78 Extracts from Diary in Japan. 



kept over the surface of the plot. The transplanting begins 

 about the 5th of June and ends about the 25th ; the rice 

 comes into ear in September, and is reaped in November and 

 December, and laid upon the banks of the plots ; afterwards 

 carried to the side of the valley, and the straw drawn through 

 an iron comb fixed upon a trestle. The grain being thus 

 stripped from the straw, is conveyed to the farmer's store. 

 The rice-straw is tied around the stems of the alder and 

 other trees which surround the rice fields, and is used for 

 fodder for horses, &c. 



Liquid manure is sometimes applied to the rice, but as a 

 rule the manure used for the previous crops is sufficient. 

 Before the rice is reaped the plots are drained by allowing 

 the water to flow away through the apertures which feed 

 from plot to plot. As soon as the rice is cleared the ground 

 is broken up, and a root crop, or barley, or buckwheat, or 

 some other crop grown which can be removed in time for the 

 next rice-planting, Barley is harvested before the middle 

 of June. These crops are manured by liquid manure poured 

 along the drills from a hand-ladle; this is the most import- 

 ant, as no other manure is used, and yet the same cultivation 

 has gone on for centuries with a constant growth of rice year 

 after year upon the same land. Japan is thus entirely self- 

 supporting. All excreta or fsecal matter is carefully retained 

 in tanks or earthenware jars, which are emptied once or twice 

 a week by the agriculturists, who fetch it in deep wooden 

 buckets and carry it across their shoulders for miles to their 

 farms ; it is also taken long distances in these buckets slung 

 across a pack horse ; also by barges along the canals. There 

 are in many places municipal large tanks for receiving it, 

 ready for water carriage. 



The application to the plant is very important. It is 

 carried to the farm, there stored in an open tank preserved 

 from the rain by a thatched roof, but exposed to the atmo- 

 sphere ; fermentation at once takes place, the gases pass 

 away, and it is then poured along the drills by the side of 

 the growing crop and frequently upon it, which it does not 

 injure, probably because fermentation in the atmosphere has 

 taken place. 



It is estimated that the excreta from eight adults keep an 

 acre in the highest cultivation, producing at the rate per 

 diem of one pound of grain or pulse and one and a half 

 pounds of green vegetable. This with a little fish and eggs 



