Blue waters and green and the Far East today . one long street, with farm-houses touchingelbows, and the tiny farms stretch back up the hillson either side. Not like an American farm-house,I assure you, for the first thing that strikes you aboutthe farms in Japan is the absence of domestic ani-mals. Never a cow or a horse. All the hauling,nearly, is done by hand, two-wheeled carts hauledby men and women. The absence of cows puzzledme till I learned the reason. There is no grazing inthe Far East. You see hills covered with beaatifulverdure, everywhere in China, Japan, and the Philip-pines, but
Blue waters and green and the Far East today . one long street, with farm-houses touchingelbows, and the tiny farms stretch back up the hillson either side. Not like an American farm-house,I assure you, for the first thing that strikes you aboutthe farms in Japan is the absence of domestic ani-mals. Never a cow or a horse. All the hauling,nearly, is done by hand, two-wheeled carts hauledby men and women. The absence of cows puzzledme till I learned the reason. There is no grazing inthe Far East. You see hills covered with beaatifulverdure, everywhere in China, Japan, and the Philip-pines, but no cattle, not even a goat. The grass is akind of saw-grass, bamboo-grass, they call it that isdeath to ruminants. The few cattle that are kept,mainly bullocks for hauling, are fed on forage, hand-raised, very expensive. I did not taste fresh milkor cream on the entire trip. Everything is con-densed milk, mostly from America. The beef andmutton come mainly from Australia in refrigeratorships. Just the other day the beef contract for our[244]. JAPAN soldiers in the Philippines was let to an Australianconcern. The Governor-General there, who has asalary of twenty-five thousand dollars a year, keepstwo cows. By virtue of his official position and tomaintain its dignity, he must do so. It is said thatthe expense of keeping these cows was one of thereasons that Taft gave up his job. We saw an Aus-tralian heifer on the streets of Manila, and she ex-cited more attention than an elephant would here. So, vast areas in Japan that would be raising beefand mutton with us, are barren wastes, producingnothing, and one great source of agricultural profitis denied to the farmers of Japan. The farm-houses are all alike. We stopped at onefor a drink of water. The fronts are all open, closedby several doors that in the daytime are slid backinto a box at one corner. The first room is work-shop, kitchen and dining-room; in fact, the living-room of the house. It is stone-floored, spotlesslyclean, wi
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