lievers to cultivate together in their spare time about three acres
of land. His object was to associate religion and agriculture and so
to dignify farming in the eyes of young men. He also wished to provide
an object lesson in the results of good cultivation. The profits
proved to be, as he anticipated, so considerable as to leave a balance
after defraying the cost of the social gathering. The headman
prevailed on the cultivators to keep accurate accounts and they made
plain some unexpected truths: as for example, that a _tan_ of paddy
did not need the labour of a man for more than twenty-three days of
ten hours, and that the net income from such an area was a little more
than 16 yen, and that thus the return for a day's labour was 73 sen.
It was demonstrated, therefore, that labour was recompensed very well,
and that instead of farming being "the most unprofitable of
industries"--for in Japan as in the West there are sinners against the
light who say this--it was reasonably profitable.

But if rice called for only twenty-three days' labour per
_tan_--nearly all the farmers' land was paddy--and the whole holding
numbered only a few _tan_, it was also plain that there were many days
in the year when the farmer was not fully employed. From this it was
easy to proceed to the conviction that the available time should be
utilised either in secondary employments, or in, say, draining, which
would reduce the quantity of manure needed on the land. So the farmers
began to think about drainage and the means of economising labour.
They began to realise how time was wasted owing to most farmers
working not only scattered, but irregularly shaped pieces of land. So
the rice lands were adjusted, and everybody was found to have a trifle
more land than he held before, and the fields were better watered and
more easily cultivated. Only from sixteen to seventeen days' labour
instead of twenty-three were now needed per _tan_[184] and the crops
were increased. There is now no exodus from this progressive village.

Concerning his blindness the headman said that it was more profitable
for him to hear than to see, for by sight "energy might be diverted."
He had recited in every prefecture his personal experience of rural
reform. He asserted that while conditions varied in every prefecture,
there was, generally speaking, labour on the land for no more than 200
days in the year. He deplored the disappearance of some home
employments. He did no