they are so bad that rice is at half
the price it makes in Sapporo. It is unfortunate that the roads are at
their worst in autumn and spring when the farmer wants to transport
his produce.

I visited the 700-acre settlement which Mr. Tomeoka has opened in
connection with his Tokyo institution for the reclamation of young
wastrels. His formula is, "Feed them well, work them hard and give
them enough sleep." Among the volumes on his shelves there were three
books about Tolstoy and another three, one English, one American and
one German, all bearing the same title, _The Social Question_.
Needless to say that _Self-Help_ had its place.

I liked Mr. Tomeoka's idea of an open-air chapel on a tree-shaded
height from which there was a fine view. It reminded me of the view
from an open space on rising ground near the famous Danish rural high
school of Askov, from which, on Sundays, parties of excursionists used
to look down enviously on Slesvig and irritate the Germans by singing
Danish national songs. Mr. Tomeoka believed in better houses and
better food for farmers and in money raised by means of the _ko_--"the
rules and regulations of co-operative societies are too complicated
for farmers to understand."

I saw the huts of some settlers who had weathered their first Hokkaido
winter. Buckwheat, scratched in in open spaces among the trees, was
the chief crop. The huts consisted of one room. Most of the floor was
raised above the ground and covered with rough straw matting. In the
centre of the platform was the usual fire-hole. The walls were matting
and brushwood. I was assured that "the snow and good fires, for which
there is unlimited fuel, keep the huts warm."

The railway winds through high hills and makes sharp curves and steep
ascents and descents. There are tracts of rolling country under rough
grass. Sometimes these areas have been cleared by forest fires
started by lightning. Wide spaces are a great change from the scenery
of closely farmed Japan. The thing that makes the hillsides different
from our wilder English and Scottish hillsides is that there are
neither sheep nor cattle on them.

When the culpable destruction of timber in Hokkaido is added to what
has been lost by forest fires, due to lightning or to accident--one
conflagration was more than 200 acres in extent--it is easy to realise
that the rivers are bringing far more water and detritus from the
hills than they ought to do and are preparing flood pro