164 



found where beasts of burden might be profit- 

 ably employed. 



Now, with us, matters are very different in these 

 respects. We have a notion that we could not 

 possibly exist in health and vigour without a consi- 

 derable consumption of animal flesh, although we 

 have the fact constantly before our eyes that our 

 labourers, who undeniably require as much strength 

 as any other class of society, are, for the most part , 

 involuntary Buddhists. Our farms are always 

 sufficiently large to preclude the notion of working 

 them by hand, even though we leave out of consi- 

 deration the important circumstance that the price 

 of labour is rather too high, in proportion to the 

 value of the produce, to admit of such a system of 

 farming. But that the culture of the soil is all 

 over the world in direct ratio to the division of the 

 land, is a well-established fact, of which the reality 

 and significance are made most clearly apparent to 

 the traveller who passes from the north of Germany 

 to Japan via England. 



The only manure-producer, therefore, in Japan, 

 is man ; and we need not wonder that the greatest 

 care should^be bestowed in that country upon the 

 collection, preparation, and application of his 

 excrements. Now, as the entire course of pro- 

 cedure of the Japanese contains much that is 

 highly instructive for us, I consider it my duty to 

 give as detailed a description of it as possible, even 



