Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/144

 area. The basis in this case was the quantity of rice (on the stalk) that could be grasped in one hand. This was called nigiri. Three handfuls made a bundle (ha), twelve bundles a sheaf (soku), and fifty sheaves were regarded as the produce of the tan. In the earliest references to taxation, the "sheaf" is invariably mentioned. The unit of capacity was a wooden box (called masu) capable of holding exactly one-tenth of the grain obtained from a sheaf; that is to say, the hulled grain. Naturally a more definite system ultimately replaced these empirical methods. At the close of the sixteenth century, under the administration of the Taikō, the measure of capacity was exactly fixed, and its volume was called tō; ten tō (i.e. a sheaf of grain, being called a koku (3.13 bushels), while one-tenth of a tō received the name of shō, and one-tenth of a skō that of gō. There were wooden measures having the capacity of a shō and a gō as well as that of a tō.

The oldest historical record of land taxation shows that the tax levied on each tan of land, in the seventh century, was a sheaf and a half of hulled rice, and since the average produce of the tan was twenty-five sheaves, this represented only six per cent of the yield. Thenceforth the tendency was steadily in the direction of increase. In the middle of the ninth century land was divided into four grades for fiscal purposes; the