n the ground is at once prepared for the wet crop,
to be harvested in October or thereabouts. Land-tax is payable in two
instalments. Rice land pays between the 1st November and the middle of
December and the 1st January and the last of February. Other land pays
between July and August and September and December. Let us see what the
average yield is. The gentleman in the sun-hat and the loin-cloth would
shriek at the figures, but they are approximately accurate. Rice
naturally fluctuates a good deal, but it may be taken in the rough at
five Japanese dollars (fifteen shillings) per _koku_ of 330 lbs. Wheat
and maize of the first spring crop is worth about eleven shillings per
_koku_. The first crop gives nearly 1-3/4 _koku_ per _tau_ (the quarter
acre unit of measurement aforesaid), or eighteen shillings per quarter
acre, or L3:12s. per acre. The rice crop at two _koku_ or L1:10s. the
quarter acre gives L6 an acre. Total L9:12s. This is not altogether bad
if you reflect that the land in question is not the very best rice land,
but ordinary No. 1, at L25:16s. per acre, capital value.

A son has the right to inherit his father's land on the father's
assessment, so long as its term runs, or, when the term has expired, has
a prior claim as against any one else. Part of the taxes, it is said,
lies by in the local prefecture's office as a reserve fund against
inundations. Yet, and this seems a little confusing, there are between
five and seven other local, provincial, and municipal taxes which can
reasonably be applied to the same ends. No one of these taxes exceeds a
half of the land-tax, unless it be the local prefecture tax of 2-1/2 per
cent.

In the old days the people were taxed, or perhaps squeezed would be the
better word, to about one-half of the produce of the land. There are
those who may say that the present system is not so advantageous as it
looks. Beforetime, the farmers, it is true, paid heavily, but only, on
their nominal holdings. They could, and often did, hold more land than
they were assessed on. Today a rigid bureaucracy surveys every foot of
their farms, and upon every foot they have to pay. Somewhat similar
complaints are made still by the simple peasantry of India, for if there
is one thing that the Oriental detests more than another, it is the
damnable Western vice of accuracy. That leads to doing things by rule.
Still, by the look of those terraced fields, where the water is led so
cunningly from lev