Page:Farmers of forty centuries.djvu/396

378 temples, and was usually in distinct small areas with sharp boundaries occasioned by differences in age. Some tracts had been very recently cut; others were in their second, third or fourth years; while others still carried a growth of perhaps seven to ten years. At one village many bundles of the brush fuel had been gathered from an adjacent area, recently cleared.

A few fields were still bearing their crop of soy beans planted in February between rows of grain, and the green herbage was being worked into the flooded soil, for the crop of rice. Much compost, brought to the fields, was stacked with layers of straw between, laid straight, the alternate courses at right angles, holding the piles in rectangular form with vertical sides, some of which were four to six feet high and the layers of compost about six inches thick.

Just before reaching Tanjiro a region is passed where orchards of the candleberry tree occupy high leveled areas between rice paddies, after the manner described for the mulberry orchards in Chekiang, China. These trees, when seen from a distance, have quite the appearance of our apple orchards.

At the Fukuoka Experiment Station we learned that the usual depth of plowing for the rice fields is three and a half to four and a half inches, but that deeper plowing gives somewhat larger yields. As an average of five years trials, a depth of seven to eight inches increased the yield from seven to ten per cent over that of the usual depth. In this prefecture grass from the bordering hill lands is applied to the rice fields at rates ranging from 3300 to 16,520 pounds green weight per acre, and, according to analyses given, these amounts would carry to the fields from 18 to 90 pounds of nitrogen; 12.4 to 63.2 pounds of potassium, and 2.1 to 10.6 pounds of phosphorus per acre.

Where bean cake is used as a fertilizer the applications may be at the rate of 496 pounds per acre, carrying 33.7 pounds of nitrogen, nearly 5 pounds of phosphorus and 7.4 pounds of potassium. The earth composts are chiefly