AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 83 



It is worthy of note that dwarf training, so popular in 

 Japan with decorative plants, is seldom applied to fruit-trees. 

 The same is true of pyramidal, cordon, and wall-fruit training 

 which are so much esteemed and so widely known in Europe. 

 A few kinds of fruit do receive special attention, however, such 

 as grapes, oranges, peaches, and pears, but even with these 

 such care is not universal. It may be that this results from a 

 national peculiarity of taste, for that of many races differs from 

 ours even in respect to mere material things. For instance, a 

 number of fruits, such as apples and pears, are eaten in Japan, as 

 well as in Morocco and China, while still hard and green, or at least 

 gathered thus and put away to ripen, as the Biwa {Eriobotjya 

 japonicd). Quite in accordance with this liking, the Japanese value 

 their handsome and juicy though hard and unaromatic pears, 

 which De Candolle^ rightly calls ^' plus beau que bonl^ and which 

 most foreigners cannot endure. 



Among the {q,\n well-flavoured fruits of Japan come first of all 

 mandarin oranges, persimons and chestnuts, to which Eastern Asia 

 is an ancient home. Mandarin oranges were long ago transplanted 

 to Southern Europe and elsewhere from their oldest home in China, 

 but Kaki has been only lately introduced. The chestnut is so 

 widely distributed and so easily becomes wild, that it is very 

 difficult, if not impossible, to determine its original starting-point. 

 A fourth kind of fruit, however, from Eastern Asia, the Eriobotrya 

 japonica, has attained with astonishing rapidity to successful culti- 

 vation in almost all tropical and sub-tropical climates inhabited by 

 Europeans. The explanation of this is easily to be found in the 

 character of the plant. 



The following enumeration and description of edible Japanese 

 fruits is based upon W. Lauche's practical classification in his 

 " Handbuch des Obstbaues." Omitting the plants of agriculture 

 proper, the Cucurbitaceas, for instance, which have been already 

 considered, we divide them into kernel and stone fruit, berries, and 

 nuts. 



{a) Kernel-fruit. 



I. Pyrus sinensis, Lindl. {P. iisuriensis, Maxim.), the pears, Jap. 

 Nashi. This tree originated in Mantchooria and Mons^olia. It was 

 evidently distributed early over China, Corea, and Japan, where, 

 next to Kaki, it yields the commonest fruit."^ This variety is dis- 

 tinguished from our common pear-tree chiefly by its leaves and 

 fruit. The former are large and always sharply dentated. The 

 Japanese pears, like our cherries and many apples, are spherical 

 and somewhat flattened at both ends. They are all large, with 

 thick, bronze-yellow skins, which are covered with little light-grey 



1 " L'origine des plantes cultivees." Paris, 1883, p. 136. 



2 Decaisne in his " Jardin fruitier du Museum Poitiers," pi. 5, gives a good 

 illustration of it ; and the Revue Horticole^ a few years ago, furnished another 

 equally good. 



