AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 21 



are busied and even supported, though scantily enough, by catching 

 the numerous fish and marine animals, and by gathering marine 

 algae and exporting them under commission for enterprising 

 merchants. Captain Gill ^ says of Chinese agriculture, that in his 

 opinion it has been very much over-estimated. That is true, also, 

 of the Japanese, so closely related to it. In one respect, however, 

 they are peculiar, namely in the care which is taken with ground 

 once under cultivation, to see that nothing is lost. 



Japanese farming is very much more careful, and more to be 

 compared with the scientific horticulture and market gardening in 

 the neighbourhood of our large cities. Japan possesses all the re- 

 quisites for properly carrying out such methods, namely, division 

 of the land among many small owners, plentiful watering, through 

 rainfall and canals, and, above all, immense supplies of cheap and' 

 willing labour, to which also women and children contribute. ^ 



With all these advantages of cheap labour, combined with great 

 industry and skill, the Japanese peasant can always keep the 

 soil of his small holding loose and free from weeds. He can 

 employ manures wisely, so as to get the most out of them. Of 

 course, this kind of farming does not bring wholesale results, like 

 robbing the soil on a large scale. 



Kaempfer and Thunberg and other later travellers in Japan have 

 spread the impression, — a false one, — that terracing has been more 

 extensively employed than anywhere in Europe, and is customary 

 high on the mountain-sides. The neighbourhood of Nagasaki and 

 the Omura-bay could easily give rise to this mistake. The basalt 

 and trachyte rocks of these regions, so much decomposed by the 

 weather, and peeling off so easily, furnish such a fruitful soil that 

 rich harvests reward the weary building and care of terraces. 

 With the pumice-stone of volcanic districts, or in slate-hills, the 

 case is quite different. Here the mountain-walls are scarcely ever 

 terraced very high, because the harvests from such meagre soil 

 would not justify their existence. And terraces become gradually 

 fewer the farther north one goes. Nowhere do they exceed, or 

 even reach, in extent, in systematic development, and in success as 

 marks of labour and skill, those of our own vine-dressers on the 

 Rhine and in some of its side-valleys, as, for example, along the 

 Mosel, and in the valley of the Ahr above Walporzheim. 



Terracing in Japan, as elsewhere, is primarily for the purpose of 

 protecting the soil of steep mountain declivities from being carried 

 away by heavy rain-storms, and secondly to facilitate cultivation 

 and irrigation. Now, since plenty of water is absolutely necessary 

 for raising rice, and can only be had on a level field, the ground is 

 terraced for rice, even where its natural slant is so slight that there 

 would be nothing to hinder ploughing, after our fashion, and also 

 no danger of the loams being washed off by rain. But to make 

 these places perfectly suited for the purpose, it is sufificient to build 

 1 "Journal Royal Geographical Society," 1878, p. 60. 



