We passed men and bullocks coming from the hill lands loaded with this green herbage and as we proceeded towards Fusan more and more of the hill area was being made to contribute materials for green manure for the cultivated fields. The foreground of Fig. 211 had been thus treated and so had the field in Fig. 212, where the man was engaged in tramping the dressing beneath the surface. In very many cases this material was laid along the margin of the paddies; in other cases it had been taken upon the fields as soon as the grain was cut and was lying in piles among the bundles; while in still other cases the material for green manure had been carried between the rows while the grain was still standing, but nearly ready to harvest. In some fields a full third of a bushel of the green stuff had been laid down at intervals of three feet over the whole area. In other cases piles of ashes alternated with those of herbage, and again manure and ashes mixed had been distributed in alternate piles with the green manure.
In still other cases we saw untreated straw distributed through the fields awaiting application. At Shindo this, straw had the appearance of having been dipped in or smeared with some mixture, apparently of mud and ashes or possibly of some compost which had been worked into a thin paste with water.
After passing Keizan, mountain herbage had been brought down from the hills in large bales on cleverly constructed racks saddled to the backs of bullocks, and in one field we saw a man who had just come to his little field with an enormous load borne upon his easel-like packing appliance. Thus we find the Koreans also adopting the rice crop, which yields heavily under conditions of abundant water; we find them supplementing a heavy summer rainfall with water from their hills, and bringing to their fields besides both green herbage for humus and organic matter, and ashes derived from the fuel coming also from the hills, in these ways making good the unavoidable losses, through intense cropping.
The amount of forest growth in Korea, as we saw it, in proximity to the cultivated valleys, is nowhere large and is fairly represented in Figs. 210, 213 and 214. There were clear evidences of periodic cutting and considerable, amounts of cordwood split from timber a foot through were being brought to the stations on the backs of cattle. In some places there was evident and occasionally very serious soil erosion, as may be seen in Fig. 214, one such region being passed just before reaching Kinusan, but generally the hills are well rounded and covered with a low growth of shrubs and herbaceous plants.
Southernmost Korea has the latitude of the northern boundary of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, while the northeast corner attains that of Madison, Wisconsin, and the northern boundary of Nebraska, the country thus spanning some nine degrees and six hundred miles of latitude. It has an area of some 82,000 square miles, about equaling the state of Minnesota, but much of its surface is occupied by steep hill and mountain land. The rainy season had not yet set in, June 23rd. Wheat and the small grains were practically all harvested southward of Seoul and the people were everywhere busy with their flails threshing in the open, about the dwellings or in the fields, four flails often beating together on the same lot of grain. As we journeyed southward the valleys and the fields became wider and more extensive, and the crops, as well as the cultural methods, were clearly much better.
Neither the foot-power, animal-power, nor the wooden chain pump of the Chinese were observed in Korea in use for lifting water, but we saw many instances of the long handled, spoonlike swinging scoop hung over the water by a cord from tall tripods, after the manner seen in Fig. 215, each operated by one man and apparently with high efficiency for low lifts. Two instances also were observed of the form of lift seen in Fig. 173, where the man walks the circumference of the wheel, so commonly observed in Japan. Much hemp was being grown in southern Korea but everywhere on very small isolated areas which flecked the landscape with the deepest green, each little field probably representing the crop of a single family.
It was 6:30 P. M. when our train reached Fusan after a hot and dusty ride. The service had been good and fairly comfortable but the ice-water tanks of American trains were absent, their place being supplied by cooled bottled waters of various brands, including soda-water, sold by Japanese boys at nearly every important station. Close connection was made by trains with steamers to and from Japan and we went directly on board the Iki Maru which was to weigh anchor for Moji and Shimonoseki at 8 P. M. Although small, the steamer was well equipped, providing the best of service. We were fortunate in having a smooth passage, anchoring at 6:30 the next morning and making close connection with the train for Nagasaki, landing at the wharf with the aid of a steam launch.
Our ride by train through the island of Kyushu carried us through scenes not widely different from those we had just left. The journey was continuously among fields of rice, with Korean features strongly marked but usually under better and more intensified culture, and the season, too, was a little more advanced. Here the plowing was being done mostly with horses instead of the heavy bullocks so exclusively employed in Korea. Coming from China into Korea, and from there into Japan, it appeared very clear that in agricultural methods and appliances the Koreans and Japanese are more closely similar than the Chinese and Koreans, and the more we came to see of the Japanese methods the more strongly the impression became fixed that the Japanese had derived their methods either from the Koreans or the Koreans had taken theirs more largely from Japan than from China.
It was on this ride from Moji to Nagasaki that we were introduced to the attractive and very satisfactory manner of serving lunches to travelers on the trains in Japan. At important stations hot tea is brought to the car windows in small glazed, earthenware teapots provided with cover and bail, and accompanied with a teacup of the same ware. The set and contents could be purchased for five sen, two and a half cents, our currency. All tea is served without milk or sugar. The lunches were very substantial and put together in a neat sanitary manner in a three-compartment wooden box, carefully made from clear lumber joined with wooden pegs and perfect joints. Packed in the cover we found a paper napkin, toothpicks and a pair of chopsticks. In the second compartment there were thin slices of meat, chicken and fish, together with bamboo sprouts, pickles, cakes and small bits of salted vegetables, while the lower and chief compartment was filled with rice cooked quite stiff and without salt, as is the custom in the three countries. The box was about six inches long, four inches deep and three and a half inches wide. These lunches are handed to travelers neatly wrapped in spotless thin white paper daintily tied with a bit of color, all in exchange for 25 sen,—12.5 cents. Thus for fifteen cents the traveler is handed, through the car window, in a respectful manner, a square meal which he may eat at his leisure.