FROM TOKYO TO THE NORTH BY THE
WEST COAST

CHAPTER XX

"THE GARDEN WHERE VIRTUES ARE CULTIVATED"

(FUKUSHIMA AND YAMAGATA)

BOSWELL: If you should advise me to go to Japan I believe I should.
JOHNSON: Why yes, Sir, I am serious.


In one of my journeys I went from Tokyo to the extreme north of Japan,
travelling up the west coast and down the east. Fukushima
prefecture--in which is Shirakawa, famous for a horse fair which lasts
a week--encourages the eating of barley, for on the northern half of
the east coast of Japan there is no warm current and the rice crop may
be lost in a cold season. "Officials of the prefecture and county,"
someone said to me, "take barley themselves; enthusiastic _gunchō_
take it gladly."

The prefectural station, by selecting the best varieties of rice for
sowing, had effected a 10 per cent. improvement in yield. In each
county an official "agricultural encourager" had been appointed. The
lectures given at the experiment station were attended by 18,000
persons. The studious who listen to the lectures had formed an
association that provided at the station a fine building where supper,
bed, breakfast and lunch cost 30 sen. It contained a model of the Ise
shrine with a motto in the handwriting of a well-known Tokyo