He works seven
days a week, for he knows nothing of the Sabbath, and only takes a day
off for a fair or a festival when his land is in perfect order and he is
waiting for the crop.
Almost the whole of the land is turned over with the spade, and weeds are
kept down until the whole country looks like a neatly-kept garden. Many
crops are grown, but the chief of them all is rice, and when the rice crop
fails, then vast numbers of people in Japan feel the pinch of famine.
In order to grow rice much water is needed, so the fields are flooded from
a river or canal near at hand, and the plants are set in the soft mud. This
work is carried out by men or women who wade in slush above their knees,
and it is a very dirty and toilsome task. The women tuck their kimonos up,
and the men cast theirs aside altogether. After planting, this work in deep
slush and clinging mud must be repeated three times in order to clear away
the water-weeds which grow thickly around the young rice-plants.
When the rice is nearly ripe the water is drawn off and the fields are
dried. The fields are of all sizes and shapes, from a patch of a few square
yards up to an acre, and the latter would be considered large. There
are no hedges or fences to divide off field from field, for the land is
too valuable to permit of such being grown; but the boundaries are well
understood, and each farmer knows his own patch.
Another important crop is the plants which are grown for making paper.
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