At many of the railway stations there were stacks of large, round, flat bean cakes, for the farmer feeds his "cake" to his fields direct, not through the medium of cattle. Although a paddy receives less agreeable nutritive materials than bean cake, the extensive use of this cake must be comforting to a little school of rural reformers in the West. These ardent vegetarians have refused to listen to the allegation that vegetarianism was impossible because without meat-eating there would be no cattle and therefore no nitrogen for the fields. It was not only the bean cakes at the stations which caught my attention but the extensive use of lime. Square miles of paddy field were white with powdered lime, scattered before the planting of the rice, an operation which in the higher altitudes would not be finished until well on in July. A contented and prosperous countryside was no doubt the impression reflected to many passengers in the train that sunny day. But I knew how closely pressed the farmers had been by the rise in prices of many things that they had got into the way of needing. I had learnt, too, the part that superstition[137] as well as simple faith played in the lives of the country folk. When, however, I pondered the way in which the rural districts had been increasingly invaded by factories run under the commercial sanctions of our eighteen-forties, I asked myself whether there might not be superstitions of the economic world as well as of religious and social life. I heard a Japanese speak of being well treated at inns in the old days for 20 sen a night. It should be remembered, however, that there is a system not only of tipping inn servants but of tipping the inn. The gift to the inn is called _chadai_ and guests are expected to offer a sum which has some relation to their position and means and the food and treatment they expect. I have stayed at inns where I have paid as much _chadai_ as bill. To pay 50 per cent. of the bill as _chadai_ is common. The idea behind _chadai_ is that the inn-keeper charges only his out-of-pocket expenses and that therefore the guest naturally desires to requite him. In acknowledgment of _chadai_ the inn-keeper brings a gift to the guest at his departure--fans, pottery, towels, picture postcards, fruit or slabs of stiff acidulated fruit jelly (in one inn of grapes and in another of plums) laid between strips of maize leaf. The right time to give _chadai_ is on entering the hotel, after the "welcome tea." In handing money to any person in Japan, except a porter or a _kurumaya_, the cash or notes are wrapped in paper.