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have a more finished appearance, the street are wider and better kept and there are some good shops and fine large tea-houses in the town. Jinrikishas ply to and fro, the roads, however, being too bad to admit of their being used outside of the suburbs, the streets are thronged with a busy crowd, and there is every sign of a brisk trade being carried on. The Meibutsu of Kubôta are Tsumugi, a silken fabric much used in making hakama and kimono, and the pattern of which is usually black and yellow in stripes, white Chijimi, a species of crape with raised woof which fetches a high price at Yedo, and Karakami—the sliding-doors of Japanese houses.
Near Kubota we saw large tracts of woodland fenced in, and at certain spots in the wide enclosures thus formed were fixed posts notifying that the land in question belonged to the Kaitakushi or Agricultural Department. It is gratifying to see that the Japanese Government are at length disposed to turn their attention a little nearer home, and perceive that Yezo is not the only place where the influence of the Kaitakushi may be exercised to advantage; for certainly there is in the northern districts of the main island great room for improvement, and owing to the more genial accessories of position and climate the labours of the Colonization Department in this direction, where such a large field for agricultural experiments is open to them, would, it is presumable, be far more likely to be attended with success than in a country with the Siberian climate of northern Yezo—where millions of dollars have been expended—with what result is only too well known.
Hitherto all the way from Awomori to Kubota and on as far as Murakami we found that a knowledge of the language as spoken at Yedo and the neighbourhood of the capital was of very little use when speaking to the country people, though of course officials both in towns and villages can invariably speak the Yedo dialect. The dialects vary in every town to a certain extent. Near Awomori the Nambu dialect is the one in common use. Owing, however, to the yearly emigration of the country
