86 FOREST FLORA OF JAPAN. 



about cutting the trees in this belt, which is invaded by bands of wood-choppers, who cut 

 without system any trees that appear large enough to answer their purpose ; and the only 

 mature trees it contains are those growing in inaccessible positions, or of sorts which are not 

 considered valuable. No attention is paid to reproducing the valuable species, with the result, 

 of course, that such species, being the most cut, have become the least common. Reproduction 

 is chiefly by coppice- growth which is cut at irregular intervals ; and the Japanese deciduous 

 forests display all the bad effects of an indiscriminate and long-continued system of jardinage. 

 The application of the block system would in time, of course, increase the output of these 

 forests and supply large quantities of valuable timber where only fuel or small sticks are now 

 produced. 



Still better results might be expected from covering some parts of the desert land with 

 forests. These so-called deserts consist of sandy seashore planes and dunes, often capable of 

 producing a moderate growth of Pine ; the alpine summits of mountains, their lava-covered 

 slopes, bare mountain-ridges from which the forests have been artificially removed, and the 

 hara. This is the rolling foothill region about the base of the high mountains or below the 

 mountain forest-belt, and must form a very large part of the thirty-seven per cent, of desert ; 

 it is covered with a mat of coarse bunch-grass (Eulalia) and with many other perennial plants. 

 Here the Japanese cut the fodder for their animals and cure their hay for winter use. Every 

 spring the whole hara is burnt over to destroy the dried vegetation of the previous year and 

 start a new growth of grass. That fires have made these foothills treeless by the destruction 

 of all seedling trees as fast as they appear seems to be shown in the fact that where ravines 

 or other depressions occur among the hills, which the fire cannot easily reach, they are covered 

 with a vigorous growth of trees of many species. It is not easy to find in existing conditions 

 of Japanese life any cause for the original destruction of the foothill forests, but once 

 destroyed it is easy to see why they have not been able to grow again. Much of the hara 

 region is suited in soil and elevation to produce Retinosporas and Cryptomerias, the most val- 

 uable of the Japanese timber-trees, and its conversion from unproductive prairie for not 

 one per cent, of the hara is used for hay into forest would add enormously to the wood 

 product of the empire. 



Japan is well situated geographically to supply a vast number of people living in foreign 

 countries with timber ; and its soil and climate are preeminently suited to produce forests. It 

 could easily send, if it had it to spare, coniferous timber to China, where the demand for 

 building material is practically inexhaustible, to the Straits Settlements and Australia ; and 

 oak-staves for wine casks to California, which is now supplied from the fast vanishing forests 

 of the Mississippi valley. 



From the changed conditions which have followed the hasty and often ill-considered intro- 

 duction of European methods into Japan, grave economic questions are rising. The cessation 

 of civil wars which followed the abolition of the Shogunate and the deposition of the Daimyos, 

 and the introduction of western medical practices, have caused a great increase of population in 

 the last twenty years, and the question of food supply is becoming a vital one to Japan. The 

 limit to the production of rice, the one great staple, has been practically reached, and all 

 efforts to induce the superfluous population of the southern islands to colonize Yezo have 



