Agricultural Products.

II

The

proverb, 'gives but a small crop,'-a saying which strikingly shows that the Japanese themselves have little faith in the natural fertility of their soil. Japanese farmer,' says Professor Kinch, of the Imperial College of Agriculture, Tôkiyô, a gentleman to whom I am indebted for most of the information given in this paragraph,—' the Japanese farmer treats his soil as a vehicle in which to grow crops, and does not appear to regard it as a bank from which to draw continual supplies of crops; thus he manures every crop, and he applies the manure to the crop and not to the land.' Nowhere is there more neat and painstaking tillage than in Japan. All the sewage of the towns and villages is utilized as manure. Of the 4 million chô under cultivation, 2 million consist of paddy-fields, which yield on an average about thirty bushels of clean rice per acre. Among the other agricultural products are wheat, barley, rye, maize, buckwheat, millet, peas, field and haricot beans, potatoes, vetches, tares, lupins, soy beans, ground nuts, daikon (raphanus sativus), turnips, carrots, beets, mangolds, cucumbers, egg-plants, tea, tobacco, cotton, hemp, indigo, lotus-roots, onions, leeks, etc. The total produce of rice per annum is about 170,000,000 bushels, that of wheat, 35,000,000 bushels, and of barley, 55,000,000 bushels.

With all the beauty of their well-tilled fields,

Japanese farms lack that softness which is so characteristic of the pasturages of England. The rearing of flocks and herds has no place in the farmers' work, and there is therefore no cultivated meadowland. Grassy slopes there are among the hills, which at a distance may look park-like; but unless they be in the higher altitudes, where the vegetation is more like our own, a nearer view will show the grass to be long and coarse. Then it is hardly necessary to add, that the grass, as would seem to happen everywhere in the temperate zone out of Britain, becomes brown in winter.

The mineral resources of Japan are undoubtedly great; but various circumstances have prevented their due development. The methods of working which were until comparatively lately in vogue, were crude and unremunerative, and even now there are many mines which, although worked on foreign principles, yield little or no profit, chiefly on account of their imperfect communication with centres of trade. Far up among the mountains, the roads leading to them are often wretched bridle-paths, accessible only to pack-horses, by which transportation is both slow and expensive. The present Government, however, have their attention turned to the improvement of roads. The recent outlay for costly machinery, and the heavy expenses incurred in sinking shafts, constructing furnaces, etc., have

Luxuriant Flora.

13

also tended to consume any revenue derivable from the Government mines. Gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, sulphur, coal, basalt, felspar, greenstones, granites red and grey, marble, rock-crystal, agate, carnelian, amber, scoriae and pumice-stone, talc, alum, etc., etc., are found in greater or less quantities. Coalbeds extend from Nagasaki to Yezo. The supply of sulphur is almost inexhaustible, and of wonderful purity. The island of Sado, near Niigata, yields the largest supply of gold, and the principal coal-mine is in the island of Takashima, off the harbour of Nagasaki.

Reference has already been made to the luxuriance of Japanese vegetation. The flora consists so largely of evergreens, of which there are 150 varieties, that even in the depth of winter the face of the country is well covered with foliage. Among the most characteristic trees are various pines, the cryptomeria Japonica, sometimes attaining a height of 150 feet, the evergreen oak, firs of different kinds, the bamboo, which, with its feathery groves, adds a semi-tropical aspect to the plains, the cedar, yew, camphor-tree, ash, salisburia adiantifolia, magnolia, paulownia, persimmon, boxwood, holly, chestnut, elm, beech, maple, alder, willow, birch, mulberry, pear, cherry, plum, peach, myrtle, orange, etc., etc. The great variety in the altitude of the land gives a corresponding variety of vegetation. Thus, while

in the plains the flora of the temperate zone is diversified by partially developed representatives of the tropics, such as the palm, banana, etc.; in the higher mountains there are found plants characteristic of Northern Asia, of Canada, of the Polar regions, and of some of the Alpine ranges. There are said to be no fewer than 1699 species of dicotyledonous, with a proportionate number of monocotyledonus plants. The wild flowers which delight the eye, especially in the upland regions, are very numerous; and in the cities the art of gardening is carried to a perfection that is unsurpassed. In fragrant flowers Japan is not so rich as our own country; but England cannot compare with it for flowering shrubs.

The plum, the peach, the

cherry, the camellia (in all of which the bloom precedes the leaf), the azalea, the wistaria Sinensis, the peony, the iris, the lotus, the chrysanthemum, etc., in their different seasons, gratify the eye with their perfection of bloom. Little attention is paid to the fruit, so long as the full bloom of the flower can be realized. Then the infinite shades of colour with which autumn decks the Japanese landscape, from the green just becoming sere, to the deep purple and vermilion of the maple and the brilliant. yellow of the ichô (salisburia adiantifolia), are unrivalled except perhaps in North America. The indigenous fruits of the country are mostly poor.

The best of them are the grape, the melon, the orange, the kaki, a kind of persimmon until recently peculiar to Japan, the peach, the loquat, the fig, and the pear. Increased attention is now, however, being paid to fructiculture, and in some of the principal cities an excellent variety of fruit can be obtained.

The fauna is not so abundant as the flora. Foxes, badgers, wild boars, monkeys, bears, wolves, deer, antelopes, squirrels, hares, and rabbits, are more or less prevalent. Horses and oxen are used as beasts of burden. As with us, the farm-yards are enlivened with barn-door fowls. The dogs are mostly of the one fox-like breed, and are poor-spirited animals, making a great noise at the approach of a stranger, but taking care all the time to increase their distance from him. There are domestic cats very similar to our own. In Honshiu there have been found thirteen species of snakes, but only one of these, the mamushi or trigonocephalus Blomhoffii, is deadly. It has been usual for writers on Japan to speak of the country as containing few birds, and these few not remarkable. for either beauty or song. To a certain extent this is true of the immediate neighbourhood of the foreign settlements, but it is quite a mistake to suppose that the wilder parts of the country are deficient in birds. Messrs Blakiston and Pryer enumerate no fewer than 325 species, of which 180.