It looks grey and unattractive, and unfortunately the unprepossessing but valuable outer coat is polished away. This is done in a mortar hollowed out of a section of a tree trunk or out of a large stone. One may see a young man or a young woman pounding the rice in the mortar with a heavy wooden beetle or mallet. Often the beetle is fastened to a beam and worked by foot. Or the polishing apparatus may be driven by water, oil or steam power. Constantly in the country there are seen little sheds in each of which a small polishing mill driven by a water wheel is working away by itself. After the polishing, the mangoku doshi is used again to free the rice from the bran. This polished rice is still further polished by the dealer, who has more perfect mills than the farmer.
SCATTERING ARTIFICIAL MANURE IN ADJUSTED PADDIES.
The farmer pays his rent not in the polished but in the husked rice. At the house of a former daimyo I saw an instrument which the feudal lord's bailiff was accustomed to thrust into the rice the tenants tendered. If when the instrument was withdrawn more than three husks were found adhering, the rice was returned to be recleaned. There are names for all the different kinds of rice. For instance, paddy rice is momi; husked rice is gemmai; half-polished rice is hantsukimai; polished rice is hakumai; cooked rice is gohan.
PLANTING OUT RICE SEEDLINGS.
