expenditures which were almost crippling.

FOOTNOTES:

[135] The three leading silk prefectures are in order: Nagano,
Fukushima and Gumma.

[136] At this time of the year, when the rice plants are small, the
water in the paddies is still conspicuous.

[137] An old Japan hand once counselled me that "the thing to find out
in sociological enquiries is not people's religions but their
superstitions."

[138] See Appendix IV.




CHAPTER XVII

THE BIRTH, BRIDAL AND DEATH OF THE SILK-WORM

(NAGANO)

The mulberry leaf knoweth not that it shall be silk.--_Arab proverb_


One acre in every dozen in Japan produces mulberry leaves for feeding
the silk-worms which two million farming families--more than a third