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This is the way the farmer begins working for a new crop of Japan's "staff of life."  The ground must be made into soft mud, so this field is surrounded with a low ridge like that you see yonder converting it into a sort of pan with low sides.  Water was let into it from an irrigation canal a few weeks ago and the ground was thoroughly soaked.  Now this peasant has harnessed his bull and is stirring up the muddy surface, turning under the stubble of the old crop and opening the soil to sun and air. The seed rice is in beds and will be transplanted in this field only after the delicate green shoots are a foot or more high.  The flooding will be repeated at intervals during the growing season, for rice, you remember, is really an aquatic grass; the kinds largely grown flourish best in water or soft mud. Only when the harvest is near will the ground be allowed to dry.  The stalks are cut by hand with a sickle, men and women working together both in the reaping and the threshing which follows.  The grain is the main food of the people hereabouts and the straw is all thriftily put to use.  It makes mats like those you see yonder protecting choice tea-plants from the over-ardent sun; it makes thatched roofs for the farmhouses and sheds.

That large building at the end of the field is a tea store-house.  Notice the ventilators up under the eaves of the tiled roof.  This region is famous all over Europe and the East for the fine quality of the teas raised by small farmers. One kind, called "Jewelled Dew" brings eight dollars a pound.  It is all picked carefully by hand, usually by women and young girls, and the curing is done over pans of charcoal.  

The blue-and-white cotton towel or kerchief tied over that man's head is the customary wear of Japanese farmers when about their work.

From notes of Travel, No. 8, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.


Ploughing Flooded Ground for Rice Planting; Japan.
Labourant des Terraine Inondés pour la Plantation du Riz; Japon.
Splügen von überfluteten Land zum Pflanzen von Reis; Japan.
Arando Terrenos Inundados antes de Sembrar el Arroz; Japón.
Plöjande öfversvämmade åkra för risplantering; Japan.
Вспашка залитой подъ рисовыя плантаціи; Японія.