LITMIR.BIZ

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who are trying to learn the language, the movement does not seem to have gathered much momentum.

      In one of the leading papers, the Hocho Shimbun, Mr. Gensai Murai, a novelist of distinction, published a continued story running daily through six years. It is not yet completed, having been suspended during the war. In this story the writer presents a large amount of information on national, political, economic and social questions, at the same time putting in enough fiction to sustain the interest.

      Progress along some other lines will be treated under special heads. I find that there is some tendency here to resent the statement that Japan has borrowed largely from other nations. Some native writers insist that New Japan is but the natural development of Old Japan. There is a measure of truth in this, because there is no growth except from a living germ; and yet it can not be denied that Japan has appropriated to her own great advantage many foreign ideas, and it is not to her discredit that she has done so. Both individuals and nations borrow; imitation, not originality, is the rule. It will humble the pride of anyone to attempt to separate that which he has learned from others from that which he can claim as his own by right of discovery.

      Steam is the same to-day that it was ages ago, and yet millions watched it escaping from the kettle with no thought of its latent power. One man showed mankind the use to which it could be put and all the rest profited by the idea. Shall we refuse to ride upon the railroad or cross the waters in an ocean greyhound for fear of employing the conception of another? Electricity is not a new agency. The lightnings have illumined the sky from the dawn of creation, and the people saw in them only cause for fear. A few decades ago one man thought out a method by which it could be imprisoned in a wire, and now widely separated lands are united by telegraph lines, while cables traverse the ocean's bed. Shall we refuse to read the news that the current carries or reject a message from home because we must employ an idea which sprang from another's brain? He is stupid who rejects truth, no matter from what source it comes; that nation is blind which does not welcome light from anywhere and everywhere. It is to the glory, not to the shame, of the land of the Rising Sun that her people have been quick to obey the injunction, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."

      CHAPTER V.

      INDUSTRIES, ARTS AND COMMERCE

      The basis of Japanese industry is agricultural, although each year shows a decreasing proportion engaged in the tilling of the soil. Rice is the principal product, but owing to the large amount consumed at home it is not the chief export. As this crop needs an abundance of water, the rice fields occupy the low lands and the mountain gorges. Sometimes the narrow valleys that pierce the ranges are so terraced as to look like steps, and at this time of the year when the crop is being harvested, they resemble golden stairs. The men and women work together in the field, and in many places we saw them standing almost knee deep in mud, cutting the grain with old fashioned hand-sickles. The rice is tied in bundles somewhat smaller than our wheat sheaves, and hung over poles or laid along the edge of a terrace to cure. If the threshing is delayed the grain is stacked, not as we stack wheat and oats in the United States, but in little columns with the heads of the sheaves tied to a pole in the center. Sometimes the stacks are built around a living tree. The grain is separated from the straw by means of a long toothed comb, and at this season innumerable groups of persons are busily engaged at this work. The yellow heaps of rice in the hull, looking from a distance like wheat, can be seen from the train and from the country roads. Straw mats are used to keep the grain off the ground and, I may add, the mat is in evidence everywhere in Japan and is used for all sorts of purposes.

      The cultivation of the tea plant is an industry of no small magnitude, although not so universal as the cultivation of rice. The tea fields occupy the higher levels and add an interesting variety to the landscapes. At one point on the railroad between Yokohama and Nagoya the hillsides are covered with tea plantations, if such tiny farms can be called plantations. The tea plant is something like our gooseberry and currant bushes in size, but the foliage is much thicker. The leaves vary widely in value, from the cheaper grades, which are exported, to the Uji which costs what is equivalent to five or more dollars per pound.

      Some cotton is grown here, but the cotton plant as we saw it is small compared with our plant, and the tillable area is too limited to admit of the growing of cotton on a large scale.

      Tobacco is cultivated to some extent, but the sale of manufactured tobacco is a government prerogative.

      Raw silk is by far the most valuable export, thirty-five million dollars' worth having been sent abroad last year. Three-fifths of the entire export goes to the United States, the remainder to Europe, with France as the largest European purchaser. As fifteen million dollars' worth of silk fabrics went abroad also, as against five million dollars' worth of tea and four million dollars' worth of rice, it will be seen that the cultivation of the silk worm and the mulberry tree is extensively carried on. The silk worms are kept indoors and the leaves brought in to them. When put outdoors the silk worms are devoured by birds.

      Fruits grow here in great variety. We have found everywhere apples of excellent quality, raised in the northern parts of the islands, while the southern islands produce oranges, bananas and pineapples. The apple tree was imported from America about thirty-five years ago; now apples are exported to China and Siberia. The most popular orange is the tangerine, or kid glove orange as it is sometimes called; many of these are exported.

      There is a kind of fruit called the ban-tan grown on the island of Kyushu. It looks something like the grape fruit, but grows considerably larger and has a thicker skin; the meat is pink in color, sweeter and less juicy than the grape fruit. Pears grow here; one variety looks like a russet apple in shape and color. Peach trees are sometimes trained as we train grape vines on an arbor, so that the orchard seems to have a flat roof of foliage.

      They have here, too, persimmons as large as apples and as solid. We found these on the table in all parts of the island and there are several varieties. The grape is cultivated in Japan, but we did not see grape vines in such profusion as they are seen in southern Europe, along the lakes in western New York or in California. And, in this connection, I may add that wine is not used here to the extent that it is in some other countries, the national drink, sake, being made from fermented rice. Ordinarily this beverage contains from eleven to fourteen per cent of alcohol, but there is a stronger kind called shochu, which contains as much as fifty per cent of alcohol. It is evident, however, that liquor by any other name can be as intoxicating as our whisky, and we found at Tokyo a national temperance society with branches throughout the empire. Mr. Ando, the president of this society, is a Japanese gentleman of great earnestness and intelligence, who was converted to Christianity a few years ago when he was representing his country in Honolulu. While, as I have stated in another article, I have seen no evidences of drunkenness, Mr. Ando informs me that his society has ample work to do. I carry back with me a badge which the society gave me on learning of my total abstinence habits. I have only mentioned the leading products of the field, but I can not leave the cultivators of the soil without a word concerning the gardens. They are so cute, occupying as they do the little nooks and corners that can not be utilized for the large crops. There does not seem to be a square inch of ground wasted. The vegetables are planted in rows which are either straight or curved, never crooked, and we have scarcely seen a weed. Fertilizer is extensively used, being kept in stone or cement vats protected from the weather by a straw colored shed. Near the cities the soil is enriched by the refuse from closets which is collected and carried away during the night. The introduction of sewage systems has been somewhat impeded in some cities by the fact that sewage would be an expense while closets are now a source of profit. It must be confessed, however, that the present system tends to make fresh vegetables unpopular with the tourist.

      Most travelers land at Yokohama and depart at Kobe, or land at Kobe and depart at Yokohama, these being the two principal ports. As these are about 300 miles apart, one has a chance to see much of the farming land from the railroad. The side trips from Tokyo to Nikko, from Yokohama to Miyanoshita and from Kyoto to Nara, give additional opportunities for seeing the farmer at work, but the ride from Kobe west to Shimonoseki surpasses any of these in interest and in beauty of scenery. As this route leads along the sea coast as well as through densely populated valleys, there is greater variety. Now one skirts the inland sea, with its numerous islands, its transparent waters, its little harbors and its fleets of

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