year a considerable quantity of _saké_. Stretched over the doorway of
the building in which the goods of the society were stored were the
rope and paper streamers which are seen before Shinto shrines and
consecrated places. The society had a large flag post for weather
signals, a white flag for a fine day, a red one for cloudy weather and
a blue one for rain.

I brought away from this village a calendar of agricultural operations
with poems or mottoes for each month, in the collection of which I
suspect the poet had a hand:

_January_: Future of the day determined in the morning.

_February_: The voice of one reading a farming book coming
from the snow-covered window.

_March_: Grafting these young trees, thinking of the days
of my grandchildren.

_April_: Digging the soil of the paddy field, sincerity
concentrated on the edge of the mattock.

_May_: Returning home with the dim moonlight glinting
on the edges of our mattocks.

_June_: Boundless wealth stored up by gracious heaven:
dig it out with your mattock, take it away with your
sickle.

_July_: Weeding the paddy field[132] in a happiness and