What good
Mother Earth can be induced to yield under such attention is a
marvel. The bountiful earth has another meaning when you see what
she can be made to bring forth. Although we are in December, the
sun shines bright, and it is quite warm. I sat down several times
under the hedge-rows, and heard the constant hum of insect life
around me. Butterflies flitted about, the bees gathered honey, and
all looked and felt like a day in June. The houses of the people
which we saw were poor, and the total absence of glass causes them
to look like deserted hovels; but closer inspection showed fine
mats on the floors, and everything scrupulously clean. I counted
upon one hillside forty-seven terraces from the bottom to the top.
These are divided vertically, so that I think twenty-five feet
square would be about the average size of each patch; and as the
division of terraces is made to suit the ground, and hence very
irregularly, the appearance of a hillside in Japan is something
like that of a bed-quilt of irregular pieces. The terrace-walls
are overgrown with vines, ferns, etc., so that they appear like
low green hedges: and this adds much to the beauty of the
landscape. No wonder the cultivators of these lovely spots never
dream of leaving them. Animal food is not half as important to the
Japanese as the supply of fish--indeed the former is said to be
comparatively little used, while fish of some kind or in some form
is ever present at meals.
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