t that the men put on heavy woolens, and the women pile on cotton
padding until they look almost like walking feather beds.

True as are the things that I have said in this article, I fear that
my average reader would get a very gloomy and false conception of
Japanese farm life if I should stop here. The truth is that, so far as
my observation goes, I have seen nothing to indicate that the rural
population of Japan is not now as happy as the rural population in
America. If their possessions are few, so are their wants. In fact.
Dr. Juichi Soyeda, one of the country's leading men, in talking to me,
expressed a doubt as to whether the new civilization of Japan will
really produce greater average happiness than the old rural seclusion
and isolation (a doubt, however, which I do not share). "Our farm
people," he said, "are hard-working, frugal, honest, cheerful, and
while their possessions are small, there is little actual want among
them. A greater {27} number than in most other countries are
home-owners, and, altogether, they form the backbone of an empire."

Doctor Soyeda went on to give a noteworthy illustration of the
affection of the people for their home farms. "The Japanese," he said,
"have a term of contempt for the man who sells an old homestead."
There is no English word equivalent to it, but it means "a seller of
the ancestral land," and to say it of a man is almost equivalent to
reflecting upon his character or honor! I wish that we might develop
in America such a spirit of affection for our farm homes.

I wish, too, that we might develop the Japanese love of the beautiful
in nature. No matter how small and cramped the yard about the tiny
home here, you are almost sure to find the beauty of shrub and tree
and neatly trimmed hedge, and in Tokyo the whole population looks
forward with connoisseur-like enthusiasm to the season for wistaria
blooms in earliest spring, to the cherry blossom season in April, to
lotus-time in mid-summer, and to the chrysanthemum shows in the fall.
The fame of Tokyo's cherry blossoms has already gone around the world,
and thus they not only add to the pleasure of its citizens, but give
the city a distinction of no small financial advantage as well.

Why may not our civic improvement associations, women's clubs, etc.,
get an idea here for our American towns? A long avenue of beautiful
trees along a road or street, even if trees without blossoms, would
give distinction to any small vil