Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/148

 his liability, his property might be sold, and its proceeds supplemented by his own serfdom, if necessary. Official attempts were often made to prevent the mortgaging of land, but permanent success never attended them.

The people's chief occupation in those days was agriculture. It cannot be said, however, that the choice of farming pursuits was specially suggested by the nation's aptitudes. The genius of the Japanese seems to find most congenial exercise in all manufacturing efforts that demand skill of hand and delicacy of artistic taste. But as yet no considerable demand for the products of such skill had arisen, whereas the cultivation or reclamation of lands gradually freed from the occupation of the stubborn autochthons, being always an urgent necessity, was correspondingly encouraged by the Government. Rice was the chief staple of production, and the methods of the rice-farmer differed little from those now in vogue, though not until the middle of the ninth century did the practice commence of hanging the sheaves on wooden frames to dry. Hitherto they had been strewn on the ground during the process, the fate of the grain thus depending wholly on the weather's caprices. Rice is not a robust cereal. Deficiency of rain in June, a low range of thermometer in July and August, storms in September,—any one of these common incidents largely affects the yield. After the introduction of Buddhism, when fish and flesh could