For Japanese in those days, hand labor was still cheaper than anything else.
Excavation for foundations, done entirely by hand labor, required another year.
"Which advances, if you like, the dignity of hand labor."
You only see hand labor on backward worlds and rich ones.
"And, at the end of all that hand labor, to pick by machine just doesn't make any sense."
I don't expect more than four to five years of hand labor.
Key problems were the inability to transfer technology from research to production and continued reliance on hand labor.
But, for the most part, the harvest is intensive hand labor.
Then, as sophisticated ladies, they married, and did not do hand labor again.
Roses take a while to get established, and they need a lot of hand labor.