Farmers of Forty Centuries 229part it plays in the welfare of the people. There is little reason to doubt that this
industry has its foundation in the need of something to render boiled water palat-
able for drinking purposes. The drinking of boiled water is universally adopted in
these countries as an individually available and thoroughly efficient safeguard
against that class of deadly disease germs which thus far it has been impossible to
exclude from the drinking water of any densely peopled country.
Judged by the success of the most thorough sanitary measures thus far insti-
tuted, and taking into consideration the inherent difficulties which must increase
enormously with increasing populations, it appears inevitable that modern meth-
ods must ultimately fail in sanitary efficiency and that absolute safety can be
secured only in some manner having the equivalent effect of boiling drinking
water, long ago adopted by the Mongolian races.
In the year 1907 Japan had 124,482 acres of land in tea plantations, producing
60,877,975 pounds of cured tea. In China the volume annually produced is much
larger than that of Japan, 40,000,000 pounds going annually to Tibet alone from
the Szechwan province; and the direct export to foreign countries was, in 1905,
176,027,255 pounds, and in 1906 it was 180,271,000, so that their annual export
must exceed 200,000,000 pounds with a total annual output more than double
this amount of cured tea.
But above any other factor, and perhaps greater than all of them combined in
contributing to the high maintenance efficiency attained in these countries, must
be placed the standard of living to which the industrial classes have been com-
pelled to adjust themselves, combined with their remarkable industry and with the
most intense economy they practise along every line of effort and of living.
Almost every foot of land is made to contribute material for food, fuel or fab-
ric. Everything which can be made edible serves as food for man or domestic ani-
mals. Whatever cannot be eaten or worn is used for fuel. The wastes of the body,
of fuel and of fabric worn beyond other use are taken back to the field; before
doing so they are housed against waste from weather, compounded with intelli-
gence and forethought and patiently laboured with through one, three or even six
months, to bring them into the most efficient form to serve as manure for the soil
or as feed for the crop. It seems to be a golden rule with these industrial classes, or
if not golden, then an inviolable one, that whenever an extra hour or day of labour
can promise even a little larger return then that shall be given, and neither a rainy
day nor the hottest sunshine shall be permitted to cancel the obligation or defer its
execution.
Note
1 This figure was wrongly stated in the first edition as 1 acre, owing to a mistake in con-
fusing the area of cultivated land with total area.