The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., November 05, 1910, Page 759, Image 11

About The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920

Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

                
I\\ ENT Y ESI ERDAY to the Agricultural Col
lege of the Imperial University of Japan, sit
uated at Komaba. near Tokyo, where I had an
appointment with Director Matsut. My purpose
was to get further information concerning the gen
eral condition of Japanese farmers and Japanese
farming, but the biggest fact my researches
brought out was not in regard to rice or barley or
potatoes or taro, or any other held product of the
Mikado’s Empire. Rather It waB a fact with re
gard to w-hat Is in every land the most important
of all farm crops—the crop of boys and girls.
And the big fact 1 discovered was simply this:
Theme brown Mongolian farm children, whose land
we opened to civilization but fifty years ago, and
whom we thought of but yesterday as backward
heathen—they are getting, as a general proposi
tion, Just twice ns much schooling as is furnished
in our Southern rural districts their parents are
providing, in their zeal for their children's wel
fare, JuBt twice as good educational facilities as
wo are giving our Southern farm boys and girls
who bear in their veins the blood of a race which
has carried the flag of human progress for a thou
sand years, and whom we are expecting to con
tinue to be leaders in civilization and enlighten
• MV M V*
Japanese Farm Children Getting Ten Months’
Schooling.
In other words, so Dr. Matsul told me (and I
went to-dny to the Japanese National Department
of Education to verify the fact), the Japanese
farm boys and girls are getting ten months’ school
ing a year, while the Southern farm boy or girl
Is getting only five or six months—and when I
was In a Southern country school fifteen years ago
not nearly so much ns that! Do you wonder that
I avoided telling the Japanese educational officer
Ju»t how our provision for farm boys and girls
compares with Japan’s, and that I also neglected
to tell him how we compare In the matter of
utilising school advantages, when he showed me
that of all the children between 6 and 14 In all
the Empire of Japan the school attendance Is 98
per cent—9S out of every 100 children of “school
ago” attending school, and In several provinces 99
out of every 100. Thirty-five years ago the average
school attendance In Japan was only 28. and In
1893 only f*9. but by the time of the war with
Russia It had passed 90, and since then has been
climbing straight and steadily toward the amazing
maximum Itself, the official figures showing a gain
of 1 per cent a year -9 1 per cent, then 95, then
96, then 97. and now 98, and the leaders are now
ambitious for 99 or 100, as they told mo to-day.
No More Illiteracy In Young Japan.
And then In the matter of compulsory attend
ance: when this officer of an "Inferior race" show
ed me that Japan Is so Intent upon educating
every boy and girl In her borders that she com
pels attendance on the public schools for eight
years. I didn't tell him that In civilized America,
the great enlightened nation so long held up to
him uh a model, demagogues and others, on one
pretoxt or another, have defeated almost every ef
fort for effective compulsory education laws, In
the South at least, and If a boy's parents are in
different to his future, the State does not compel
them to give him a lighting chance in life—for
Its own sake and for the boy's.
With those facts before me, as I have said, I
did not make any vainglorious boasts of the great
educational progress of our Southern States these
last twenty years: all the proud reports I have
heard at educational rallies and conferences seem
ed somehow to collapse llko punctured gas-bags.
However much progress we have made, these
brown Japanese "brethren” have beaten us. While
there is no official census on Illiteracy here, every
Japanese man In his twenties must serve two years
In the army (unless he Is In a normal school study
ing to be a teacher) and a record us to literacy Is
kept In the army, and the Department of Educa
tion Informed me to-day that the illiterate column
Is now absolutely blank: there are no illiterates
among Japan's rising generation.
•Theie lettor* are partly protected by copyright, but wo ubnll be
lla,l to have editor* reprint not more than one-third of any one
article Tli a UNj. Sof tho »erloa. .
Where Five Acres is a Large Farm.
More than this, we have to reflect that it is out
of their poverty that the Japanese are doing more
than we are doing with our plenty. We waste
more in a year than they make. Even with a
hundred acres of land the farmer in the South
is likely to consider himself poor, but when I
asked my Japanese guide the other day if 2 cho
(five acres) would be an average-size farm here,
he said: "No, not an average; such a man would
he regarded as a middle-class farmer—a rather
large farmer.” And the figures which I have Just
obtained in a call on the National Department of
Agriculture and Commerce more than justify the
reply. Forty-six farmers out of every 100 in Japan
own less than 1} acres of land; 26 more out of
every 100 own less than 2& acres; and only one
man In a hundred owns as much as 25 acres, (in
the matter of cultivation also 70 per cent cultivate
less than 2J acres, and nearly half are tenants.)
This year the situation is even worse than usual,
for disastrous floods have reduced the rice crop
trice represents one-half Japan’s crop values) 20
per cent below last year’s figures, and many people
will suffer. But ordinarily these little pocket
handkerchief farms yield amazingly. It has been
shown by Prof. F. H. King that the fields of Japan
are cultivated so intensively, fertilized so pains
takingly, and kept so continuously producing some
crop, that they feed 2,277 people to the square
mile—21,321 square miles of cultivated fields in
the main islands supporting a population of 48,
5 12,376. If the tilled fields of North Carolina,
for example, supported an equal number of peo
ple per square mile, the population so supported
would be 29,525,969, of if Mississippi’s 11,875
square miles of land under cultivation supported
each 2,277 persons, then 27,041,375 people, or
thirteen times the population of the State, could
live off their produce!
I’ropcrly Managed Lands Do Not Wear Out.
Anil yet these lands have been In cultivation for
unnumbered centuries. Some of them may have
been cleared when King Herod trembled from his
dream of a new-born rival in Judea, and certainly
"the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that
was Rome” had not faded from the earth when
some of these fields began their age-long ministry
to human need. And they have been kept fertile
simply by each farmer putting back on the ground
every ounce of fertility taken from It, for commer
cial fertilizers were absolutely unknown until our
own generation.
Of course with a population so dense and with
each man cultivating an area no larger than a
garden-patch in America, the people are poor, and
the wonder is that they are able to produce food
enough to keep the country from actual want.
Practically no animal meat is eaten; If we except
fish, the average American eats nearly twice as
much meat in a week as the average Japanese
does in a year: 150 pounds of meat per capita is
required per year for the average American, to be
exact, against 1.7 pounds (about 27 ounces) for
the average Japanese! Many of the farmers here
are too poor even to eat a good quality of rice.
Consequently Japan presents the odd phenomenon
of being at once an exporter and a large importer
of rice. Poor farmers sell their good rice and
buy a poorer quality brought in from the mainland
of Asia and mix it with barley. Only about one
farmer in three has a horse or an ox; In most
cases all the work must be done by hand and with
irude tools. It is pitiful—or rather I should say,
it would be pitiful if they were not so content
ed—to see the men breaking the ground not by
plowing but digging with kuwas: lone handled
tools with blades perhaps six inches wide and two
feet long. At the Agricultural College farm in
Komaba I saw about thirty Japanese weeding rice
with the kama—a tool much like an old-fashioned
sickle, except that the blade is straight: the right
hand quickly cut the roots of the weed or grass
plant and the left hand as quickly pulled it up.
With the same sickle-like kawas about thirty other
Japanese were cutting and shocking corn: they
are at least too advanced to pull fodder, I was in
terested to notice!
(Concluded next week.)
| “ What’s The News?” |
AS THE election draws nearer the political
situation seems to become more complex
and uncertain. The Democratic “landslide’'
so freely predicted a month or so ago may come;
but the most expert “election prophets” scarcely
expect it. That the Democrats will make great
gains is conceded by all, and it is more than likely
that they will have a majority in the next House,
and will probably gain several seats in the Sen
ate. It is not expected, however, that in sections
where the insurgent Republicans are in control
the Democrats will make any great gains. In
fact, the fighting this year is most bitter in States
usually safely Republican. Massachusetts, Con
necticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
and Ohio are all doubtful States. In Massachu
setts it is probable that the Democrats threw
away their chances of success by squabbling
among themselves, but it looks as if they would
elect the Governors in both Connecticut and New
Jersey. Judge Baldwin in the first-named State
and Woodrow Wilson in the latter are making
campaigns that appeal to good citizens every
where, and the bad repute of the Republican ma
chines in both States is in their favor. In New
York it looks as if Mr. Dix would be elected,
though he is handicapped by having on the ticket
with him several notoriously unfit men. Mr.
Roosevelt Is fighting desperately, for if his candl
date is defeated, his position as party leader is at
once gone. In Pennsylvania ex-Treasurer Berry,
who discovered the graft in connection with the
building of the new State Capitol, is an Inde
pendent candidate. Tener, the Republican candi
date, has been charged by the Philadelphia North
American with a number of disgraceful acts of
"high finance,” and has brought suit for criminal
libel against that paper. If he wins the suit, he
will surely be elected; if the charges against him
are sustained, it would seem that even Pennsyl
vania would not be willing to bear the shame of
such a Governor. The Democratic candidate is
an ordinary rlngster. Governor Harmon, of Ohio,
seems practically certain of election; and Indiana
will probably go Democratic again. Nebraska
may elect a Democratic Senator, but will almost
certainly defeat Dahlman, tbe Democratic candi
date for Governor, on the issue of wide-open sa
loons. Missouri votes on a prohibition amend
ment to the State Constitution. It is not ex
pected to carry. In the South, outside of a few
doubtful Congressional districts, the only notable
fight is in Tennessee, where a Republican Gover
nor is likely to be elected solely on the question of
law enforcement. In the big cities of that State
the prohibition law has been openly disregarded,
and not until Judge McCall last week issued an
injunction against tbe holders of Federal licenses
was there any pretense at obeying It.
• • •
i ne neucii in me auminisiranon or me ro»i
office Department for the year ending June 30 we*
only $6,100,000, and Mr. Hitchcock Is predicting
a one-cent postage rate for letters. What Is need
ed more than this. Just now. Is the parcels poet,
which, would. In all probability, make the system
self-sustaining and give Americans a much-needed
convenience which all other civilized peoples en
joy.
• • •
The Census Bureau reported last week that
only 6,410,000 bales of cotton had been ginned to
October 18, against 5,530,000 at the same date
last year. The effect of this report was an imme
diate rise in price of $3 a bale.
• • •
The airship craze Is over the land and “avia
tion contests” are being held everywhere. Ralph
Johnstone rose to a height of 8,471 feet at s
Long Island meet the other day.
• • •
General Interest attaches to the recent death
of David Rankin, of Tarkio, Mo., a man who had
made $4,000,000 or $5,000,000 farming. He was
the world’s largest corn raiser, but bought corn
every year.
• • •
The volcana Epomeo, on the Island of Ischia
near Naples, Ttaly, which has been quiet for 600
years, burst Into eruption last week, causing great
loss of life and property.
• • •
President Taft has appointed Wm. H. Lewis,
of Boston, a negro, Assistant Attorney-General
of the United Staes.
• • •
The unrest in Spain continues, Portgual, on
the other hand, seems as quiet aB usual.