[156] In a pre-War publication of the United States Department of
Commerce it was stated that the cost of cotton mills per spindle is in
England _32s._, in the United States _44s._, in Germany _52s._, and in
Japan _100s._

[Illustration: ARCHERY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. p. 158]

[Illustration: CULTIVATION OF THE HILLSIDE. p. 148]

[Illustration: RAILWAY STATION "BENTO" BOX (OPEN) AND POT OF TEA WITH
CUP. p. 110 The _bento_ box provides rice, meat, fish, omelette and
assorted pickles; also paper napkin and _hashi_ (chop-sticks) and
(between them) a toothpick.]

FROM TOKYO TO THE NORTH BY THE
WEST COAST

CHAPTER XX

"THE GARDEN WHERE VIRTUES ARE CULTIVATED"

(FUKUSHIMA AND YAMAGATA)

BOSWELL: If you should advise me to go to Japan I believe I should.
JOHNSON: Why yes, Sir, I am serious.

In one of my journeys I went from Tokyo to the extreme north of Japan,
travelling up the west coast and down the east. Fukushima
prefecture--in which is Shirakawa, famous for a horse fair which lasts
a week--encourages the eating of barley, for on the northern half of
the east coast of Japan there is no warm current and the rice crop may
be lost in a cold season. "Officials of the prefecture and county,"
someone said to me, "take barley themselves; enthusiastic _guncho_
take it gladly."

The prefectural station, by selecting the best varieties of rice for
sowing, had effected a 10 per cent. improvement in yield. In each
county an official "agricultural encourager" had been appointed. The
lectures given at the experiment station were attended by 18,000
persons. The studious who listen to the lectures had formed an
association that provided at the station a fine building where supper,
bed, breakfast and lunch cost 30 sen. It contained a model of the Ise
shrine with a motto in the handwriting of a well-known Tokyo
agricultural professor, "Difficulties Polish You."

"Some villagers," said a local authority, "want to make the Buddhist
temple the centre of the development of village life. In several
places agricultural products are exhibited at Shinto shrines. Farmers
offer them out of a kind of piety, but the products are afterwards
criticised from a technical point of view. This is done on the
initiative of the villagers encouraged by the prefecture."

Hereabouts the winter work of the people, in addition to basket, rope
and mat making, was paper making and smoothing out the wrinkles of
tobacco.[157] A considerabl