6. Formerly the farmer had not the expense of education and of losing the services of his sons to the army. There is also an increase in taxation. A representative family which incurred a public expenditure, not including education, of 12.86 yen in 1890, paid in 1898 19.68 yen. In 1908 it was faced by a claim for 34.28 yen.[58] 7. Although the area of land does not increase in relation to the increase of population, the size of the peasant family is increasing owing to the decrease of infanticide and abortion and the development of sanitation. 8. The farmer suffers from debts at high interest. 9. The character, morality and ability of the farmer are not yet fully developed. 10. Formerly the farmer lived an economically self-contained existence. He had no great need of money. He must now sell his produce on a market with wider and wider fluctuations. 11. There are many expensive customs and habits, for instance the two or three days' feasting at weddings and funerals. During the evening I was told this story. In a village in a far part of the prefecture there lived a farmer called Yosōgi. He was a thrifty and diligent man. When he became old he gave all that he had to his son. But the old man could not stop working. He would go to the farm and help his son. The son did not like this. He wanted his old father to rest. In the end he found that the only way to cope with his industrious parent was to work very hard and leave him nothing to do. But the old man was not to be balked. He took himself off to the hillside and began to make a paddy field where there had never been a paddy field before. To make a paddy field on such a slope is a difficult task. The land must be embanked with stones and then levelled. The building of the strong embankment alone calls for much labour. The old man toiled very hard at his job and sometimes his son in despair sent his labourers to help him. At length the paddy field was finished. But it was only a tenth of a _tan_ in area. When the son saw the small result of so much labour he said to his father, "I grieve for the way you have toiled. You have laboured hard for many days and my labourers have helped you, but all that has been accomplished is the making of a paddy field so small and distant that it is uneconomical."