CHAPTER XXXV
THE HUSBANDMAN, THE WRESTLER AND THE CARPENTER
(SAITAMA, GUMMA AND TOKYO)
We are here to search the wounds of the realm, not to skim them over.—Bacon
One day in the third week of October when the roads were sprinkled with fallen leaves I made an excursion into the Kwanto plain and passed from the prefecture of Tokyo into that of Saitama.[[211]] The weather now made it necessary for Japanese to wear double kimonos. During the middle of the day, however, I was glad to walk with my jacket over my arm, and many little boys and girls were running about naked. The region visited had a naturally well-drained dark soil, composed of river silt, of volcanic dust and of humus from buried vegetation, and it went down to a depth beyond the need of the longest daikon (giant radish). Sweet potatoes and taro were still on the ground, and large areas, worked to a perfect tilth, had been sown or were in course of preparation for winter wheat and barley; but the most conspicuous crop was daikon. There were miles and miles of it at all sorts of stages from newly transplanted rows to roots ready for pulling. There is daikon production up to the value of about a million yen. In addition to the roots sent into Tokyo, there is a large export trade in daikon salted in casks.
I came into a district where there was a system of alternate grain and wood crops. The rotation was barley and wheat for three or four years, then fuel wood for about fifteen. The tendency was to lengthen the corn period in the rotation.
The women even as near Tokyo as this wore blue cotton trousers like the men. One farm-house I entered was a century old but it had not been more than forty years on its present site. It had been transported three miles. I was once more impressed by the low standard of living. If by this time I had not been getting to know something of the ways of the farmers I should have found it difficult to credit the fact that a household I visited was worth ten thousand yen.
Sweet potatoes are here much the most important crop. They were bringing the farmer in Tokyo a little over a yen the 82 lbs. bale. The consumer was paying double that. Not a few of the farmers were cultivating as much as 5 chō or even 8 chō, for there was little paddy. Even then, I was told, "it's a very hard life for a third of the farmers." The reason was that there was no remunerative winter employment.
Before the Buddhist temple, where there was preaching twice a year, were rows of little stone figures, many of which had lost their heads. The heads were in much demand among gamblers who value them as mascots. Among some mulberry plots belonging to different owners I saw a little wooden shrine, evidently for the general good. It was there, it was explained, "not because of belief but of custom." The evening was drawing in and Fuji showed itself blue and mystical above the dark greenery of the country. As I gazed a sweet-sounding gong was struck thrice in the temple. Three times a day there is heard this summons to other thoughts than those of the common task.