412 MR. W. T. T. DYER ON SOME NEW ECONOMIC 
direction a few inches apart, l inch being left exposed above the 
ground. This takes place in the end of February and through 
March, according to the climate of the locality. These cuttings 
throw a strong shoot of from 18 to 20 inches the first year, and 
are likewise planted out the following spring. Under equally . 
favourable circumstances these trees would in ten years be nearly 
25 per cent. larger in growth, some 2 or 8 feet higher, and would 
yield nearly half as much more sap than the trees raised from 
seed. : 
“Tt has not hitherto been the custom to bestow any special 
care on the trees after planting them out; but in cases where 
leaf or other manure has been applied they are much finer. Of 
late years hill-sides and waste grounds alone have been used for 
laequer plantations, as, owing to the rise in the price of cereals 
and farm-produce generally, it does not pay the farmers to have 
their land cumbered with trees” (pp. 2, 3). 
In a further passage Mr. Quin describes the manufacture of 
wax from the berries. Such a product is, as far as I can ascer- 
tain, little known in Europe, though, of course, Japan wax (the 
produce of Rhus succedanea, Li.) is a substance which has been a 
good deal studied, and was at one time, at any rate, à consider- 
able article of trade. Simmonds* merely remarks that “the 
lacquer-tree also yields the wax;" and this is the only reference 
to it I have met with. 
* [In the northern provinces very old and large trees are met 
with in eonsiderable quantities. "These were kept for the sake 
of their berries, from which the wax used for the Japanese candles 
was obtained. This was the more profitable use to which to put 
the tree, as a good tree, from 80 to 100 years old, yielded yearly, 
on an average, equal to 6s., while the price of a ten-year-old tree 
to be used for extracting the sap was under 3d. Previous to the 
revolution of 1868 every tree reserved for making wax was ofli- 
cially registered, and the owner was not allowed to mutilate it in 
any way. Even if a tree died, he had to get official permission 
before removing the stump. The Shogun's Government and also 
the local magnates had large plantations of the lacquer-tree re- 
served for wax; but since the opening of the country to foreign 
trade, and the introduction trom abroad of kerosine oil, the wax 
industry has greatly declined, and there are now no restrictions 
on the free sale of. the tree for tapping, and consequently all the 
* «Tropical Agriculture, 1877, p. 421. 
