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about the results in question, and the following more 

 especially have exercised a decided influence in the 

 matter. The religious belief of the two great sects 

 in Japan, the Sintoists and the Buddhists, forbids 

 the consumption of flesh, as also of everything 

 derived from animals (milk, butter, cheese), and 

 this prohibition, of course, disposes of one of the 

 principal objects for which cattle are bred. Even 

 sheep, if kept for the wool alone, would be unre- 

 munerative, as our farmers begin to find out even 

 in Germany. 



The very limited area of homesteads in Japan 

 also renders the maintaining of cattle superfluous. 

 The smallness of the farms must not be attributed, 

 however, to any excessive tendency to sub-division 

 of landed property, but to the fact that the land 

 belonged to the great princes or Daimios of the 

 country, who bestowed it in fee upon the lower 

 nobility. The latter, again, being precluded by 

 the institutions of the country from farming their 

 own estates, parcelled out the land, apparently 

 from time immemorial, on perpetual leases, among 

 the peasantry of the country. The size of these 

 farms varies from two to five acres, the limitation 

 having been most likely determined either by their 

 natural position, or from the course of some brook 

 or rivulet. Now, as this limited area is intersected 

 moreover by drains and ditches, it will be readily 

 seen that there is hardly a plot of ground to be 



