CULTIVATION OF MITSUMATA. 13 



overhanging roof or are stored in some outbuilding- and kept until 

 planting time the following February. The price of this seed varies 

 greatly; from 30 cents to $1.50 a gallon was the range quoted the 

 writer by the peasants. 



In the middle or toward the last of February the seed bed is pre- 

 pared and the seeds are planted in rows a foot or so apart, where they 

 are given the usual care of weeding and cultivation which all seedlings 

 require, and where they remain for one year, or until 8 or 9 inches 

 high. These young plants are then set out on the hillsides, after the 

 ground has been prepared for their reception by working it over with 

 a mattock or fork. They are put in at the rate of 20,000 to 21,000 to 

 the acre, or about a foot and a half apart each way. On the hillside 

 plantations shelter trees of a species of alder (Alnus maritima var. 

 japonicd) are planted 20 to 30 feet apart. The roots of these trees are 

 said to help bind the loose soil, the dead leaves form a mulch, and the 

 branches form a wind-break, preventing the winds from whipping the 

 young shoots of the mitsumata plants. Two or three cultivations a 

 year are given to keep down the weeds and loosen the soil, and by the 

 end of the first year after transplanting the harvest of bark is ready. 



The harvesting is done any time in the winter and consists merely in 

 cutting the plants down to the ground by means of a heavy knife, 

 binding them into bundles, and transporting them to the farmhouse. 

 Though the tops are cut down every other winter, the roots of the 

 mitsumata plants remain alive for many years — roots a hundred years 

 old are known, it is said — but for commercial purposes the stumps of 

 the plant cease to produce profitable crops of new shoots after ten or 

 twelve years, when they are dug out and young plants are set in their 

 places. It requires two years for an old stump to produce a market- 

 able bush, and many of the plants are evidently allowed three or four 

 years to grow before being cut down again. 



The crop would naturally be a biennial instead of an annual one, but 

 owing to the fact that some plants have to be replaced earlier than 

 others a field of mitsumata soon has growing on it plants in various 

 stages of maturity, and the cutting can be done every winter. 



From 600 to 2,000 pounds of raw bark per acre are produced by 

 this plant, according to a statement made by a paper manufacturer, 

 and when made into pulp it is worth in Japan 15 to 16 cents gold per 

 pound, or four times what the imported wood pulp from America 

 sells for in Yokohama. 



The bark is removed from the cut shoots by the peasants, who soak 

 them in hot water and strip off the bark by hand. From the clean 

 appearance of the bundles of peeled branches it seems probable that 

 the bark slips off easily (see PI. Ill, fig. 1), leaving light, porous 

 faggots, suitable for kindling wood. Whether or not the bark could 

 be removed by machinery has yet to be investigated, but the soft 



