Utilising Everything.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8057, 28 February 1906, Page 4

Utilising Everything.

One of the secrets of Japan's solution of its pressing problem of subsistence is that the people of that empire, in advance of all other races, have perfected the frugal art of utilising everything. Whatever grows or passes to decay is of value to the Japanese farmer. Measured in money he is not rich. But he dwells in a comfortable and inviting horr.e purged ol oval y taint and dust. The transparent paper walls ol his honse, made of bark from his mitsumata shrubs, Hood his dwelling with light and keep out the wind. He enjoys good food served in dainty but inexpensive dishes made of the native woods. Even in the homes of the poorest there are no visible signs of poverty. There is no squalor in agricultural Japan. The humblest peasant farmer is clean, industrious and comfortable. The area of fence corners abandoned on many American farms to wild mustard, fennel, and pigweed would furnish comfortable living to a whole family in rural Japan. Some idea of the trifling cost of living in agricultural Japan was given the writer by an American who has spent 15 years in the empire. Frequently he takes a vacation in the farming regions. He has good food, sleeps on clean and comfortable quilts in impeccable houses, is carried about In country carts, and at the end of two weeks he finds that his total expenses have not exseeded ten yen, or about £l.