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"In one day it is possible to make enough pellets to seed several acres."

If rice is sown in the autumn and left uncovered, the seeds are often eaten by mice and birds, or they sometimes rot on the ground, and so I enclose the rice seeds in little clay pellets before sowing. The seed is spread out on a flat pan or basket and shaken back and forth in a circular motion. Fine powdered clay is dusted over them and a thin mist of water is added from time to time. This forms a tiny pellet about a half inch in diameter.

In October, after the rice is harvested and the next year's seed is sown, straw is scattered across the field.

There is another method for making the pellets. First the unhulled rice seed is soaked for several hours in water. The seeds are removed and mixed with moist clay by kneeding with hands or feet. Then the clay is pushed through a screen of chicken wire to separate it into small clods. The clods should be left to dry for a day or two or until they can be easily rolled between the palms into pellets. Ideally there is one seed in each pellet. In one day it is possible to make enough pellets to seed several acres.

Depending on conditions, I sometimes enclose the seeds of other grains and vegetables in pellets before sowing.

Between mid-November and mid-December is a good time to broadcast the pellets containing the rice seed among the young barley or rye plants, but they can also be broadcast in spring.** A thin layer of chicken manure is spread over the field to help decompose the straw, and the year's planting is complete.

In May the winter grain is harvested. After threshing, all of the straw is scattered over the field.

Water is then allowed to stand in the field for a week or ten days. This causes the weeds and clover to weaken and allows the rice to sprout up through the straw. Rain water alone is sufficient for the plants during June and July; in August fresh water is run through the field about once a week without being allowed to stand. The autumn harvest is now at hand.

Such is the yearly cycle of rice/winter grain cultivation by the natural method. The seeding and harvesting so closely follow the natural pattern that it could be considered a natural process rather than an agricultural technique.

It takes only an hour or two for one farmer to sow the seeds and spread the straw across a quarter acre. With the exception of the job of harvesting, winter grain can be grown single-handedly, and just two or three people can do all the work necessary to grow a field of rice using only the traditional Japanese tools. There is probably no easier, simpler method for growing grain. It involves little more than broadcasting seed and spreading straw, but it has taken me over thirty years to reach this simplicity.

By December the winter grain sprouts through the straw; the rice seeds remain dormant until spring.

This way of farming has evolved according to the natural conditions of the Japanese islands, but I feel that natural farming could also be applied in other areas and to the raising of other indigenous crops. In areas where water is not so readily available, for example, upland rice or other grains such as buck-wheat, sorghum or millet might be grown. Instead of white clover, another variety of clover, alfalfa, vetch or lupine might prove a more suitable field cover. Natural farming takes a distinctive form in accordance with the unique conditions of the area in which it is applied.

In making the transition to this kind of farming, some weeding, composting or pruning may be necessary at first, but these measures should be gradually reduced each year. Ultimately, it is not the growing technique which is the most important factor, but rather the state of mind of the farmer.

The winter grain is harvested in May. The rice seedlings are trampled by the feet of harvesters but soon recover.

* White clover is sown about one pound per quarter acre, winter grains 6_ to 13 pounds per quarter acre. For inexperienced farmers or fields with hard or poor soil, it