[9]. Or, less than 7,000,000 acres of wet fields and less than 6,000,000 of upland fields, the latter including mulberry and tea gardens, besides fields for mugi, beans, and vegetables. Based on the 20th Century, pp. 95 ff.
[10]. This figure includes, however, all the land inclined at angles less than 15°, so that, from the practical point of view, it may be considered as highly exaggerated. The actual extent of the reclamation of wild land advances at a slow pace outside of the still largely undeveloped island of Hokkaidō. See ibid., pp. 95–96, 104.
[11]. Or, about 23,000,000 acres for nearly 47,000,000 people. If we take only the land under cultivation, on the one hand, and only the farming population, on the other, the ratio still remains the same, for then we have 13,000,000 acres for 28,000,000 people. The aggregate of the capital involved in the agriculture of Japan, including the value of land, buildings, implements, and live stock, is estimated at 7,400,000,000 yen, while the annual crops return about 1,000,000,000 yen. See the 20th Century, pp. 105–106.
[12]. The annual rainfall of Japan proper averages between 1300 mm. at Awomori and 2040 mm. at Kagoshima. A fairly rich sedimentary formation of soil is found everywhere, owing to the hilly nature of the country and the short and rapid current of the rivers.
[13]. Wherever possible, the farmer contrives to raise more than one crop on his land in different seasons during the year. In fact, more than 30 per cent. of rice land yields other crops besides rice, at places mugi, indigo, beans, and rape being cultivated on the same piece of land.
[14]. More than half of the wet fields of the country consist of lots smaller than one-eighth acre, and nearly three fourths are each less than one-quarter acre. The average size of the lots outside of Formosa and Hokkaidō is put down as .1 acre for wet fields and .12 acre for upland fields.
[15]. Compare the report of the U. S. Consul-General Bellows at Yokohama in the U. S. Consular Reports, advance sheets, No. 1757 (September 24, 1903). In addition to the conditions here enumerated, it must be remembered that there exists little or no pasture land in Japan, and that nearly all the labor is done by hand, there being only 1,500,000 horses and 1,300,000 horned animals in the country. See the 20th Century, chapters on agriculture; the Annual, No. III, tables x-xiii; J. J. Rein’s Industries of Japan, English translation, New York, 1889, chapters on agriculture; and H. Dumolard’s Le Japon politique, économique et social, Paris, 1903, pp. 109–121.
[16]. The 20th Century, p. 117; Dumolard, pp. 112–113.
[17]. This ratio includes, however, in the tenant class those farmers who are partly lessees and partly proprietors of small lots. In 1888, the ratio between (1) independent farmers, (2) partly lessees, and (3) entirely lessees, was 147:200:95. Since that time the ratio must have grown in favor of the tenants. See the 20th Century, p. 90.
[18]. See the U. S. Consular Reports, advance sheets, No. 1529 (December 26, 1902). In 1902 the total debts of the farming classes of Japan were estimated at 400 million yen. Mr. S. Nakayama, in the Tōyō Keizai Shimpō (“Oriental Economist”) for July 15, 1902, p. 14.