Farmers of forty centuries; or, Permanent agriculture in China, Korea and Japan . Fig. 169. - Winnowing rii-o in ., (ishil; (he iarui ilcmlile Ian wcirkcd by apair of bamboo handlw,. A inutal comb for removing the rice from tho strawstands at the right. desired result is secured. The same method of polishing, on alarger scale, is accomplished when the plungers are worked by theweight of the bodj-, a series of men stepping upon lever handlesof weighted plungers, raising them and allowing them to fall underthe force of the weight attached. Recently, however, mills workedby petrol engines a
Farmers of forty centuries; or, Permanent agriculture in China, Korea and Japan . Fig. 169. - Winnowing rii-o in ., (ishil; (he iarui ilcmlile Ian wcirkcd by apair of bamboo handlw,. A inutal comb for removing the rice from tho strawstands at the right. desired result is secured. The same method of polishing, on alarger scale, is accomplished when the plungers are worked by theweight of the bodj-, a series of men stepping upon lever handlesof weighted plungers, raising them and allowing them to fall underthe force of the weight attached. Recently, however, mills workedby petrol engines are iu operation for both hulling and polishing,in Japan. USES OF RICE STEAW 269 The many uses to which rice straw is put in the economies ofthese people make it almost as important as the rice itself. Asfood and bedding for cattle and horses; as thatching material fordwellings and other shelters* as fuel; as a mulch; as a source oforganic matter in the soil, and as a fertilizer, it represents a money. Fig. 160. - Large wooden mortar for the polishing of rice in Japan. value which is very large. Besides these ultimate uses, the ricestraw is extensively employed in the manufacture of articles usedin enormous quantities. It is estimated that not less than188,700,000 bags, such as are seen in Figs. 161 and 162, worth$3,110,000, are made annually from the rice straw in Japan. Theyare used for handling 346,150,000 bushels of cereals and 28,190,000 270 RICE CULTURE IN THE ORIENT bushels of beans; and besides these, great numbers of bags areemployed in transporting fish and other prepared manures. In the prefecture of Hyogo, with 596 square miles of farm land,as compared with Rhode Islands 712 square miles, Hyogofarmers produced in 1906, on 265,040 acres, 10,584,000 bushels ofrice worth $16,191,400, securing an average yield of almost 40bushels per acre and a gross return of $61 for the grain alone. Inaddition to this, these farmers grew on the same land, the same
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectagriculture, bookyear
