The Japanese had applied to the human species the scientific
principles of heredity, nutrition and physical development, which in
America had been confined to plants and animals. The old spirit of
Japanese patriotism had grown into a semi-religious worship of
racial fitness and a moral pride developed which eulogized the
sacrifice of the liberties of the individual to the larger needs of
the people. Legal restrictions of the follies of fashion in dress
and food, the prohibition of alcohol and narcotics, the restriction
of unwise marriages, and the punishments of immorality were
stoically accepted, not as the blue laws of religious fanaticism,
but as requisites of racial progress and a mark of patriotism.

And while Japan showed no signs of the extravagant wealth seen in
America, she was far from being poor. She had gained little from
centralized and artificial industry, but she had wasted less in
insane competition and riotous luxury.

But in Japanese life there was one unsolved problem. That was her
food supply. Intensive culture would do wonders and the just
administration of wealth and the physical efficiency of her people
had eliminated the waste of supporting the non-productive, but an
acre is but a small piece of land at most, and Japan had long since
passed the point where the number of her people exceeded the number
of her acres. A quarter of an acre would produce enough grain and
coarse vegetables to keep a man alive, but the Japanese wanted eggs
and fruit and milk for their children; and they wanted cherry trees
and chrysanthemums, lotus ponds and shady gardens with little
waterfalls.