Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
(36) Heckling rice. Two ways of stripping the rice grain from the ears.
These supplementary crops were manured with human excrement and urine, ladled out
of the cesspits that directly underlay the holes in the floor that served as privies. The hand-
ling of this material in the towns was a large-scale operation, with boats transporting it to
where it was needed. In the country it had to be transported over shorter distances, and
could be carried in wooden buckets slung on a pole. Roads passing through villages would
have tubs conveniently placed for the use of passers-by, so that nothing should be wasted.
Before beingapplied totheplants, thismanure wasnormally diluted withwater,anditwas
thenpouredroundtherootsofthecrops,ortrees.Nosescouldnotaffordtobetoosensitive.
A more serious drawback to its use was the spread of some diseases; in particular, human
intestinal wormsflourishedintheseconditions.Itwasnotusedforthegeneralmanuringof
rice, which depended upon dry material worked in when the fields were prepared, and on
matter brought in solution or suspension by the water supply.
Other crops included fruit such as plums (usually small, more like dam-sons, and eaten
after being pickled), persimmons (a fruit tending to be astringent unless fully ripe, when it
glows golden in the autumn sun, and becoming very sweet when sun-dried), pears (spher-
ical in shape and crisp in texture) and oranges (small tangerine-like
mikan
). Usually these
were grown for eating on the farm, but in some places, such as the Kii province for or-
anges, and Koshu for grapes (grown only for eating as fruit), land was set aside for their
cultivation on a commercial scale. Tea was grown as individual bushes scattered around
the farm, as well as in the specialist regions, like Uji to the south of Kyoto. Certain veget-
ables, like the giant radish and lotus roots, were produced partly for commerce, while the
woods would be searched for mushrooms, wild fruits, and green herbs, the first sprouting
of bracken being a considerable delicacy.
Certain regions had specialized crops for industrial use. For example, the northwest
corneroftheislandofShikoku,theprovinceofAwa,producedindigofordyeing.Thiswas
aplantthatwasrearedinnurserybedsandtransplanted,beingharvestedjustbeforeflower-
ing. It was cut up fine, and sundried, the product being then fermented in a little water. For
commerce it was then ground down and worked into balls about the size of billiard balls.
Plants giving material for textiles included hemp, used extensively for outer clothing,
like the
hakama
of warriors, and grown widely in Japan, especially where the climate was
more rigorous. The growing of cotton (
37
) seems to have started in the late sixteenth cen-
tury, although it had been imported from China for some centuries. It was not an easy crop
and required considerable attention from the farmers. It needs plenty of water during the
growing season, but dry weather after flowering, and this latter requirement can be met
only in the coastal areas roundthe Inland Sea, and in fact the main producing region seems
to have been round the city of Osaka. It was often grown in conjunction with rice, either
