XII.
RICE CULTURE IN THE ORIENT.
The basal food crop of the people of China, Korea and
Japan is rice, and the mean consumption in Japan, for
the five years ending 1906, per capita and per annum,
was 302 pounds. Of Japan's 175,428 square miles she
devoted, in 1906, 12,856 to the rice crop. Her average
yield of water rice on 12,534 square miles exceeded 33
bushels per acre, and the dry land rice averaged 18 bushels
per acre on 321 square miles. In the Hokkaido, as far
north as northern Illinois, Japan harvested 1,780,000
bushels of water rice from 53,000 acres.
In Szechwan province, China, Consul-General Hosie places the yield of water rice on the plains land at 44 bushels per acre, and that of the dry land rice at 22 bushels. Data given us in China show an average yield of 42 bushels of water rice per acre, while the average yield of wheat was 25 bushels per acre, the normal yield in Japan being about 17 bushels.
If the rice eaten per capita in China proper and Korea is equal to that in Japan the annual consumption for the three nations, using the round number 300 pounds per capita per annum, would be:
| Population. | Consumption. | ||
| China | 410,000,000 | 61,500,000 tons | |
| Korea | 12,000,000 | 1,800,000 tons | |
| Japan | 53,000,000 | 7,950,000 tons | |
| Total | 475,000,000 | 71,250,000 tons |
If the ratio of irrigated to dry land rice in Korea and China proper is the same as that in Japan, and if the
