just making ends meet. Another 40 per cent. were always
dogged by poverty. Millet was the food of 10 per cent. of the farmers;
millet, salted vegetables and bean soup were the meagre diet of 5 per
cent; the staple food of the remainder was barley and rice. There are
few temples in Iwate compared with the rest of Japan. "Education is
more backward than in other prefectures," someone said. "The farmers
are not able. Too much _sake_ is drunk." Farmers come in to Morioka to
sell charcoal and wood and I saw some of them turning into the _sake_
shops.

There was talk in praise of millet. Though low socially in the dietary
of Japan, it has merits. It withstands cold and even salt spray. It
ripens earlier than rice and so may sometimes be harvested before a
spell of bad weather. It yields well, it will store for some time, its
taste is "little inferior to rice and better than that of barley" and
it contains more protein than rice. It is cooked after slight
polishing and the straw provides fodder. "In the north-east, where
millet is most eaten," I was told, "there are people who are 5 ft. 10
ins. to 6 ft. and there are many wrestlers." The seeds in the handsome
heavy ears of millet are about the size of the letter O in the
footnote type of this book.

In the train a farmer who knew the prefecture spoke of _Bon_ songs
and dances: "The result of the action against them was not good. The
meeting of young men and women at the _Bon_ gatherings was in their
minds half the year in prospect and half in retrospect. Bearing in
mind the condition of the people, even the worst _Bon_ songs are not
objectionable. But when the people become educated some songs will be
objectionable."

Visitors to a poor prefecture like Miyagi must be surprised to see so
much adjusted paddy. There is more adjusted paddy in Miyagi than in
any other prefecture. Some 90,000 acres have been taken in hand and a
large amount of money has been spent. The work has been carried out
largely by way of giving wages to farmers during famine. A new tunnel
brought water to 6,000 acres. "The bad climate of Miyagi cannot be
mended," I was told; "all that can be done is to seek for the earliest
varieties of rice, to sow early, to work as diligently as possible and
to deal with floods by embanking the rivers and by tree planting." As
many as 7,000 people go from Miyagi to Hokkaido in a year. It seems to
point to a certain amount of fecklessness that 15 per cent. of them
retur