AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 31 



I observed powdered quick-lime, called Ishi-bai (stone-ashes), 

 employed in various parts of Japan, principally, however, in non- 

 volcanic districts, where the soil is poorer, being the product 

 of older weather-worn" shales and crystalline rocks. Its use, more- 

 over, was confined, as a rule, to rice-fields. When these, at the 

 beginning of summer, are prepared for the reception of young 

 seedlings, and green manure, or rape-straw, is spread out over their 

 muddy surface, lime is strewn over all. It quickly decomposes 

 the fibres of the plants, thereby furthering the distribution and 

 effect of such manure. On account of its caustic properties, it 

 cannot be applied as a fertilizer to growing plants. 



Limestone appears only exceptionally as a pure carbonic salt. 

 So it is plain that its effect as a soil-improver may often be height- 

 ened through the admixture of phosphate of lime, magnesia, iron 

 and other bodies. 



Other summer plants besides rice are manured generally with 

 straw-ashes or wood-ashes at seeding-time, and with dung, thinned 

 with water, during their growth. This fluid manure, with the 

 frequent rains, renders artificial watering of the Hata unnecessary. 

 The porosity of the soil and its sloping position make drainage 

 likewise dispensable, except such drainage indeed as is provided 

 through the division of fields into narrow beds with deep furrows 

 between. This is especially the method of planting winter pro- 

 ducts ; as is done also in the South of France, near Bordeaux, for 

 instance. Improvement of the soil by mixture is not known, and 

 neither is the so-called fire-culture (Brandcultur). 



But there is another fertilizing element in the rice-lands besides 

 lime, green manure, and straw manure, and that is the flowing 

 water with which they can be flooded. In this are contained not 

 merely valuable mineral products of erosion, but also decomposed 

 vegetable matter. The soil's power of absorbing these substances 

 has been proved beyond all doubt. Kellner's chemical examination 

 of water as it passed off, after trickling through the ground, showed 

 fewer mineral constituents than were found in river water. 



Japanese agricultural implements are mostly simple and service- 

 able. But the latter quality cannot be claimed for those used in 

 raising and harvesting grain, resembling closely, as they do, those 

 used in China and Corea, and having evidently been little changed 

 in the course of many centuries. Manual skill, industry, and per- 

 severance take the place, in Eastern Asia, of our better adapted 

 tools. 



The plough (Karasuki) resembles, in its commonest form, that of 

 Egypt, which we know is made and used to-day just as in the 

 time of the Pharaohs. At the front end of its beam, which is 

 about two meters long, there is the simple arrangement of a yoke 

 for attaching the horse or ox, while at its other end a crooked piece 

 of wood is fastened, pointing out backwards, and forming at its 

 lower extremity the breast, ending here in the iron-pointed 



