The Use of Agricultural Implements in Japan

by

UYENO (HIDEZABURO),

Professor of Agricultural Science at the Imperial University of Tokyo.

The traveller in the country districts of Japan is struck with the smallness of the fields, the steepness of the terraced hills and the absence of pastures as well as of animals working on the farms. Closer investigation will show that rice being the most profitable crop, wherever it is possible to do so the fields are so laid out that they can be flooded with water. Inquiry as to the size of the holdings will show that they are small and that they are in a large proportion cultivated by tenant farmers.

These conditions indicate that agricultural implements, such as those used in Europe and America, are rarely met with. The system of culture is intensive and good crops are obtained, so, as one would expect, the implements in use are well adapted to local conditions.

Of these tools the hoe, or kuwa rather, is by far the most important. It is used in a variety of ways, and with a skill surprising to one accustomed only to the simple uses of the hoe in occidental hands. It is used for digging up the soil, thus taking the place of the spade, which is little used. With the kuwa also the soil is pulverized and levelled, the tool thus accomplishing on a small scale the work of the plough, the harrow and the roller.

As to the construction of this most useful tool, it resembles the German "Handhack", but differs from this in the smaller angle that the blade makes with the handle, and the greater length of the blade. The angle is often as small as 30 degrees, and occasionally as great as 85 degrees. The blade is from 4 to 8 inches broad and 10 to 20 inches long; while the handle varies in length from 2 to 6 feet. Where the blade is of the greater lengths, it is made of wood with an iron cutting edge and thus both the weight and the cost are reduced. It is said that there are as many as a thousand different kinds which have been worked out to meet the demands of the various conditions of the soil and the different purposes of use. When wet or heavy soil is to be worked, the blade of the kuwa is divided into two, three or four prongs, as the European spade changes to a forked spade.

Next in importance to the hoe, as an agricultural implement, comes the plough or suki. There are two types of the plough: one resembles the single shovel plough of America, and the other the Meklenburger Haken. The share and mould board are made of cast iron and the other parts always of wood. The mould board, being plane or slightly curved, acts principally to pulverise and mix the soil. The turning action is not as great as in the plough of European type.

The striking feature is that one never sees a pair of horses or a yoke of oxen attached to a plough, the animal used being always alone. This kind of plough is specially adapted for the cultivation of the more or less wet soil of the rice fields, in which ploughs of occidental type would be of no avail. This primitive form of plough is also well adapted for throwing the soil into ridges after the rice crop has been harvested, so that the earth may dry sufficiently for the growth of the secondary crop which is obtained from the land before the time for transplanting the rice.

After the rice field has been ploughed, it is flooded and the soil is thus easily mixed and broken up with the aid of the so-called “ horsehoe" or ma-kuwa, which is, in fact, a kind of one-rowed harrow.

In doing this work by hand, a kind of rake is used for the purpose of mixing; while the forked hoe may take the place of the plough in breaking up the field.

In cultivating the crops, such implements as the horse hoe and the "Hackpflüge" of Germany are not used, being replaced by a light form of the ubiquitous kuwa. A tool like the weeding hoe of the Occident is also in use.

In weeding rice fields, an implement somewhat like the Norwegian harrow is used. Teeth are set either in straight or curved lines in a wooden revolving cylinder and the implement is drawn by hand. In addition to the above-mentioned implement, there are various other tools used in weeding.

In seeding, the work was done by hand only, nntil recent years, and great skill was attained. Nowadays simple drills and seed droppers, invented in the country, are sometimes used. They are small implements and are worked by hand. Wheat and barley are sown in drills, but rice is thickly sown in small seed-beds from which the young plants are transplanted.

For harvesting grain, the sickle, or kama, is used altogether. This instrument is, in effect a diminutive scythe with a straight or slightly curved blade and a straight handle set at a right angle or an obtuse angle to the blade. The handle is from 8 to 16 inches in length; but for cutting tall grass, a sickle with a longer handle is sometimes used.

Scythes are coming into use in some parts of the country; but mowers and reapers are seen only on a few large farms devoted to raising of cattle, and they are mostly of American make.

For harvesting roots, the kuwa again is used, no such implements as the potato digger and "Rüben heber" being met with.

When the sheaves of grain are ready for threshing, various simple devices are used. Ordinarily, the heads of grain are pulled from a double handful of stalks by whipping these into a kind of comb and pulling the heads off between the teeth. The comb is fixed to an immovable bench, which is about half the height of a man, and is set at such an angle as to meet the descending stalks at about a right angle. The teeth are about twenty in number and are of sizes suited to the grain to be threshed.

The hulls are next removed by grinding the grain between two light cylinders arranged like the upper and the nether mill-stone.

The grain is separated by a kind of winnowing machine, called tomi, which differs but little from the "Getreide centrifuge" with its arrangement of sloping vibrating sieves. For small quantities of grain, the separation is effected in the primitive way by taking advantage of a suitable wind.

Considering the condition of the agricultural industry we are led to make the following suggestions :

1. For cultivation, the use of farm animals should be increased. 2. The advance in the co-operative system for threshing should make it possible to use animals and mechanical powers in this work.

3. The use of ploughs and harrows constructed to suit the needs should be encouraged. The "Hackpflüge " or vineyard plough would seem to be nearly adapted to the needs in dry fields.

4. In the case of wet fields, special implements must be invented, since necessity has not called for the invention of such devices in other lands.

5. The drills and dropping machines now in use should be improved.

6. For harvesting there seems to be no possibility of using Western machinery, and the sickle should be so modified as to be made more effective.

7. In the preparation of grain, however, it is most desirable. that Western threshing machines should be brought into use.

8. There is no special demand for agricultural implements used

in connection with cattle raising.

Such, in brief, is the present condition of the agricultural part of the country with regard to the use of implements. But some change will be necessary owing to the concentration of labour in the rising industrial centres and the increased demand for agricultural products together with the decreased supply of hands. This new condition seems to demand an increased use of machinery together with an increase in the use of farm animals or some mechanical motive power.

The straightening out of the old irregular boundaries between the fields and the re-allotment of the land which is now in progress throughout the country will pave the way for the use of machinery drawn by animals or other motive power.

The kind of implements to be used must be determined by careful study of local conditions, and the Government has already instituted a special section in the State Experimental Station for the investigation. of this matter.

Many of the implements of the Occident are adapted for use on large farms only, and none have yet been invented suited for use in the wet ground of the rice fields. We must look for adaptation of imported implements, and improvement of existing domestic types, to bring into being the devices called for by the new conditions in New Japan.

Some thirty five years ago, the Government establised a farm implement factory, but at that time the need of new implements was not felt and the enterprise, which was in advance of the times, ended in failure. Nowadays private enterprise is, on the one hand, bringing in imported implements such as experience shows to be in demand; and, on the other hand, is manufacturing such improved types of domestic implements as have been evolved in the new conditions of the country.

The Development of the Dried Yeast Industry in Germany

by

DR. F. HAYDUCK,

Institute of Fermentation Industries and Starch-making, Berlin.

During the last three years a new industry has begun to develop, the products of which are important as food for men and animals, namely yeast drying. Though this industry is still only in its initial stage, it can safely be predicted that it will soon attain an important position in the economy of the country. The interest which German farming circles have shown for the chief product of the yeast-drying industry, namely «feeding yeast» (Futterhefe), is very lively and has led to an increase and improvement in the economic relations between agriculture and the brewing industry which provides the raw material for the yeast drying works.

The drying of yeast owes its origin to the necessity felt by brewers of utilizing in a profitable manner the yeast which is produced in excess during brewing. In order to understand fully the state of the question, a few words on the excess of yeast in the breweries and on its utilization will not be out of place.

In the compressed yeast industry which prepares bakers'yeast, the production of yeast is the object aimed at; consequently here an excess of yeast is practically non occurrent. Just that quantity of yeast is produced which the market will take up. It is quite different in brewing, in which yeast is only a means for the production of beer, and the increase of yeast which occurs during the process of fermentation is only a by-product. A portion of this yeast is used in the brewery itself for the new wort; the greater part however remains free to be utilized in other ways. The quantity of this excess of yeast in Germany alone may be calculated at 68 600 tons per annum.

The utilization of brewers'yeast has been studied with the greatest interest during the last few decades. The need for a solution of this problem is intimately connected with the development of the two industries: brewing and the making of compressed yeast. When the latter industry did not yet exist, all the yeast required by bakers and by

households was supplied by brewers' yeast, which was chiefly the product of high fermentation beer. With the flourishing of the compressed yeast industry, the products of which were superior, for baking purposes, to brewers'yeast, and with the prevalence of low fermentation beers over those prepared by high fermentation, together with the disappearance of many small breweries and the tranformation of the brewing industry into one of large concerns, the sale of brewers' yeast for bakers diminished constantly. At present it may be assumed that of the 68 600 tons of brewers' yeast at most 9800 tors are used by bakers.

Naturally the brewing industry endeavoured to reconquer the lost market: the bakeries; only all attempts made in this direction have failed, as it has not been possible by any treatment to make the breweis' yeast equal to the compressed yeast. Other efforts were made to prepare extracts of yeast to be used instead of meat extracts for the seasoning of food. Although this manufacture succeeded from a technical point of view, it was not possible to find a sufficient sale for the manufactured article; it seems that it is only in England that considerable quantities of brewers' yeast are admitted into the food industry.

Parallel with these efforts one form of utilization was going on and led to good results: The feeding of fresh yeast to cattle and to pigs. An especial stimulus to this use of yeast was given by its high protein content, which averages in the dry matter about 55 per cent., and allows it to rank among the best concer.trated foods. However, this form of utilization could attain only local importance, as fresh yeast, even after pressing, is easily spoilt and does not stand carriage, especially in summer, to any great distance. So that yeast was only useful to those farmers who lived near a brewery and could get the yeast fresh. It was generally carted off together with the brewers' grains, with which it was fed after being boiled.

The chief object of yeast drying is the full utilization of the excellent feeding properties of yeast and the rendering of them available to all farmers. Only by proper drying can yeast be made to keep good and become a marketable commodity. It is the merit of the Institute for Experiments and Instruction in Brewing of Berlin that this point of view has been recognized and generally adopted as the basis for the full utilization of yeast. When the Institute began its work on yeast drying in 1910, it appeared that in some places yeast driers were already at work (the apparatus of Max Oschatz of Dresden at the Schultheiss brewery, 2nd division, Berlin, and the apparatus of Emil Passburg of Berlin at the Marmite Food Extract Company in London). The Institute organized a prize competition for yeast-drying apparatus, and thus furthered the development of the yeast-drying industry. The results of the competition showed that the German machine industry is capable of meeting the demands made upon it by any industry. All the yeast driers tested at the competition were cylinder apparatus, as they are much used in the industries and especially for potato driers (turning out potato flakes) of which a great number have been set up in Germany. German agri