discernible in the background, crossing the canal a third of a mile
distant, we counted upon one side, walking along the narrow street,
eighty houses each with its family, usually of three generations and
often of four. Thus in the narrow strip, 154 feet broad, including
16 feet of street and 30 feet of canal, with its three lines of
houses. lived no less than 240 families and more than 1200 and
probably nearer 2000 people.

When we turn to the crowding of fields in the country nothing except
seeing can tell so forcibly the fact as such landscapes as those of
Figs. 11, 12 and 13, one in Japan, one in Korea and one in China,
not far from Nanking, looking from the hills across the fields to
the broad Yangtse kiang, barely discernible as a band of light along
the horizon.

The average area of the rice field in Japan is less than five square
rods and that of her upland fields only about twenty. In the case of
the rice fields the small size is necessitated partly by the
requirement of holding water on the sloping sides of the valley, as
seen in Fig. 11. These small areas do not represent the amount of
land worked by one family, the average for Japan being more nearly
2.5 acres. But the lands worked by one family are seldom contiguous,
they may even be widely scattered and very often rented.

The people generally live in villages, going often considerable
distances to their work. Recognizing the great disadvantage of
scattered holdings broken into such small areas, the Japanese
Government has passed laws for the adjustment of farm lands which
have been in force since 1900. It provides for the exchange of
lands; for changing boundaries; for changing or abolishing roads,