232 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



twenty different species, including oaks, and is very largely 

 used for heating and smoking urns. Clogs, which with grass- 

 sandals are almost universally used instead of boots, are made 

 from the wood of " kiri," a fast-growing tree which is largely 

 grown in open groves round villages. 



The demand for wood of all kinds is thus very great, and, 

 at least in private forests, there is a continual tendency towards 

 lowering the cutting rotation. The prices of timber are some- 

 what high, those of Cryptomeria and Cupressus being roughly 

 6d. per cubic foot, and pine about 3d. Railway rates are 

 approximately |d. per mile per ton. 



Japan is essentially a great forest-growing country. If all 

 the possible culturable land, or that required for pure grazing,^ 

 is taken out, a very large area suitable only to forest remains. 

 Furthermore, the " leads " to the sea are short. Its future, 

 therefore, as a great timber-exporting country, seems absolutely 

 certain, as China alone will absorb all the timber offered to her. 

 For the present Japan will probably find the machine-cut wood 

 from the Western States of America competing severely in the 

 markets with her products, and, besides, she has not, or ought 

 not to have, much to offer. — Abridged from Timber Trades 

 Journal, May 14, 1904. 



Forestry Education at The Imperial University of Tokio. 



The University, covering a large area of ground, is situated in 

 the district of Hongo, an outlying suburb of the capital of 

 Japan, and the College of Agriculture is in the suburb of Komaba, 

 about six miles distant. 



The College of Agriculture did not become a school of the 

 University until 1890. For many years attention had been paid 

 to the study of agriculture in an institution devoted to the subject, 

 which from 1881 had been carried on directly under Government 

 supervision. Since 1895 the College has received three valuable 

 endowments from the Government in the form of land for the 

 teaching of practical forestry, amounting in all to 68,636 acres. 

 This treatment of the subject affords a striking contrast with 

 that which it receives in this country. — Abridged from The 

 Times. 



