important that those days are called the "women's daimio days," and adds that we must not forget how during that time the regular work of the women must also go on, for they must cook the food and care for the children. For this, indeed, young girls and grandmothers are pressed into service as far as possible, but the responsibility and care rest nevertheless on the wives and mothers. [Illustration: SEPARATING THE WHEAT HEADS FROM THE STRAW AT THE LOOM] Also in the harvesting and threshing of the rice, barley, wheat, and millet, women take an important part. But it is needless to enter into details. Enough to say that, in general farming, women share with husbands and brothers the heavy toil and fatigue of agriculture. It should be added that this is not because men shirk heavy work, but only because Japanese agriculture is so largely done by hand that every possible worker is pressed into service. As a fact, men do the heaviest part of the work, preparing the soil for the successive crops and carrying the heavy loads. So varied are the modes of agriculture in different parts of Japan that general statements are dangerous, but I know that in some districts the weariness and drudgery of rice-planting and puddling are relieved by the singing or chanting of old folk-songs. The chorus leader intones a descriptive phrase, oftentimes improvising his own story, and is answered with a refrain from a dozen or a score of women. A story slowly evolves as the hours pass, and thus the work is lightened and the time beguiled. In spite of fatigue, rice-planting has its charm for those who have been reared in farmers' homes. It is a time of hope, of social intercourse, of rest days and festivals, so that even the drudgery of the farmer has its compensations. Miss Denton, of the Doshisha Girls' School, says it is interesting to note how country girls get restless at rice-planting time, and for one reason or another usually succeed in getting excused from school work, to be off to the homes and share in the toils and joys of the season. Tea-picking is probably the pleasantest form of toil undertaken by farmers' wives and daughters. The labor comes in the spring and early summer, when the temperature is delightful. It gives opportunity for social intercourse that is highly appreciated. Rice-planting and tea-picking constitute the two extremes of laborious and delightful toil engaged in by Japan's agricultural women. How many are the women engaged in agriculture? The _Japan Year Book_ for 1914 says that in 1912 there were 5,438,051 farming families, constituting about 58 per cent. of the entire nation. According to the _Résumé Statistique_ for 1914 the total number of females in Japan proper, in 1908, was 24,542,383. Omitting those under fifteen years of age, 8,364,000, and those over sixty years of age, 2,216,000, we have 13,962,000 as the number of able-bodied women, of whom 58 per cent., or 8,077,000, are the farmers' wives and daughters.