reached Lake Biwa the valleys were narrow with only small areas in rice. Tea plantations were common on the higher cultivated slopes, and gardens on the terraced hillsides growing vegetables of many kinds were common, often with the ground heavily mulched with straw, while the wooded or grass-covered slopes still further up showed the usual systematic periodic cutting. After passing the west end of the lake, rice fields were nearly continuous and extensive. Before reaching Hachiman we crossed a stream leading into the lake but confined between levees more than twelve feet high, and we had already passed beneath two raised viaducts after leaving Kusatsu. Other crops were being grown side by side with the rice on similar lands and apparently in rotation with it, but on sharp, narrow, close ridges twelve to fourteen inches high. As we passed eastward we entered one of the important mulberry districts where the fields are graded to two levels,
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Fig. 241.—Type of water-wheel very commonly on the mountain streams in Japan.
