The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1904, Page 53

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

The Lutheran Pioneer. - 53

Farming in Japan.

Japan is one vast garden. As you look over the
fields you can imagine them toy farms where chil-
dren are playing with the laws of nature and rais-
ing samples of different kinds of vegetables and
-grains. Everything is on a diminutive scale, and
the work is extraordinarily neat and accurate.
A Japanese farmer weeds his wheat field as an
American gardener weeds his onion beds, and culti-
vates potatoes and barley with as much care as our
gardeners give their asparagus beds or their flowers.

A few acres is considered a large tract of land.
Most of the farms do not contain so large an area.
The crops are greatly diversified. On so small a
piece of land will be grown almost everything that

into little plots 25 or 30 feet square, and banks are
thrown up all around them to keep the water from
flowing away when they are being flooded. The
water is supplied by irrigating ditches.

The farmers live in villages away from their
farms, sometimes three miles distant: There are
no fences, but every man knows his own land, for
it has been in his own family for generations. Irri-
gating ditches and little paths usually aré the boun-
dary lines. In theory all lands belong to the em-

peror, but the greater part of that under cultivation”

is held by fee simple, and the title descends from
father to oldest son. Sales are made and recorded,
land is mortgaged, very much as in our country.
The actual value of every acre is fixed upon the as-
sessor’s book for taxation purposes.

PLANTING RICE IN JAPAN.

can be grown in that soil and climate. There will
be a few feet square of wheat, barley, corn, millet,
perhaps a plot‘of beans 10 feet wide by 20 feet in
length, an equal amount of potatoes and’ peas, a
patch of onions about. as big as a grave, beets,
lettuce, salsify, turnips, sweet potatoes, and other
varieties of roots and cereals.

The farmer looks over his growing crops every
morning just ag an engineer inspects his machinery.
If anything is wrong he remedies it. If a weed ap-
’ pears in his bean patch he pulls it up; if a hill of
potatoes or anything else fails it immediately is re-
. placed. “When he cuts down a tree he plants an-

other to take its place. As one crop is harvested
the soil is worked over, fertilized, and replanted
with something else. All farming lands are irri-
gated by a system that is a thousand years old.
Perhaps niné-tenths’ of the agricultural land of
Japan is devoted to raising rice: This crop requires
“a great deal of water. The fields are divided off

The official statistics show that 11, 400, 000 men _

and 10,950,000 women are engaged in agriculture,
which is one-half the total population.

On rare occasions you find a man plowing with |

a cow or an ox, but more frequently with man or
woman power. The J apanese plow is a section “of

the trunk or the branch of a young tree with the’

proper curve to it, and is all wood except a narrow
pointed blade, fitted into the framework. It has
but one handle.— Ez. . - :

Where is Hell? ee

ro teats

A Christian, speaking with an unbeliéver, ré-
peated the passage from the Psalms: “The wicked
shall be turned into hell.”

‘Yes; but where is hell??? asked the scoffer. ”

And the reply came short, sharp, and poling

‘Outside heayen.”’

1