66 AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



times with fluid cesspool manure. In some neighbourhoods, in 

 June, the trailing tendrils, now from 2 to 2\ m. long, are trimmed, and 

 the cuttings are transplanted for further increase into a freshly- 

 prepared field from which wheat has just been reaped. Each 

 plant produces five or six bulbs, differing greatly in size and shape. 



The commonest and most popular sub-species is a red-skinned 

 variety (Aka-imo) in the form of an ellipsoid. There is one variety 

 of this again which is more in the shape of a club, and so on to 

 spherical. This sort grows to the size of Kohl-rabi root. 



Like most climbers, the batata prefers a light, warm soil. Its 

 shoots sprawl out in all directions to a length of two to four meters, 

 with many long-stemmed leaves. The latter somewhat resemble 

 those of the ivy, though larger and with greater variety of form, 

 being found sometimes heart-shaped, and again indented, but 

 generally with three or five lobes. 



One of the peculiarities of batata bulbs, is the fact that they are 

 fleshy swellings of side-roots, and not underground tubers in the 

 ordinary sense, like potatoes proper and Taro, nor yet rhizomes, 

 like the well-known purgative products of other convolvulacecs} 

 Where the ground is not sufficiently heated through, as in Ger- 

 many, the batata does not develop these root-swellings at all, or 

 at most deposits only a little starch in them. This was proved, 

 also, in attempts at cultivation which I made with several West 

 Indian sub-species, eighteen years ago in the Botanical Garden at 

 Frankfort-on-the-Main. The parts above the surface developed 

 splendidly, and covered the ground with a thick carpet of creepers 

 and leaves. But in autumn, when we sought for bulbs, we dis- 

 covered that the greatest root-swellings had only reached the 

 thickness of one's thumb. 



7. The common or Irish potato, Jap. Jagatara-imo {Solanum 

 tuberosum^ L.). The Japanese name, Jagatara, is a somewhat un- 

 couth form for Jacatra, the earlier designation for Batavia, and 

 points to the introduction of the potato through the Dutch Com- 

 pany. I could learn no particulars as to when this happened. In 

 the plains and valleys of Japan, vyhere batata or Taro can be raised, 

 we very seldom meet our potato, though we find it in the mountain- 

 districts of Kiushiu as far as Yezo, and pretty frequently too ; but 

 even here not in large fields. Theydo not understand howto manage 

 the plant, not giving it proper manure, nor digging ridges about it, 

 and consequently get but scanty crops — about five-fold. In fact, 

 the Japanese has acquired neither the knowledge of how to cultivate 

 it, nor a taste for it. And, indeed, it is a favourite with very few 

 nations as with us. The potato fills nowhere so prominent a place 

 as in the domestic economy of Teutonic and Slavic peoples. After 

 crossing the northern boundary of the Mediterranean region, we 



^ See also Turpin : " Memoires du Musdum," vol. xix., pp. t, ff,, and A. de 

 Candolle : " Archives des Sciences phys. et nat., Troisieme Periode." vol. vii., 



