VALUE OF NEW PADDY [XIV].  More delicious rice could be got, I was told, from well-fertilised barren land than from naturally fertile land.  The first year the new paddy yielded per tan an average of 1.2 koku, the second 1.6, the third 2, and this fourth year the yield would have been 2.3 had it not been for damage by storm.

AREAS AND CROPS OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF RICE [XV].  In 1919 there was grown of paddy rice 2,984,750 cho (2,729,639 ordinary, 255,111 glutinous) and of upland rice 141,365 cho.  Total, 3,126,115 cho.  The yield (husked, uncleaned) was of paddy 61,343,403 koku (ordinary, 56,438,005; glutinous, 4,905,398); of upland, 1,839,312.  Total, 63,182,715 koku; value, 2,352,145,519 yen.

In 1877 the area is reputed to have been 1,940,000 cho with a yield of 24,450,000 koku and in 1882 2,580,000 cho with a yield of 30,692,000 koku.  The average of the five years 1910-14 was 3,033,000 cho with a yield of 57,006,000 koku; of the five years 1915-19, 3,081,867 cho with a yield of 94,817,431 koku.

In a prefecture in south-western Japan I found that 2 koku 5 to (or 2-1/2 koku, there being 10 to in a koku) per tan was common and that from 3 koku to 3 koku 5 to was reached.  “A good yield for 1 tan,” says an eminent authority, “is 3 koku, or on the best fields even 4 koku.”  The average yield in koku per tan for the whole country has been (paddy-field rice only):  1882, 1.19; 1894-8, 1.38; 1899-1903, 1.44; 1904-8, 1.57; 1909-13, 1.63; 1914-18, 1.86; 1919, 1.99; 1920, 2.05 (ordinary, 2.06; glutinous, 1.92).  Upland rice in 1920, 1.30 as against 1.02 in 1909.  All these figures are for husked, uncleaned rice.

BARLEY AND WHEAT CROPS [XVI].  The following table (average of five years, 1913-17) shows the yields per tan of the two sorts of barley and of wheat and the average yield all three together in comparison with the rice yield (all quantities husked): 

go                          go
Barley           1,672 | All three together    1,307
Naked barley     1,172 | Rice                  1,808
Wheat            1,073 |

Naked barley is grown as an upland crop, as are ordinary barley and wheat; but it is more largely grown as a second crop in paddies than either barley or wheat.  The barleys are chiefly used for human food with or without rice.  Wheat is eaten in macaroni, sweetstuffs and bread.  It is also used in considerable quantities in the manufacture of soy, the chief ingredient of which is beans.  There was imported in the year 1920 wheat to the value of 28-1/2 million yen, and flour to the value of 3-1/4 million yen.  Macaroni is largely made of buckwheat as well as of wheat.  The other grain crop is millet, which is eaten by the poorest farmers.  In 1918, as against 60 million koku of rice, there were grown 5 million koku of beans and peas.  The crops of barley were 17 million, of wheat 6 million, of millet 3-1/4 million, and of buckwheat 3/4 million.  More than a million kwan of sweet potatoes were produced and nearly half a million of “Irish” potatoes.  (The figures for barley and wheat are for 1919.)