862 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[JUl^E 2, 1884. 



such a paj-ing industry. 



5. Having resided some j'ears at the Dape and some 

 two years liere, I consider the climate of Victoria as being 

 eminently suited for the successful rearing of the ostrich. 



6. I therefore desire humbly to ask you w grant me 

 the lease for 21 years of 10,000 acres in the salt bush 

 country, for the purpose of rearing, breeding, buying and 

 selling ostriches and ostrich feathers, the land to have a 

 frontage or a permanent supply of good water. 



7. And further, that a clause be inserted in the lease, 

 granting me the right of purchasing the land at a price 

 to be named. 



8. Trusting you will see your way to granting me the 

 land asked for, so that a new industry may be started in 

 this colony under your n-r/i/nc. — I have the honor to be. 

 Sir, your obedient servant, S. K. S. 



Melbourne, 4th March 1884. 

 Sir, — In acknowledging receipt of your letter of the 1st 

 instant, requesting that you may be granted a lease for 

 21 years of 10,000 acres of land in the salt bush country, 

 for the purpose of rearing, breeding, buying and selling 

 o.strich feathers, I am directed by the honorable the Min- 

 ister of Lands to inform you that he has no power to 

 comply with the request. — I have the honor to be. Sir, 

 your most obedient servant, J. MoBiiAH, Secretary for 

 Lands. 



KIOE CULTURE AND RICE CLEANINC4 

 MACHINERY IN JAPAN. 



Report by Mr. .Tones, American Consul at Nagas.aki: — 



Modern agricultural implements have not found their way 

 to the island of Kiu Shiu (Ivew Shew). 'With the exception 

 of an occasional garden hoe or rake, i>rought by some foreign 

 resident from America or England, for use about his private 

 grounds, one sees here nothing familiar in that line. The 

 implements of agriculture of the comitry arc of the most 

 primitive character, and have been used right down the 

 centuries from the earliest farmer. The farmer of .Japan 

 may be said to be hereditary. He never goes out of his 

 vocation, but lives and dies upon the soil he tills, the same 

 today he was two thousand years ago. 



^V^lile this class of tillers of the soil are called fanners, 

 in our meaning of the word there are no farms aud no 

 farmers in Japan, or at least in this p.artof it. Of the 150,000 

 square miles of surface of the whole country, two-thirds of 

 it consist of mountain land, and much of this is rugged and 

 precipitous. Tlie valleys are small aud the farms, so-called, 

 are merely patches of ground, of a half acre o» so. The 

 country is laid out into innumerable gardens, not into farms, 

 anil in gardening the Japanese have little to learn. Even 

 with their old-fashioned implements they produce results 

 equal to the best in any part of the world. The mountain 

 sides are terraced into garden plats, and are cultivated to 

 their very summits, so that the general aspect of Japan in 

 this respect is one of high cultivation and perpetu.al verdure. 



The introduction here of simple hand implements of 

 general and conspicuous use might be of advantage after a 

 while to our manufacturers, when the Japanese become 

 familiar with their use and have discovered their superiority 

 over their own simple implements, but at present I would 

 rccommcTid only the consigmnent, as samjiles, as is wore, of 

 such things as lioes, rakes, spades, shovels, and the like. 

 There is no room for expensive machinery, such as reapers, &c. 



Improved and cheap rice cleaners and iiolishers might find 

 a market. But it must be understood that with this people 

 time is as yet of no object, and labour-saving machinery is 

 of no consecjuence. The man supplies the place of the horse. 

 Rice is the chief product of the soil of Japan, as it is the 

 chief article of food of the people. 



In gathering the rice the farmer uses an implement some- 

 thing like the old-fashioned reaping-hook, to cut the straw. 

 The rice i-; separated from the straw by the women aud 

 children of the family striking it .against wooden teeth, set 

 in a row, of sufficient width apart to permit the straw to 

 pass, but not the rice-heads. After the separation the straw 

 is used for various j)iu'poses, such as n\nkiiig bags to hold 

 the cleansed rice, thatching roofs, kc. They used it also as 

 food for cattle and horses by cutting ii, up iLud mixiup it 

 with bran. 



To clean the rice it is beaten with sticks and sifted, and 

 then run through a mill to take olt the husks. This mill is 

 constructed of two bamboo Ijaskets, without bottoms, rest- 

 ing one on the other, which are filled with bamboo splints 

 about a foot long and burnt at one end, which are placed 

 perpendicularly in the baskets and cemented siilidly 

 together by mortar. The bamboo ends i^ct as the cuttings 

 on a Hour-mill stone ; the basket, bamboo splints, aud cement 

 as the mill-stones. The upper basket is tui-ned around by 

 a handle fastened at one side, wluch is arranged as a kind 

 of crank and worked by hand. The best rice in .lapan is 

 raised on this island, in the province of Uiogo, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Nagasaki. 



The a%'erage price of rice in this market is S2'40 to ,$2'80 

 a picul of 133J pounds. The rice crop of Nagasaki "ken, or 

 province, is about 702,266,153 koku per annum. A koku is 

 2^ piculs, and a picul is 133j pounds. The value of the 

 yearly iTop is about 7,184,988 yensatsu. A yensatsu is a 

 paper dollar, of fluctuating value compared with the silver 

 dollar, generally about GO per cent discount. The whole 

 annual rice crop of Japan is about 31,604,730 koku, of the 

 value of 305,744,158 yen. The yearly export of rice is about 

 6,827,070 catties (a catty is IJ pounds), valued at about 

 210,861 yen. 



An improvement on the original methods of the natives 

 in cleaning rice has been introduced at Nagasaki by Messrs. 

 G. W. Lake & Oo., American merchants, residing and doing 

 business in this city. They have erected a mill on an eligible 

 site, by the bay, in the lower part of the foreign concession 

 of Nagasaki, and have as much business in this way as 

 their machinery can do. They have an 18-horso power 

 portable engine and boiler, manufactured by the Erie City 

 Works, Pennsylvania, as the motor for then' rice-cleaning 

 machines, of seventy-two stamps. There are in this vicinity, 

 at this time, six other rice mills owned by Japanese, and 

 constructed on about the same principle as the one de- 

 scribed. Throughout the country where water power is to 

 be had the natives use it. Much of the rice in the country 

 is cleaned by manual labour, in a wooden mortar. Several 

 bands of straw rope are placed in tlie centre of the mortar, 

 which is filled with rice and pounded with a mallet. One 

 man, by this process, will clean from one to two piculs of 

 rice rice per day. 



BABUL BARK AND PODS. 



Mr. W. Wilson, Director of Revenue Settlement and 

 Agriculture, has addressed the following circular letter to 

 the Chamber of Commerce, Trades Associations and prin- 

 cipal Merchauts in the Madras Presidency : — 



Sir. — " In" forwarding for your information copy of a 

 memorandum ilrawn up by Mr. J. S. Gamble. Conservai >r 

 of Forests in the Northern DiW.sion of this Presidency, on 

 on Ealiul Bark and Babul Pods, I have the honor to re- 

 quest that you will be good enough to give me any in- 

 formation that you may be able and are willing to afford 

 regarding the commercial prospects of a trade in these 

 articles with England and other contries. I have asked the 

 Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of 

 Revenue, Agriculture and Commerce to supply mo with the 

 information askeil for by Mr. Gamble regarding the pur- 

 chasers and mode of sale in London alluded to in a paper 

 recently drawn up on this subject by Mr. Liotard of that 

 Department, and the information when received will be 

 communicated to you." 



AC.\CIA AnAEICA. 



The Babul is not indigc^nous in the Madras Presidency 

 unless po.ssibly it may be considered to be wild on the bl.ack 

 cotton lands of Bellary .and Kumool. Nor is it a 'Forest 

 tree' properly speaking in this presidency, for it does not 

 occur wild in any of our chief forest tracts. But it comes 

 up plentifully, self sown, on old tank beds, on fallow lauds, 

 on black cotton soil, aud on bunds and mounds and high 

 Lands among the rice fields of the Circars and Carnatic. 

 Its real home is probably to be found in Sind and Guzcr.at, 

 and in the first mentioned province it is the chief tree of the 

 Indus bank forests, whore it aifonls large supplies of fuel for 

 the river st.e.iniersand the Uailvvay. The wood and its n.ses 

 arodescrilM.l ;i( page l.")! of the ''Manual of Indian timber,' 

 to the information given I'n which 1 have nothing to add 

 excKi>t that the Madras Railway refuse to take it as fuel, al- 

 though other lines have no such prejudice. I nuderstand 



