Farmers of Forty Centuries; Or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and JapanKing, F. H. (Franklin Hiram)
Science
Farmers of Forty Centuries; Or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and Japan
King, F. H. (Franklin Hiram)
Agriculture -- China; Agriculture -- Japan; Agriculture -- Korea
At many places along the way as we left Shizuoka July 10th for
Tokyo, farmers were sowing broadcast, on the water, over their rice
fields, some pulverized fertilizer, possibly bean cake. Near the
railway station of Fuji, and after crossing the boulder gravel bed
of the Fujikawa which was a full quarter of a mile wide, we were
traversing a broad plain of rice paddies with their raised tables,
but on them pear orchards were growing, trained to their overhead
trellises. About. Suduzuka grass was being cut with sickles along
the canal dikes for use as green manure in the rice fields, which on
the left of the railway, stretched eastward more than six miles to
beyond Hara where we passed into a tract of dry land crops
consisting of mulberry, tea and various vegetables, with more or
less of dry land rice, but we returned to the paddy land again at
Numazu, in another four miles. Here there were four carloads of beef
cattle destined for Tokyo or Yokohama, the first we had seen.
It was at this station that the railway turns northward to skirt the
eastern flank of the beautiful Fuji-yama, rising to higher lands of
a brown loamy character, showing many large boulders two feet in
diameter. Horses were here moving along the roadways under large
saddle loads of green grass, going to the paddy fields from the
hills, which in this section are quite free from all but herbaceous
growth, well covered and green. Considerable areas were growing
maize and buckwheat, the latter being ground into flour and made
into macaroni which is eaten with chopsticks, Fig. 243, and used to
give variety to the diet of rice and naked barley. At Gotenba, where
tourists leave the train to ascend Fuji-yama, the road turns
eastward again and descends rapidly through many tunnels, crossing
the wide gravelly channel of the Sakawagawa, then carrying but
little water, like all of the other main streams we had crossed,
although we were in the rainy season. This was partly because the
season was yet not far advanced; partly because so much water was
being taken upon the rice fields, and again because the drainage is
so rapid down the steep slopes and comparatively short water
courses. Beyond Yamakita the railway again led along a broad plain
set in paddy rice and the hill slopes were terraced and cultivated
nearly to their summits.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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