1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 105 



Now, while only twelve per cent of Japan's territory is 

 cultivated, not less than fifty-six per cent of the soil of Great 

 Britain and Ireland is agriculturally improved. In oth'er 

 words, England cultivates more than /ow?'-thirds, and Japan 

 less than one-third of an acre per capita. Nevertheless, 

 Japan produces all she eats and drinks, all that she wears, 

 the tobacco which she smokes, sends rice and fish to China 

 in case of famine there, and raises a large surplus of raw 

 silk and tea for exportation to America and Europe. 



The United Kingdom, on the other hand, tilling four times 

 as much land per inhabitant, would starve but for foreign 

 granaries and pastures, and would return to comparative 

 nakedness but for the cotton-fields and mulberry plantations 

 of other climes. She is obliged to import more than one- 

 half of the food and drink she consumes, all the cotton and 

 silk she wears, and the tobacco that she smokes. 



This striking disparit}', though due in some measure to 

 the great productiveness of the fisheries of Japan, is chiefly 

 owing to the wide difference in their systems of farming and 

 food supply. 



Agriculturally speaking, the Japanese is a vegetarian, 

 while the Briton is a beef and mutton consumer. 



The same area of land that will furnish food of a mixed 

 diet like that of the English and American people, for one 

 man, will feed six or more upon a granivorous and vegetable 

 diet. The English system of farming and of food production 

 involves the maintenance of over fifty million domestic animals, 

 exclusive of horses, — that is to say, cows, sheep and swine, 

 — while Japan supports less than three million ; and the 

 maintenance of these domestic animals alone of Great Britain, 

 under her system of high farming, requires the product of 

 more than three times the whole area cultivated in Japan. 



Naturally, therefore, the cost of the Englishman's diet is 

 far greater than that of the Japanese, the average values of 

 their crude food materials being about sixty dollars and ten 

 dollars per annum, respectively. 



Plain boiled rice, eaten without sugar, salt or condiment, 

 constitutes sixty per cent of everything that goes into the 

 stomach of Japan ; while less than one-half of one per cent 

 of England's diet is of this grain. 



