More horses than cattle are used in agricul ture, but they are small in size and of primitive breed. The number of cattle and horses in 1914, according to the statistics of 1916, was as follows : Cattle, 1,387,233; horses, 1,579,454. The government is giving the greatest atten tion, however, to the improvement of the live stock. Livestock other than cattle and horses are exceedingly small in number. Sheep were introduced less than 40 years ago but without much success, the result showing that, not withstanding the humidity, of the climate, they can be raised only with difficulty. The raising of pigs is being much encouraged, and the in dustry is increasing rapidly. In 1914 statistics give numbers as follows : Sheep, 2,771; goats, 95,323; pigs, 332,456.
Fowls are extensively kept by small farmers. Many varieties were introduced at various times during the Tokugawa shogunate but little care was given to breeding, and they all seem to have greatly degenerated. Great attention, however, is now being paid to breeding and many new varieties are introduced, and although quite a large number is kept, something like 1,000,000 yen of fowl eggs is imported every year from China. Duck-raising is not given much attention. Bees are kept in a few dis tricts to some extent, but the art of keeping bees is yet in a very backward condition.
One of the most important industries of Japan is the silk industry, sericulture being ex tensively conducted by small farmers, who have plenty of labor well suited to it. Silk-worms are mainly divided into two kinds, common silk worms and wild silkworms, the former of which is raised within the house and is the principal one. The eggs, or graines, are raised exclusively by specialists, the art being a very difficult one. The egg-raisers have generally a very large house specially constructed and well fitted for sericulture. Farmers, on the other hand, generally use one or more rooms of their houses which they can spare during the season. Farmers often raise silkworms two or three times a year, and plant mulberry trees in plantations, around the fields, on road sides or near their dwellings.
General Features of Japanese Agriculture.
— Japan with her oceanic climate, being lo cated within the boundary of the monsoon, is well suited to rice cultivation, especially in the warmer portion. In the colder section, though rice is also the principal crop, its cultivation ex tending up to 43° 30' N. lat., it is rather a risky crop owing to the shortness of summer — heat often being insufficient for its good maturing. The wheat and barley crops are also exceed ingly risky, for during harvest time, which may be anywhere between the end of May and the beginning of July, the season is liable to be very wet.
Soils vary greatly, often changing within a mile. Orte kind of soil which deserves special notice contains a large percentage of volcanic ash, very light, with high water capacity and great absorptive power, and occurs to a large extent in Kuwanto and Kiushiu. As a rule, soils are not very rich and need to be carefully cultivated and well manured.
With such climate and soils, combined with the mountainous character of the country, farm ing on a large scale cannot be profitable, which accounts for the small farms, the holdings on an average not being more than one cho, or 2.5 acres. Farms of more than five cho are rather rare exceptions.
Though there are many landlords in Japan, the land is much more equally distributed than in some parts of Europe. Nevertheless farm ers cultivating small holdings are not all peas ant proprietors, tenancy being by no means rare, which may be seen from the following table: Ta Hata Fanning on own land 49.04 per cent 60.09 per cent Tenancy 50.96 per cent 39.91 per cent These small farmers have to pay a heavy tax on each acre of land, central and local, and for tenants the rent is exceedingly high. The rent varies of course according to circumstances, but generally speaking it is equal to about one half to two-thirds of the produce in the case of paddy fields, aftercrops being excluded. The rent is generally paid in kind, rice in the case of paddy fields; soybean, barley, or sometimes money, in the case of dry-land fields. Metay age is very rare, and the tenancy is such that the rent is fixed according to custom, its value changing only very gradually. Owing to vari ous historical causes and also to the fact that paddy fields, if not well drained, are unsuitable for the erection of buildings, the houses, which often serve both as dwellings and farm build ings, or which are in close connection with the latter, are grouped together into villages or built along the roadside. There are almost no enclosed farms with buildings in the centre, and it is very difficult to make students in Japan understand the meaning of farm in the Occi dental sense of the word. Paddy and dry-land fields are divided into small parcels, side by side, having no fences, the paddy fields being separated small ridges designed to hold the water of irrigation on the surface. Each par cel has its owner, but the fields being scattered involves a great drawback to the economy of labor.