AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 43 



volcanic regions. Faecal matter is less used in rice-farming than 

 in other crops. One is thus not so much offended by the smell 

 of it as might be imagined, on going through the flooded rice in 

 summer. 



When a rice-field has been dug, levelled, manured, and flooded 

 with water, — which must be preceded by the construction of dams, 

 — it is fully prepared to receive the young plants. 



The system of irrigation is particularly important. Every par- 

 tition-wall of the rice-field has one or more small apertures, here 

 for the admission of water, there to let it out. When it comes 

 from a mountain-slope, it is conducted first to that field of the 

 valley-bottom or terrace which lies highest. 



The little stream, — a stronger one would be too dangerous, — 

 floods the field to a certain depth and then flows over into the 

 next piece of ground, does the same thing here, and then goes on 

 to the next level, and so forth, from terrace to terrace, till the entire 

 system is watered. Natural river-beds, or canals with beds sunk 

 lower than the fields, intersect the whole, so as to receive and drain 

 away the water when it has served its purpose. Thus it always 

 remains under perfect control, except only in case of long-continued, 

 heavy rains. 



In insufficiently watered districts, those that depend more on 

 rain than on a supply brought in streams from higher, wooded 

 hill-country, there have been ponds made, to help out, with their 

 stored-up contents, the dry summers when natural resources fail. 

 Many of these ponds are of a great age. Works of this sort 

 are mentioned in the oldest history of the country as laid out 

 by this or that Mikado. In flat neighbourhoods and after long 

 droughts water-wheels are employed, as in China, India, and else- 

 where, to raise the indispensable water from the deeper ditches 

 and conduct it to the rice-fields. This is often done, too, with 

 bare hands and with shovels. A favourite plan, which I saw used 

 also in Japan, is as follows : two men, on opposite banks of a 

 stream, suspend a closely-plaited winnowing-basket on a rope 

 between them, and swing it backwards and forwards in such a way 

 that it dips into the water at every downward movement of the 

 arms, and empties, at the upward swing, into a conduit leading to 

 the field. In autumn, when the ripening crop needs no more 

 water, or at any time when there is rain enough to supply every 

 need, the places of influx are stopped up and the spring-water is 

 left in its natural channels. 



Japanese rice-culture contrasts favourably, through this artificial 

 watering, with that in the southern monsoon-region — in Siam, for 

 instance ; but it by no means comes up to that of the North- 

 Italian plain, either in rational management or results. 



There is probably nowhere in the world a system of watering 

 carried out on a large scale so methodically and effectively as 

 that by which the " Societa d' Irrigazione dell' Ovest della Sesia " 



