On my journey north from Sapporo the first thing which brought home to me the colonial character of the agriculture was the tree stumps sticking up in the paddies.  The second was the extent to which the rivers were still uncontrolled.  The longest river in Japan, 260 miles long, is in Hokkaido.  There was obviously a vast moorland area in need of draining.  Peat—­there are 300,000 cho of it—­may be a standby when the waste of timber that is going on brings about a shortage of fuel other than coal.  From poor peat soil, which was growing oats, buckwheat and millet, we passed to land capable of producing rice, and saw ploughing with horses.  One region had been opened for only twenty years, but already the farmers had cultivated the hillsides in the assiduous fashion of Old Japan.

From Ashigawa we made some excursions in a prim basha to places which were always several miles farther on than they were supposed to be and were usually reached by tracks covered with stones from 6 to 9 ins. long and having ruts a foot deep.

We visited a large estate with 350 tenants who were mostly working 2-1/2 cho, though some had twice as much.  Nearly all of these tenants appeared to have one or two horses, although the estate manager had advised them to use oxen or cows as more economical draught animals.  When I remembered the distance the farmers were from the town and the state of the roads, and noticed the satisfaction which the men we passed displayed in being able to ride, it was easy to believe that the possession of a horse might have its value as a means of social progress.  During the last ten years half the tenants had made enough to enable them to buy farms.  The tenants on this estate had two temples and one shrine.[246]

I visited a fifteen-years-old co-operative alcohol factory with a capital of 300,000 yen.  Of its materials 80 per cent. seemed to be potato starch waste and 20 per cent. maize.  The product was 6,000 or 7,000 koku of alcohol.  The dividend was 8 per cent.  On the waste a large number of pigs was fed.  The animals were kept in pens with boarded floors within a small area, and I was not surprised to learn that three or four died every month.  Starch making, which produces the waste used by the alcohol factory, is managed on quite a small scale.  An outfit may cost no more than 30 or 50 yen.  I went over a small peppermint-making plant.  Most of the peppermint raised in Japan—­it reaches a value of 2 million yen—­is grown in Hokkaido.

One day in the eastern part of the island I met in a small hotel, which was run by a man and his wife who had been in America, several old farmers who had obviously made money.  They declared that formerly only 20 per cent. of the colonists succeeded, but now the proportion was more than 65 per cent.  I imagine that they meant by success that the colonists did really well, for it was added that it was rare in that district for people to return to Old Japan.  One of the company said that not more than 5 per cent. returned.  “Land is too expensive at home,” he continued; “when a Japanese comes here and gets some, he works hard.”  A good man, they said, should make, after four or five years, 70 to 100 yen clear profit in a year.