- 

 pared with the European peasants, they are rich. This remarkable 

 frugality and intelligent use of trifles enables the Japanese farmer to 

 get along on an income of less than *1<»<» gold a year, and on this to 

 support a family of four or five persons. 



The capital of these peasants is so small as a rule that a thrifty 

 American farmer could buy out a small village of them. One hundred 

 gold dollars would in many thousands of cases pay for all the belong- 

 ings of a comfortably situated family. From the standpoint of foreign 

 money, therefore, the Japanese farmer is a poor man. and a tax which 

 would scarcely be felt by our landowners would be a heavy burden 

 for him. 



With the increasing tastes among all classes for better food and 

 greater conveniences and the steady increase in population, it seems 

 probable that the development of the agricultural resources of the 

 country will not much more than keep pace with the increasing home 

 demands, and that for some time to come, at least. Japan's exports of 

 the products of the farm will be very limited. The commodity of 

 which she has an abundance, however, is human energy, and it is a 

 pitiful sight to an American to see the wastage of manual labor that 



