Page:Farmers of forty centuries.djvu/417

Rh Much of the mountain lands in this region, growing pine, is owned by private parties and the growth is cut at intervals of ten, twenty or twenty-five years, being sold on the ground to those who will come and cut it at a price of forty sen for a one-horse load, as already described, page 159.

Fig. 231.—Irrigating with the Japanese circumferential foot-power water wheel, near Hashimoto, Japan.

The course from here was up the rather rapidly rising Kiigawa valley where much water was being applied to the rice fields by various methods of pumping, among them numerous current wheels; an occasional power-pump driven by cattle; and very commonly the foot-power wheel where the man walks on the circumference, steadying himself with a long pole, as seen in the field, Fig. 231. It was here that a considerable section of the hill slope had been very recently cut over, the area showing light in the engraving. It was in the vicinity of Hashimoto on this route, too, that