district had been impressed by the grim realities of life in poor
farmers' homes and cited facts on which he based a low view of rural
morality.

Suwa Lake lies more than 3,500 ft. above sea level and in winter is
covered with skaters. The country round about is remarkable
agriculturally for the fact that many farmers are able to lead into
their paddies not only warm water from the hot springs but water from
ammonia springs, so economising considerably in their expenditure on
manure. A simple windmill for lifting the fertilising water is sold
for only 4 yen.

We went to Kōfu, the capital of Yamanashi prefecture, through many
mountain tunnels and ravines. Entrancing is the just word for this
region in the vicinity of the Alps. But joy in the beauty through
which we passed is tinged for the student of rural life by thoughts of
the highlander's difficulties in getting a living in spots where quiet
streams may become in a few hours ungovernable torrents. I remember
glimpses of grapes and persimmons, of parties of middle-school boys
tramping out their holiday--every inn reduces its terms for them--and
of half a dozen peasant girls bathing in a shaded stream. But there
were less pleasing scenes: hills deforested and paddies wrecked by a
waste of stones and gravel flung over them in time of flood. Here and
there the indomitable farmers, counting on the good behaviour of the
river for a season or two, were endeavouring, with enormous labour, to
resume possession of what had been their own. The spectacle
illustrated at once their spirit and their industry and their need of
land. At night we slept at Kōfu at "the inn of greeting peaks." In the
morning a Governor with imagination told me of the prefecture's
gallant enterprises in afforestation and river embanking at