d no more
vivid impression of the triumphs of agricultural hydraulic
engineering. We were seven minutes in passing through one tunnel at a
high elevation.

I spoke in the train with a man who had a dozen _cho_ under grapes, 20
per cent. being European varieties and 80 per cent. American. He said
that some of the people in his district were "very poor." Some farmers
had made money in sericulture too quickly for it to do them good. He
volunteered the opinion, in contrast with the statement made to me
during our journey to Niigata, that the people of the plains were
morally superior to the people of the mountains. The reason he gave
was that "there are many recreations in the plains whereas in the
mountains there is only one." In most of the mountain villages he knew
three-quarters of the young men had relations with women, mostly with
the girls of the village or the adjoining village. He would not make
the same charge against more than ten per cent. of the young men of
the plains, and "it is after all with teahouse girls." He thought that
there were "too many temples and too many sects, so the priests are
starved."

An itinerant agricultural instructor in sericulture who joined in our
conversation was not much concerned by the plight of the priests. "The
causes of goodness in our people," he said, "are family tradition and
home training. Candidly, we believe our morals are not so bad on the
whole. We are now putting most stress on economic development. How to
maintain their families is the question that troubles people most.
With that question unsolved it is preaching to a horse to preach
morality. We can always find high ideals and good leaders when
economic conditions improve. The development of morality is our final
aim, but it is encouraged for six years at the primary school. The
child learns that if it does bad things it will be laughed at and
despised by the neighbours and scolded by its parents. We are busy
with the betterment of economic conditions and questions about
morality and religion puzzle us."

When I reached Matsumoto I met a rural dignitary who deplored the
increasing tendency of city men to invest in rural property.
"Sometimes when a peasant sells his land he sets up as a
money-lender." I was told that nearly every village had a sericultural
co-operative association, which bought manures, mulberry trees and
silk-worm eggs, dried cocoons and hatched eggs for its members and
spent money on the destr