14 RECENT FOREIGlSr EXPLORATIONS. 



and the amount of patient indiistrv required to construct them are 

 simply marvelous. The extent of the retaining walls constructed to 

 prevent the washing of the terraces, or to arrest mountain slides, or 

 as barriers against a river bent on destroying a tield, is inconceivable. 

 These are the works of a patient and industrious people throughout 

 man}' generations. 



Occasionallv water for irrigation is elevated from a creek or river, 

 but almost invariably by the simplest machinery, such as has been 

 employed for hundreds of years. One of the simplest machines for 

 elevating water in common use is a wooden wheel 6 to 8 feet in diam- 

 eter and 12 inches wide, with buckets on the perimeter, or rim. The 

 power that raises the water is the weight of a man traveling on the 

 buckets on the side of the wheel opposite the buckets lifting the water. 

 It is so adjusted that the weight of the man on one side of the wheel 

 is a little more than the weight of the water raised bv the buckets on 

 the other side; hence the wheel revolves. When the water reaches 

 the required elevation it is discharged into a spout. 



METHODS OF RICE CULTURE. 



Rice production in all oriental countries is conducted upon the same 

 general plan, but the methods differ so materially from those employed 

 in the United States that they should V)e carefully noted. The lands 

 are divided by levees into small fields. These are of no regular form, 

 and generally the inclosing levees are gracefully curved to represent 

 some ideal of beauty in the mind of the planter. In the small valleys 

 among the mountains these curved embankments were doubtless nec- 

 essaiy to conform to the mountains and thus to inclose a larger area, 

 but as the improvements encroached upon the lowlands curves contin- 

 ued to be used. The levees vary in Avidth from 1 foot for field divi- 

 sions and paths to 4 feet wide for main embankment roads. This 

 system of levees and fields has precluded the use of domestic animals in 

 the preparation of the soil and harvesting of the rice. The Japanese 

 are fully aware of the disadvantages of having such small and irregular 

 fields, and have made strenuous efforts to relieve the situation. 



]Many of the rice fields in Japan average scarceh' more than 35 feet 

 square, and the boundary levees have such wavy lines that they look 

 as if made by hogs in a frolic. Under modern conditions the horse 

 and the ox could be used in tillage, but there are no paths which such 

 animals can traverse to these minute fields; and if there were, the 

 tracts are too small for the use of plow or harrow, because there is 

 not room to turn, much less to follow the angular boundary lines. If 

 a farmer owns several tracts it is seldom that the}' are adjacent, and 

 hence he is helpless to institute reform. Many progressive Japanese 

 farmers have tried to institute reforms, but under the old law changes 

 in land boundaries required the unanimous consent of the owners, 



