that there were 3 or 4 per cent. of farm
labourers who earned less than 150 yen. There had been much paddy
adjustment and the prefecture was spending 300,000 yen a year for the
encouragement of adjustment and the opening of new paddies. In the
case of newly opened fields, tenants had contracts, but ordinary
tenancies were by word of mouth generation after generation. A great
deal of agricultural instruction was given by the prefecture, the
counties and the villages, and in 30 years the rice crop had been
doubled although the area had remained about the same. In order to
secure help in the work of rural amelioration a gathering of Buddhist
priests and another of Shinto priests had been lectured to at the
prefectural office. Nearly 300,000 yen had been spent in twelve months
on afforestation. The following year a special effort was to be made
to spend 500,000 yen. A society raised young trees and sold them at
cheap rates to farmers. Every young men's association in the
prefecture had land and had planted trees. It was in Akita that I
first saw peat in Japan. There are said to be 7,000 acres of it in the
country.

The prefecture of Aomori forms the northern tip of the mainland. Apart
from its enormous forest area and the railroad stacks of sawn lumber,
what caught my eye were the apple orchards and the number of farmers
on horseback or seated in wagons. Who that has been in Japan has not a
memory of narrow winding roads along which men and women and young
people are pulling and pushing carts? Here many farming folk rode. I
was told that Akita produced apples and potatoes to the value of a
million yen each and that there were ten co-operative apple societies.
Much of the fruit went to Russia.

Having passed through the city of Aomori we started to come down the
east coast. An agricultural authority said that the net profit of a
dry farm, that is a farm without any paddy, was almost negligible.
Because of low prices, cattle keeping had decreased to half what it
used to be. (The only cattle I saw from the train were on the road
with harness on their backs.) Only 18 yen could be got for a
two-year-old; the Aomori cattle were indeed the cheapest in Japan. The
expert added, "There are no buyers; only robbers."

But the dealers were not the only robbers. Boats came from Hokkaido
and stole cattle from the prefecture to the number of a hundred a
year. Sometimes horses were taken too, but horse thefts were rare
"because you can