The island of Kyushu, whose latitude is that of middle Mississippi and north Louisiana, has two rice harvests, and gardeners at Nagasaki grow three crops, each year. The gardener and his family work about five tan, or a little less than one and one-quarter acres, realizing an annual return of some $250 per acre. To maintain these earnings fertilizers are applied rated worth $60 per acre, divided between the three crops, the materials used being largely the wastes of the city, animal manure, mud from the drains, fuel ashes and sod, all composted together. If this expenditure for fertilizers appears high it must be remembered that nearly the whole product is sold and that there are three crops each year. Such intense culture requires a heavy return if large yields are maintained. Good agricultural lands were here valued at 300 yen per tan, approximately $600 per acre.
When returning toward Moji to visit the Agricultural Experiment Station of Fukuoka prefecture, the rice along the first portion of the route was standing about eight inches above the water. Large lotus ponds along the way occupied areas not readily drained, and the fringing fields between the rice paddies and the unfilled hill lands were bearing squash, maize, beans and Irish potatoes. Many small areas had been set to sweet potatoes on close narrow ridges, the tops of which were thinly strewn with green grass, or sometimes with straw or other litter, for shade and to prevent the soil from washing and baking in the hot sun after rains. At Kitsu we passed near Government salt works, for the manufacture of salt by the evaporation of sea water, this industry in Japan, as in China, being a Government monopoly.
Many bundles of grass and other green herbage were collected along the way, gathered for use in the rice fields. In other cases the green manure had already been spread over the flooded paddies and was being worked beneath the surface, as seen in Fig. 216. At this time the hill lands were clothed in the richest, deepest green but the free growth was nowhere large except immediately about
