The gathering discussed the question of rural morality. As to the relations of the young men and women of the villages, to which there has necessarily been frequent references in these pages, the reader must always bear in mind the way in which the sexes are normally kept apart under the influence of tradition. In nothing does this Japanese countryside differ more noticeably from our own than in the fact that joyous young couples are never seen arming each other along the road of an evening. Thousands of allusions in our rural songs and poetry, innumerable scenes in our genre pictures, speak of blissful hours of which Japan gives no sign. There is no courting; there are in the public view no "random fits of dallin'." An unmarried young man and young woman do not walk and talk together. A young man and woman who were together of an evening would be suspected of immorality. Even when married they would not think of linking arms on the road. I was a beholder of a family reunion at a railway station in which a young wife met her young husband returned from abroad. There were merely repeated bows and many smiles. The view taken of kissing in Japan is shown by the fact that an issue of a Tokyo periodical was prohibited by the police because it contained an allusion to it. We are helped to understand the Japanese standpoint a little if we remember how repugnant to English and American ideas is the Continental custom of men kissing one another. Kissing is understood by the Japanese to be a sexual act, as is shown by their word for it. Early in November in the neighbourhood of Tokyo, where three crops are taken in the year and sometimes four or five, I found between the rows of growing winter barley two lines of green stuff which would be cleared off as the barley rose. The barley was sown in clumps of two dozen or even thirty plants, each clump being about a foot apart, and liberally treated with liquid manure. In Saitama 100 bushels per acre has been produced by a good farmer. The clump method of sowing is believed to afford greater protection against the weather. (Outside the volcanic-soil area ordinary sowing in rows is common.) The volcanic soil, as one sees in spots where excavations have been made, is originally light yellow. The humus introduced by the liberal applications of manure has made it black.