WRITTEN]

The whole area of the _oaza_ is officially recorded as 800 _cho_, but
the real area may be double, or even more than that. About 40 per
cent. is cultivated either as paddy or as dry land. The remaining 60
per cent., from which 18 _cho_ may be deducted for house land, is
under grass and wood. Half of this grass and woodland belongs to the
_oaza_ and half to private persons. The grass is mostly couch grass
and weeds. In places there is a certain amount of clover and vetch. Of
the 200 families, numbering about 1,700 people, less than a dozen are
tenants. Of the others, a third cultivate their own land and hire
some more. The remaining two-thirds cultivate their own land and hire
none. The outstanding crop beyond rice is mulberry. A considerable
amount of millet and buckwheat is also grown.

The village is obviously well off. The signs are: successful
sericulture, the large quantity of rice eaten, the number of
well-looking horses (the millet seems to be grown largely for them,
but they also receive beans and wheat boiled), the fact that no
attempt is made to collect the considerable amount of horse manure on
the roads, the cared-for appearance of the temple and shrines, the
almost complete absence of tea-houses, the ease with which new land
may be obtained and the contented look of the people.

One does not expect to find in a remote and wholly Buddhist village
many other animals than horses, and in this community the additional
live stock consists of ten goats (kept for giving milk for invalids),
two pigs and a number of poultry. A working horse over four years was
worth 150 yen. The value of land[196] is to be considered in relation
to local standards of value. It is doubtful if the priest, who seemed
to be comfortably off, is in receipt of more than 250 yen a year. The
midwife, who belongs to the oldest family and has been trained in
Tokyo, gets from 2 to 2-1/2 yen per case. As new land is always
available on the hillsides there is very little emigration to the
towns, but twenty girls are working in the factories in the big
silk-reeling centre twelve miles off. The hillside land which is owned
by the village is not sold but rented to those who want it. To make
new paddies is primarily a question of having enough capital with
which to buy the artificial manure required for the crops.

I was given to understand that no one in the village was poor enough
to need public help, but that the school fees of twelve