HUMAN LABOUR v.  CATTLE POWER [XIX].  The Department of Agriculture stated in 1921 that “from 200 to 300, sometimes more than 500 days’ labour [of one man] are required to grow a cho of rice.”  The area of paddy which is ploughed by horse or cattle power was 61.89 per cent.  The area of upland so cultivated was only 38.97 per cent.  The “average year’s work of the ordinary adult farmer” was put at 200 days.  The Department estimated an average man’s day’s work (10 hours) as follows: 

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Nature of Work          | Tools used                   |Output by one
|                              | Man per Day
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|                              |hectare
Tillage of paddy        |_Kuwa_ (mattock)              | 0.06
"     "   "           |_Fumi-guwa_ (heavy spade)     | 0.1-0.15
Transplanting rice      |Hand work                     | 0.07-0.1
Weeding                 |Sickle and weeding tools      | 0.1
Cutting the rice crop   |Sickle                        | 0.1-0.15
Mowing grass            |Sickle (long handle)          | 0.5
"      "              |Scythe                        | 0.5
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But I have never seen a scythe in use in Japan!

MANURE [XX].  The value of the manure used in Japan in a year has been estimated at about 220 million yen, but for the three years ending 1916 it averaged 241 millions, as follows: 

Produced or obtained by the Farmer | Purchased
                        yen | yen
Compost 63,500,000 | Bean cake 32,000,000
Human waste 54,000,000 | Mixed 17,000,000
Green manure 9,600,000 | Miscellaneous 16,000,000
Rice chaff 5,000,000 | Sulphate of ammonia 15,000,000
                                    | Superphosphate 12,000,000
                                    | Fish waste 12,000,000

Dr. Sato puts the artificial manure used per tan at a sixth of that of Belgium and a quarter of that of Great Britain and Germany.  See also Appendix IV.  An agricultural expert once said to me, “Japanese farmer he keep five head of stock, his own family.”

SOWING OF RICE [XXI].  A common seeding time is the eighty-eighth day of the year according to the old calendar, say May 1 or 2.  Transplanting is very usual at the end of May or early in June.  In Kagawa, Shikoku, I found that rice was sown at the beginning of May or even at the end of April, the transplanting being done in mid-June.  The harvest was obtained 10 per cent. about September 10th, 30 per cent. in October and 60 per cent. about the beginning of November.  The winter crop of naked barley was sown in the first quarter of December and was harvested late in May or early in June, so there was just time for the rice planting in mid-June.