In the office of the company were samples of eleven market qualities of rice, and before them, by way of showing respect to the great food staple, was set the gohei of cut white paper seen in Shinto shrines.  Outside the office, girl porters carried the bales of rice to and fro.  Close to the store was a river in which some of the dusty, perspiring porters were washing and cooling themselves with a simplicity to which Western civilisation is not yet equal.  Opposite them men were fishing by casting in draw nets from the shore just as in biblical pictures the apostles are represented as doing.

The company has a rice market where farmers were putting their business in the dealers’ hands.  Each dealer has to deposit 5,000 yen with the State.  The dealer who buys rice from a farmer has better polishing machinery than the farmer possesses.  Therefore he can give the rice a more uniform appearance.  By decreasing the weight of the rice during the polishing he gives it he is also able to lessen the sum payable for carriage and he has the value of the offal.

In order to visit farmers I rode some distance into the country.[159] The village, which was of the Zen sect, was at work cleaning out and straightening the stream which, as is usual in many villages, ran through the middle of it.  I was impressed during my visit not only by the readiness and intelligence with which my questions were answered but by the good humour with which a stranger’s inquiries concerning personal matters was received.  I had another thought, that I might not have found a group of Western farmers so well informed about their financial position as these simple, primitively clad men.

Our kuruma route to and from the village had been through one great tract of well-adjusted rice fields.  Adjustment was not difficult in this region because half the land belongs to the Homma family, which has given much study to the art of land-holding.  For two centuries the clan by charging moderate rents and studying the interests of its tenants has maintained happy relations with them.

For many years a plan has been in operation by which 200 one-tan paddy-fields are cultivated by the agents or managers of the estate, by tenants selected by their fellow tenants for merit, by tenants chosen by the landlord for diligence and by others picked out because of their interest in agriculture.  In order to increase the zest of competition the cultivators are divided into a black and a white company.  The names of those who raise the most and best rice are published in the order of their success, farm implements are distributed as prizes, the clever cultivators are invited to the landlord’s New Year entertainment to the agents and managers, and at that feast “places of distinction are given.”

There is also a system of rewarding the best five-years averages.  A competition takes place between what are called “dress fields” because those who get the best results from them receive a ceremonial dress bearing the inscription, “Prosperity and Welfare.”  The honour of wearing these robes in the presence of their landlord at his annual feast is valued by these simple countrymen.