AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 



fresh, in soup or as vegetables, or preserve them dried for the same 

 uses. But in autumn, when the parts above ground die off, the 

 horizontally branching rhizomes are dug up and used for making 

 fern-starch, Warabi-no-ko, i.e. brake-fern meal. The mode of pro- 

 cedure is simple, being like that employed in obtaining other sorts 

 of starch. The rhizome or root-stalk is dried, broken, and pulverized, 

 mixed with water, squeezed through coarse hemp-linen bags, to 

 separate the starch from the fibres, and then clarified further, till 

 the meal has reached the requisite purity. In this state it is light- 

 grey in colour, and can be bought anywhere. Mixed with millet, 

 wheat-flour, or rice-flour, it is extensively used in cooking, especially 

 by the poor, in Northern Honshiu, for example, and in Yezo, where 

 millet and brake-fern are the principal food-plants. Warabi-no-ko 

 serves yet another purpose. A glue is made from it, which, mixed 

 with Shibu, the sour juice of unripe Kaki-fruit, withstands rain, and 

 is used for pasting paper together, which is oiled and then used for 

 making waterproof-cloaks and umbrellas, and for defence against 

 rain in other ways. 



The brake serves for food, not only in Japan, but also in Corea 

 and other parts of the continent of Asia. And A. von Humboldt 

 asserts of the Canary Islands Palma and Gomera, that their in- 

 habitants pulverize its root-stalks, mixing them with barley-meal, 

 and use it thus for food. It is well known that Australia, at 

 the time of its discovery, possessed only one edible root, the Pteris 

 esciilenta, a near relative of our common brake. 



(d) Vegetables and Condiments. 



In this group we meet with a great number of most dissimilar 

 plants, partly truly cosmopolitan in household economy, partly 

 peculiarities which have been developed by the land and the 

 special tastes of its inhabitants. This division does not furnish 

 such important articles of food as the farinaceous ** cereals, pulse 

 and root crops ; " yet not a few of its members play an important 

 part as a daily spice of material life, in so far as it is affected by 

 the enjoyment of a well-flavoured soup, or of rice and its substi- 

 tutes. One acquainted with Japanese cooking will recall first in 

 this connection the Daikon (giant radish), Nasu (fruits of the egg- 

 plant), Negi-rui (onion family), Uri-rui, (cucumber tribe), Take 

 (mushrooms), and other kitchen-plants, which in this respect seem 

 quite indispensable. Table vegetables among the Japanese are 

 eaten generally in much smaller quantities than with us, and a 

 large number of those most widely scattered and most popular 

 among us are missing altogether, e.g., most of the cabbage-varieties, 

 rape-cole, scorzonera, asparagus, and many salad-plants. 



The Japanese distinguish between Yasai-mono or Yasai, vege- 

 tables, Tsuke-mono, fruits preserved in salt water or vinegar. 



