Japan and the Japanese

JAPAN. A. D. 17751776.
Miako at
night.
"
Except in Holland," says Thunbcrg, " I nevef
made so pleasant a journey as this, with regard to the beauty
and delightful appearance of the country. Its population, too,
and cultivation, exceed all expression. The whole country, on
both sides of us, as far as we could see, was nothing but a fertile
field, and the whole of our long day's journoy extended through
villages, of which one began where the other ended."
The fanners were now preparing their lands for rice. The fields,
under water. Thw
by means of a raised border, lay almost entirely
was the case even with those sides of the hills intended for ri'-e
They were laid out in terraces, the water collected on the higher
grounds being regulated by means of walls or dams, so as to be let
on or shut off at
pleasure. There were, also, reservoirs, constructed
to retain the contents of the flooded streams, against occasions of
drought. The rice was sown first very close and thick, and when
about six inches high was transplanted into the fields, in tufts o(
several plants, placed about six inches apart. This was done by the
women, who waded about in water at least six inches deep, the men
having first turned up the ground with a hoe. Beautiful white
herons followed the laborers, and cleared the fields of worms. The
rice thus planted was reaped in November.
Fields of wheat, barley (used to feed the horses), buckwheat, East
India kale (Brassica orientalis), and mustard (the two latter for
oil), were also seen. These crops, planted in November or December,
and ripe
in May or June, were in beds about a foot broad, and
separated from each other by a deep furrow or trench of about the
same breadth. Sometimes they were planted across these narrow
beds, and sometimes in two rows, lengthwise. Thunberg noticed
that when the ear was about to put forth, the plants being grown to
the height of a foot, the earth was taken out from the intervening
trenches, and drawn up to the roots of the plants. About the
same time, or a little earlier, the liquid manure collected in the
jars already described, and mingled with all sorts of refuse, was
carried out by the farmers, in large pails, and poured with a ladle
on the roots of the
plants a ; method which avoids the waste incident
to spreading the manure on unplantcd fields, to be dried up by the
gun, or to lose by evaporation its volatile salts and oily particles.
The fields were kept so free of weeds as to afford, much to Thun