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flesh, the more manure ; the more manure, the 

 more grain !' The Japanese peasant knows nothing 

 of this chain of conclusions ; he simply adheres to 

 one indisputable axiom, viz., * without continuous 

 manuring there can be no continuous production. 

 A small portion of what I take from, the soil is 

 replaced by nature (the atmosphere and the rain), 

 the remainder 1 must restore to the ground. 1 



How this is done is a matter of indifference. That 

 the produce of the land has first to pass through 

 the human system before it can be returned to the 

 soil, is, as far as manuring is concerned, simply a 

 necessary evil, which always involves a certain loss. 

 As to the intermediate stage of cattle-feeding, which 

 we deem so requisite in our system, the Japanese 

 farmer cannot at all see the necessity. He argues, 

 in his way, that it must cost a great deal of unneces- 

 sary and expensive labour to have the produce of 

 the field first consumed by cattle, so troublesome 

 and expensive to breed, while it must involve more 

 loss of matter than his own. How much more 

 simple it must be to eat the corn yourself, and to 

 produce your own manure ! 



Far be it from me, however, because of the widely 

 differing results to which the development of agri- 

 culture has led in the two lands, to pass judgment 

 upon our system of husbandry, and to exalt unduly 

 that of the Japanese by attributing superior intelli- 

 gence to that nation. Circumstances have brought 



