ners were ever reconciled, someone
reminded me of the phrase, "water splashing quarrels," that is
disputes in which each side blames the other without getting any
farther forward. To take an unfair advantage in controversy is to draw
water into one's own paddy. The equivalent for "pouring water on a
duck's back" is "flinging water in a frog's face." A Western European
is always astonished in Japan by the lung power of Far Eastern frogs.
The noise is not unlike the bleating of lambs.

Every now and again one comes on a fragrant bed of lotus in its paddy
field. It seems odd at first that lotus--and burdock--should be
cultivated for food. As a pickle burdock is eatable, but lotus and
some unfamiliar tuberous plants are pleasant food resembling in
flavour boiled chestnuts. _Konnyaku_ (_hydrosme rivieri_), a near
relative of the arum lily, is produced to the weight of 11 million
_kwan_--a _kwan_ is roughly 8-1/4 lbs.[40] The yield of burdock is
about 44 million _kwan_. The chief of all vegetables is the giant
radish, of which 7-1/4 million _kwan_ are grown. Taro yields about 150
million _kwan_. Foreigners usually like the young sprouts taken from
the roots of the bamboo, a favourite Japanese vegetable.

This is as convenient a place as any to speak of an important
agricultural fact, the enormous amount of filth worked into the
paddies. As is well known, hardly any of the night soil of Japan is
wasted. Japanese agriculture depends upon it. Formerly the night soil
was removed from the houses after being emptied into a pair of tubs
which the peasant carried from a yoke. Such yoke-carried tubs are
still seen, but are chiefly employed in carrying the substance to the
paddies. The tubs which are taken to dwellings are now mostly borne on
light two-wheeled handcarts which carry sometimes four and sometimes
six. A farmer will push or pull his manure cart from a town ten or
twelve miles off. It is difficult to leave or enter a town without
meeting strings of manure carts. The men who haul the carts get
together for company on their tedious journey. They seem insensible to
the concentrated odour. Often the wife or son or daughter may be seen
pushing behind a cart. There is a certain amount of transportation by
horse-drawn frame carts, carrying a dozen or sixteen tubs, and by
boats. I was told of a city of half a million inhabitants which had
thirty per cent. of its night soil taken ten miles away. The work was
undertaken by a co-ope