FOOTNOTES: 

[173] At Anjo agricultural experiment station I saw eighteen kinds of small threshing machines at from 13 to 18 yen.  There were husking machines of three sorts.  A rice thresher was equal to dealing with the crop of one tan, estimated at 2 koku 4 to, in three hours.

[174] See Appendix XLVI.

[175] It is quite possible that the trees had also come into their positions artificially.  There are no more skilful tree movers than the Japanese.

[176] It has recently come into collision with the authorities.  Another sect with Shinto ideas was also started by a woman.

[177] See Appendix XLVII.

CHAPTER XXV

“SPECIAL TRIBES”

(EHIME)

A frank basis of reality.—­Meredith

In the prefecture of Ehime our journey was still by basha or kuruma and near the sea.  The first man we talked with was a guncho who said that “more than half the villages contained a strong character who can lead.”  He told us of one of the new religions which taught its adherents to do some good deed secretly.  The people who accepted this religion mended roads, cleaned out ponds and made offerings at the graves of persons whose names were forgotten.  I think it was this man who used the phrase, “There is a shortage of religions.”

I had not before noticed wax trees.  They are slighter than apple trees, but often occupy about the same space as the old-fashioned standard apple.  The clusters of berries have some resemblance to elderberries and would turn black if they were not picked green.[178] Occasionally we saw fine camphor trees.  Alas, owing to the high price of camphor, some beautiful specimens near shrines, where they were as imposing as cryptomeria, had been sacrificed.

I began to observe the dreadful destruction wrought in the early ear stage of rice not by cold but by wind.  The wind knocks the plants against one another and the friction generates enough heat to arrest further development.  The crops affected in this way were grey in patches and looked as if hot water had been sprayed over them.  In one county the loss was put as high as 90 per cent.  Happily farmers generally sow several sorts of rice.  Therefore paddies come into ear at different times.

The heads of millet and the threshed grain of other upland crops were drying on mats by the roadside, for in the areas where land is so much in demand there is no other space available.  Sesame, not unlike snapdragon gone to seed, only stronger in build, was set against the houses.  On the growing crops on the uplands dead stalks and chopped straw were being used as mulch.

I noticed that implements seemed always to be well housed and to be put away clean.  Handcarts, boats and the stacks of poles used in making frameworks for drying rice were protected from the weather by being thatched over.