Where have gone the nostalgic flower carpets?

Chinese milk vetche (Astragalus sinicus) is naturalized in Japan.
The flowers used to be seen in mass around paddies, fields, meadows, 

and along brooks in spring in my childhood.

"Spring has come and the small stream flows babbling between its banks
The small stream goes whispering between the violets and milk vetches

Wishing the grace, color and beauty, all blossoming on the stream banks"

Excerpts from the popular children’s song “The Small Stream in the Spring”

(Lyrics translated by YAMAGISHI, Katusei)

At the Manyo Botanical Garden of the Kasuga Grand Shrine

Until chemical fertilizer came to be used,
Chinese milk vetches were used as green-fertilizer.
The seeds of them were sowed in the paddies drained of water right after harvesting rice
 so that milk vetches bloom in the next spring.

The paddies were plowed with the plants as fertilizer before planting rice seedlings.

Near the Amakashi Hill at the Asuka Village

The flowers used to make a beautiful sight spread out before your eyes like a spacious tapestry.

As far as my husband and I drove in early May, 

we couldn't find pink carpets but only a few patches of pinks 

even in the Asuka Village,the ancient capital of Japan, now a laidback beautiful rural village.

In the past the pale-purple to pink carpets of the flowers brought people the real feeling of spring,

nowadays bring the nostalgic feeling of spring.

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