These small farmers, often with less than one cho of land, frequently cultivate only one crop of rice which is sown seedbeds at the end of April or at the be Oming of May and planted mainly in the month of June. The har vest time is from September till November. Where two crops are obtained, the field is cul tivated soon after the harvest, and harvest time comes just before rice planting. The farmer's working days are therefore very unequally 'dis tributed. Where they have to. cultivate dry land fields their labor is more equally distrib uted, but then the acreage they have to manage is often so small that the work on the farm is not enough for the full employment of their labor, and their income is naturally often not enough to live upon. So the farmers obliged to resort to various industries other than farming. Formerly the farmers had to spin and weave their own clothes, but now that this is being done by factories, they have to seek other industries, such as sericulture, silk reeling, tea culture, mat making, sugar manu facture, starch manufacture, weaving rice straw mats, making strawplait from barley, weaving cotton and silk goods as commercial articles, making baskets from bamboo stem and Making wood-shaving plait, etc. Keeping fowls and swine must he enumerated among these by industries of Japanese farmers; also forest cul ture to obtain material to make charcoal, wooden articles, fishery and fishing, etc.
Small farmers sell their labor to large farm ers or to factories, if any such exists in the neighborhood, or seek employment elsewhere. These small farmers, little less than 70 per cent of whom cultivate below one cho, with plenty of labor, most naturally farm their land in the most intensive manner possible, thoroughly cul tivating, weeding, manuring, which may fairly be designated as gardening. Indeed in rice cul ture farmers spend some 20 to 25 days' labor or more per tan, which is equal to 80 or 100 days' labor per acre. For other cereals some 15 days must be allowed per tan. It would seem that the product should be very large. But the statistics show but an ordinary average. For example, rice gives, on an average, about 1.7 koku of husked grain per tan, which is equal to about 34 bushels per acre; barley little less than 1.6 koku or 32 bushels per acre; wheat some 1 koku or 20 bushels per acre, which certainly are not good crops. The figures quoted above may be too low; on the other hand, even very poor soils are sometimes cultivated by indus trious farmers, year after year, successively without fallowing, as already shown. The cli mate also is not suited to barley and wheat. These facts must lower the average. So that if we take a medium crop at two to three koku per tan for rice (40 to 60 bushels per acre), or even four koku or more per tan (90 bushels per acre), in very good soil, and two to three koku per tan for barley, we are probably more nearly right as regards the product of intensive farming.
Notwithstanding such intensive farming, land population is too dense, and small farmers can hardly subsist, especially those who hire the land under the burden of heavy rent, and those who live in the colder districts. Immigration, inland and abroad, and employment elsewhere are depended on to obviate the bad conditions, but improvement in agriculture and more ex tended employment in by-industries are abso lutely necessary to these farmers.
Recent Progress of Agriculture.— With the downfall of the Shogunate and the opening of the country to foreign intercourse, great changes began to take place everywhere, both in political and in economical spheres. Under the influence of foreign trade and industrial development at home, the farmers lost some by-industries, such as spinning and weaving and some of their crops declined, as cotton, rape, ai, hemp, etc., but rrt many branches there has been great development and progress, as in sericulture and the tea industry, as the govern ment statistics show.
The silk industry was formerly restricted to a few localities, but the export of raw silk has become so extensive that there is now almost no locality without some production of cocoons. So also with the tea industry, though much re stricted. Tea was formerly produced in vari ous localities, but had very small market. When, however, it found a foreign market its increase was very rapid; while the silk indus try seems to have no limit for its expamsion.
The following figures will show the progress in these two important industries: The production of rice has undoubtedly in creased very greatly, but the statistics show comparatively very small increase in the acre age of rice culture.
But when we remember that some 20 years ago 2.5 koku per tan was considered a tolerably good harvest, in the same districts less than three koku is not considered a good crop at present, and the harvest of more than four koku per tan is not rare. And it is not improbable that during recent 10 years it has increased, as some experts are inclined to think, some 50 per cent, which is much larger than is shown by the above statistics. Such a great progress is not to be wondered at when we consider that in recent years many new varieties have been Introduced, and the quantity of manure used has been exceedingly large, the demand for which could not be satisfied without importing large quantities from abroad each year, amount mg to more than some 36,000,000 yen.