Chap. XVI. 
KICE-CULTIV ATION. 
277 
up the worms. The planting season is at its 
height about the 21st of June, and is generally 
over by the 10th of July. On some lands the seed 
is sown thinly, broadcast, and here, of course, no 
transplanting is necessary ; this sowing takes 
place from the 1 5th to the 20th of May. 
As the rice valleys near Kanagawa are inter- 
sected and surrounded by hills from which streams 
of water are continually flowing, it is not neces- 
sary to irrigate the fields by water-wheels, as in 
China. The streams are led, in the first place, 
into the fields near the foot of the hills, where the 
land is highest. Little ridges of earth or grassy 
embankments surround the different fields, each 
having a small space for the ingress and egress of 
the water. In this manner the hill stream first 
floods one field to the desired depth, then flows 
into the next at the point of egress, and so on, 
until the whole valley is irrigated. Natural or 
artificial watercourses, with channels lower than 
the fields, run through these rice valleys, and 
when the water is no longer required it is led into 
these, and carried out to the sea. By this means 
the water is kept always under the most perfect 
control; and in the autumn, when the ripening 
crops no longer require its aid, the little points of 
ingress are closed up, and the stream is allowed to 
flow in its natural channel. 
During the remainder of the summer and 
autumn the paddy requires little more than 
attention to the irrigation, and now and then 
