obe to Tokyo passes
through the Kinai plain in which Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka stand. It is
said to feed 2-1/2 million people. Four other plains are reputed to
feed 7-1/2 million.

[68] Rivers supply about 65 per cent. of the paddy water and
reservoirs about 21 per cent. The remainder has to be got from other
sources.

[69] An acreage of a _tan_ is aimed at, but it is frequently larger;
it may even be 4 _tan_ (an acre). The cost ranges from about 8 yen to
50 yen per _tan_. The average increase in yield alter adjustment is
about 15 per cent., to which must be added the yield of the new land
obtained, say 3 per cent. of the area adjusted. The consent of half
the owners is required for adjustment.

[70] Once when a friend in Tokyo had trouble with her servants a maid
informed her that the house was unlucky because a certain necessary
apartment faced the wrong point of the compass.

[71] In the whole of Japan by 1919 two million and a half acres had
been adjusted or were in course of adjustment.

[72] The rent is usually 57 per cent. of the rice harvest in the
paddies and 44 per cent. (in cash or kind) of the crops on the
non-paddy land. Any crop raised in the paddies between the harvesting
of one rice crop and the planting out of the next belongs to the
farmer. (All taxes and rates are paid by the landlord, and amount to
from 30 to 33 per cent. of the rent.) The area under paddy and the
area of upland under cultivation are almost equal.

[73] See Appendix XIX.

[74] See Appendix XX.

[75] In 1920 there were 38,922,437 males and 38,083,073 females.

[76] See Appendix XXI.

[77] See Appendix XXII.

[78] The harvest extends from mid-September in the north of Japan to
the end of October or beginning of November in the south. The harvest
is taken early in the north for fear of frost.

[79] The "210th day" (counted from the beginning of spring), when
flowering commences, is so critical a period that the weather
conditions during the twenty-four hours in every prefecture are
reported to the Emperor.

CHAPTER IX

THE RICE BOWL, THE GODS AND THE NATION

I thank whatever gods there be....--HENLEY

I

How many people who have not been in the East or in the rice trade
realise that rice, in the course of the polishing it receives from the
farmer and the dealer, loses nearly half its bulk? A necessary part of
the grain is lost. No wonder that sensible people in Japan and the
West demand the grey unpolished r