AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 45 



When the rice has been transplanted, the earth-dykes are put 

 to a further use. Small circular depressions are made upon them. 

 In each of these are placed 3 to 6 dwarf beans, which are covered 

 over with earth and rice-chaff. Then the chief labour is at an end. 

 It only remains to go every fourteen days or so, when the rice- 

 plants have commenced to grow again in their new soil, and set 

 them in more firmly, and to crush and level any clods that still He 

 in the mud and water — operations which are performed solely with 

 the arms and hands. 



Now it is only necessary to attend to vi'atering, and later on 

 to u^eeding and a second hoeing along the rows. 



Part of the farmer's time and energy can now be devoted to 

 other employments, such as silk-culture, and gathering and pre- 

 paring dyer's knot-grass {Polygomim tinctormui), which serves as a 

 blue dye, like indigo. And there is leisure, besides, for taking a 

 day's pleasure on some festival of the gods, or going on a pilgrim- 

 age to some celebrated mountain or temple, if a good harvest last 

 year furnished the needful money. 



The rice blossoms in early September. Harvest takes place 

 from the end of September to the end of October, and even as 

 late as November. It is the season when, in the temple-groves, 

 the sere leaves of the Icho or Ginko {Salisbiiria adianthifolia, 

 Smith) fall to the ground, broken off by the morning-dew, and the 

 Momiji {Acer polymorpJium, S. and Z.) become a splendid red. 



" Behold the full panicles in the autumnal rice-field, every one 

 a witness of the summer's heat and labour !" as is beautifully and 

 appropriately said, in a recent collection of Buddhist sermons. 

 And well may the sight of these " golden crops in the valleys " 

 make glad both eye and heart. A whole bundle of straw, with 

 heavy panicles, which has grown from every little group of shoots, 

 richly rewards the industry spent upon them. 



As in China, the ripe rice is cut off with short sickles close above 

 the ground, for the straw too is a valuable and much-used material. 

 The grain when reaped is hung up on poles in small armfuls, 

 rather bundles than sheaves, or it is arranged about alder-stalks 

 along the rows, or brought directly home. For threshing .they do 

 not use the flail, as with us, nor cattle (oxen and mules), as in the 

 Mediterranean countries, but arrangements peculiar to themselves, 

 which remind one of our flax-ripplers, used for separating the cap- 

 sules from the stems. Another method, mentioned by Thunberg, 

 is simply to strike the panicles against the edge of a barrel or a 

 tub, whereby the grains fall from the stalks. 



The grains of rice are, as a rule, not husked until needed. A 

 simple and very widespread arrangement for this purpose consists 

 of a round trough^ hollowed out of a block of wood or a stone, 

 into vi^hich the paddy is poured, to be pounded with a wooden 



^ The island of Lugon (Lozon), or Isla de los Losones, gets its name form 

 these stamping-troughs (lusong). 



