Extract)^ frorn Diary in Japan. 77 



produce recorded, and a tax levied on each producer. The 

 high land, where irrigation cannot be applied, is cropped 

 with barley, wheat, millet, buckwheat, pulse, root and green 

 crops, &c. There is a large variety of leg-uminosse, especially 

 beans, which form a favourite food. Buckwheat and barley 

 are also largely grown, and used as flour in cakes ; the 

 horses are also fed upon steeped barley. Wheat is not largely 

 cultivated. 



Rice is the staple food, and the rice fields w'ith the waving 

 rice in ear when green, and also when changing colour, pro- 

 duce a fine effect, the whole valleys appearing as one level 

 sheet of green or golden -yellow when ripe. 



The rice is sown in small seed-beds, well worked, manured, 

 and irrigated, on the 1st of May and few following days ; 

 the seed is sown broadcast very thickly upon the surface, 

 and about one inch of water remains over the seed. From 

 the end of May until the 5th June the paddy or rice fields 

 are being prepared for the transplanting of the rice from the 

 seed-beds. 



The rice fields or plots are from a half to two or three 

 acres in extent, thoroughly level, and surrounded by a bank 

 of earth about 12 or 18 inches high and 12 inches wide on 

 the top. All these plots are levelled by a water-level, a bam- 

 boo split in half and placed horizontally upon a vertical 

 stake and filled with water ; the bamboo must thus be quite 

 horizontal or the water would run over the ends, where the 

 bamboo staves are sighted. Throughout the fall or decline 

 of the valley these plots are one lower than another, the 

 water being admitted to the highest and passed from one 

 plot to another by openings in the banks surrounding each 

 plot. 



These plots are usually dug or rather turned over by a 

 heavy drag fork, which is struck into the soft ground by the 

 husbandman and then pulled towards him, thus effectually 

 turning over the surface of the rice plot to a depth of 12 

 inches ; water is then admitted into the plot, and a horse 

 draws a rake or harrow, which is pressed down from behind by 

 the husbandman or lifted when clogged; a little rice husk or 

 green weeds appear to be the only manure given at this stage. 

 After thoroughly stirring and mixing the soil into mud, the 

 rice plants are taken out in bunches from the seed-bed and 

 transplanted singly by hand in rows or drills about 9 inches 

 apart in the rice plots, and 2 inches of water is run into and 



