oldings. I noticed here that the round,
carefully concreted manure tank which each farmer possessed had a
reinforced concrete hood. I asked a landowner who was in a comfortable
position what societies there were in his village. He mentioned a
society "to console old people and reward virtue." Then there was the
society of householders, such as is mentioned in Confucius, which met
in the spring and autumn, and ate and drank and discussed local
topics "with open heart." There were sometimes quarrels due to
_sake_. Indeed, some villagers seemed to save up their differences
until the householders' meeting at its _sake_ stage. At householders'
meetings where there was no _sake_ peace appeared to prevail. The
householders' meeting was a kind of informal village assembly. That
assembly itself ordinarily met twice a year. There were in the
village, in addition to the householders' organisation, the usual
reservists' association, the young men's society and agricultural
association. As to _ko_, from philanthropic motives my informant was a
member of no fewer than ten.

My host told me that he spent a good deal of time in playing _go_, but
in the shooting season (October 15 to April 15) he made trips to the
hills and shot pheasants, hares, pigeons and deer. In the garden of
his house two gardeners were stretched along the branches of a pine
tree, nimbly and industriously picking out the shoots in order to get
that bare appearance which has no doubt puzzled many a Western student
of Japanese tree pictures. Each man's ladder--two lengths of bamboo
with rungs tied on with string--was carefully leant against a pole
laid from the ground through the branches. Many of the well-cared-for
trees in the gardens and public places of Japan pass the winter in
neat wrappings of straw.

I visited a farm-house and found the farmer making baskets. When I was
examining the winnowing machine my companion reminded me smilingly
that when he was a boy he was warned never to turn the wheel of the
winnowing machine when the contrivance had no grain in it or a demon
might come out. There was a properly protected tank of liquid manure
and a well-roofed manure house. The family bath in an open shed was of
a sort I had not seen before, a kind of copper with a step up to it.
Straw rope about three-quarters of an inch in diameter was being made
by the farmer's son, a day's work being 40 yds. At another farm a
woman showed me the working of a rough loom with