I visited a farm-house and found the farmer making baskets.  When I was examining the winnowing machine my companion reminded me smilingly that when he was a boy he was warned never to turn the wheel of the winnowing machine when the contrivance had no grain in it or a demon might come out.  There was a properly protected tank of liquid manure and a well-roofed manure house.  The family bath in an open shed was of a sort I had not seen before, a kind of copper with a step up to it.  Straw rope about three-quarters of an inch in diameter was being made by the farmer’s son, a day’s work being 40 yds.  At another farm a woman showed me the working of a rough loom with which she could in a day make a score of mats worth in all 60 sen.  From the farmer’s house I went to the room of the young men’s association and looked over its library.  I was impressed by the high level of civilisation which this village seemed to exhibit in essentials.

When we continued our journey we saw two portable water wheels by means of which water was being lifted into a paddy.  Each wheel was worked by a man who continually ascended the floats.  The two men were able to leave their wheels in turn for a rest, for a third man was stretched on the ground in readiness for his spell.  It seems that a man can keep on the water tread-mill for an hour.  The two wheels together were lifting an amazing amount of water at a great rate.  When the pumping is finished one of these light water wheels is easily carried home on a man’s shoulders.

Farther on I saw in a dry river bed a man sieving gravel in an ingenious way.  The trouble in sieving gravel is that if the sieve be filled to its capacity the shaking soon becomes tiring.  This man had a square sieve which when lying on the ground was attached at one side by two ropes to a firmly fixed tripod of poles.  When the sieve was filled the labourer lifted it far enough away from the tripod for it to be swinging on one side.  Therefore when he shook the sieve he sustained a portion only of its weight.

As we rode along I was told that the largest taxpayer in the county “does not live in idleness but does many good works.”  The next largest taxpayer “labours every day in the field.”  When I enquired as to the recreations of moneyed men I was told “travelling, go and poem writing.”

As we rode by the sea a trustworthy informant pointed out to me an islet where he said the young men have the young women in common and “give permission for them to marry.”  There is a house in which the girls live together at a particular time and are then free from the attentions of the youths.  Children born are brought up in the families of the mothers but there is some infanticide.  In another little island off the coast there are only two classes of people, the seniors and the juniors.  Any person senior to any other “may give him orders and call him by his second name.” (The surname comes first in Japanese names.)