$6 AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



a favourite relish to the rather insipid water-cooked rice and 

 millet, and other starchy grains. Some of them also serve in 

 preparing sauce, vegetable jelly, and other things known under 

 the names Shoyu, Tofu, and Miso, and much used in Japanese 

 housekeeping. With the exception of peas and broad beans, all 

 the plants in this group are raised only in summer, because the 

 winter of Japan is too severe for them. In the case of the latter, 

 terrace-cultivation is general ; of the former, cultivation in rows. 

 There are grown in Japan : 



1. The ground-nut, Japanese Rakkuwash6 (pronounced Rak- 

 kasho), and T6-jin-mame, that is, Chinese bean {Arachis hypogcea, 

 L.) It is planted only in the warmer southern parts of the country, 

 and over a small territory. Sometimes it is roasted and eaten, at 

 others, made into oil. (See further under oil-plants.) 



2. The soy-bean, Japanese Daidzu and 0-mame {Glycine hispida, 

 Moench. ; Soja hispida, Miq. ; Dolichos sofa, L.), was introduced 

 into our botanical gardens nearly a century ago.^ But it did not 

 receive much attention from us till after the Vienna Exhibition. 

 There is now scarcely a European country in which attempts to 

 raise it have not been made ; within the last ten years, scarcely a 

 journal of horticulture or agriculture which has not pictured or 

 described it.^ In France and Austro-Hungary especially, much 

 attention has been paid to the soy-bean during this period ; and 

 its cultivation has been attempted in many places, with greater 

 or less success.^ The results of these studies and experiments in 

 Austria have been recorded in an interesting work by Prof. Haber- 

 landt, through whom principally they were undertaken, in and 

 on behalf of the imperial high-school of agriculture, with seeds 

 from China, Japan, and Mongolia.* These results seem to estab- 

 lish the fact that the soy-bean can be raised in a temperate 

 cliniate, and to bear witness to its great productiveness, its extra- 

 ordinary nutritiousness, and the various other qualities for which 

 it is celebrated. They thus possess a manifold interest. Among 

 the pulse of Japan (and not less of China), the soy-bean ranks 

 first in extent, variety of use, and value; and chemical analyses 

 prove the empirical judgment to be well founded. 



In point of nutriment, the soy-bean is of all vegetables the 

 nearest to meat. It contains nearly two-fifths of its weight in 

 legumin rich in nitrogen, and nearly one-sixth in fat. The soy-bean 

 is to the inhabitants of Japan what their garba7tzos (chick-peas) are 

 to the Spanish, and their/^y<id7/r^/^ (black beans) to the Brazilians. 

 But chick-peas are only served as relish and garnishing to meat, 



* In the " Hortus Kewensis " of Ait. the year 1790 is given as the date of its 

 introduction into England. 



2 See also Ue Candolle : " L'Origine des Plantes cultive'es," p. 265. 



3 As good representations of the soy-bean, I may mention that of E. 

 Kaempfer, 1880, pp. 154 and 185. 



* " Die Sojabohne." Vienna, 1878. 



