The Foundations of Japan eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 576 pages of information about The Foundations of Japan.

The Foundations of Japan eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 576 pages of information about The Foundations of Japan.
necessity; (3) the primitive implements—­not ill-adapted, however, to a primitive cultural system; (4) the non-utilisation of animal or mechanical power in a large part of the country—­due as much to physical conditions as to lack of cheap capital; (5) what is spoken of as “the never-ending toil”—­against which must be set the figures I have quoted showing the number of farmers who do not work on an average more than 4 or 5 days a week; and (6) the moderate total production compared with the number of producers—­which must be considered in reference to the object of Japanese agriculture and in relation to a lower standard of living.  Japanese agriculture, as we have seen, has shortcomings, many of which are being steadily met; but with all its shortcomings it does succeed in providing, for a vast population per square ri, subsistence in conditions which are in the main endurable and might be easily made better.

Paddy adjustment has clearly shown that paddies above the average size are more economically worked than small ones, but these adjusted paddies are on the plains and a large proportion of Japanese paddies have had to be made on uneven or hilly ground where physical conditions make it impossible for these rice fields to be anything else than small and irregular.  Japanese agriculture is what it is and must largely remain what it is because Japan is geologically and climatically what it is, and because the social development of a large part of Japan is what it is.  Comparisons with rice culture in Texas, California and Italy are usually made in forgetfulness of the fact that the rice fields there are generally on level fertile areas, in America sometimes on virgin soil.  In Japan rice culture extends to poor unfavourable land because the people want to have rice everywhere.[290] The Japanese have cultivated the same paddies for centuries, Some American rice land is thrown out of cultivation after a few years.  In fertile localities the Japanese get twice the average crop.  It must also be remembered that Japanese paddies often produce two crops, a crop of rice and an after-crop.  Japanese technicians are well acquainted with Texan, Californian and Italian rice culture, and Japanese have tried rice production both in California and Texas.

“They talk of Texan and Italian rice culture,” said one man who had been abroad on a mission of agricultural investigation, “but I found the comparative cost of rice production greater in Texas than in Japan.  Some Japanese farmers who went to Texas were overcome by weeds because of dear labour.  In Italian paddies, also, I saw many more weeds than in ours.  It is rational, of course, for Americans and Italians to use improved machinery, for they have expensive labour conditions, but we have cheap labour.  The Texans have large paddies because their land is cheap, but ours is dear.  In these big paddies the water cannot be kept at two or three inches, as with us.  It is necessarily five inches or so,

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The Foundations of Japan from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.