The Days of a Man 



C1900 



Agricul- 

 ture 



practically 

 limited to 



rice 



Local 

 flora 



"Manners 

 makvth 



man 



there means one thing only — uplands being ter- 

 raced for rice, lowlands flooded for rice, rivers blocked 

 to give standing water for rice, and all waste products 

 and night soils used as manure for rice. Here and 

 there cattle are raised in a small way, occasionally 

 horses, and one sees many gardens in which beans, 

 potatoes, sweet potatoes, maize, taro, lily, eggplant, 

 and onions are grown, besides ponds for the cultiva- 

 tion of the wholesome lotus root; yet these are all side 

 issues, not staples. By tradition, also, the hilly lands 

 of Mutsu and Rikuchu are allowed to grow up to pic- 

 turesque thickets of brush and coarse grasses; given 

 over to sheep they might be made profitable, though 

 their wild beauty would then vanish. In cattle they 

 could not be made to pay, because Asia as yet offers 

 scant markets for butter, cheese, or beef. 



From the train I noted the bluebells, tiger lilies, 

 and white lilies of the woods, and sometimes on the 

 housetops the day lily of the river bottoms — Hemero- 

 callis — blooming with Amaryllis along a ridgepole 

 above the thatch of straw. The forests were largely 

 of chestnut. In the thickets grew many willows, as 

 well as wild grapes, a red-flowered Spircea, Lythrum^ 

 Lysimachia, and a Viburmim with showy false flowers 

 like our own witch-hobble. Bittersweet vines — 

 Celastrum — dangled their scarlet berries over the 

 trees, and the fine-leaved maple, beloved by the 

 Japanese, was already beginning to flame. 



Picking up a provincial magazine supposed to be in 

 English, I found a discussion as to whether a "zen- 

 tureman" is known by dress and expenditures, or by 

 morals and manners, the conclusion reached being 

 identical with that of Winchester College a thousand 

 years ago — "Manners makyth man." The same 



C 62 1 



