AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 109 



shape and size of a fresh hand-cheese, merely from Mochi-gome 

 meal or mixed with barley-meal or flour, and covered with honey 

 (Hachi-midzu) or sugar, are offered for sale at different points along 

 the old highways, the Tokaido, for example, and attention is 

 especially called to them in the Japanese description of the road. 



13. Sato, sugar, is obtained in the warmer provinces of Japan 

 (Satsuma, Hizen, Tosa, Sanuki, Awa, Aki, Kii, Ise, Owai, Mikawa, 

 Totomi, and Suruga), but especially in the Riu-kiu islands, from 

 sugar-cane, Japanese Sato-kibi, i.e. sugar-millet. It is the so-called 

 Chinese sugar-cane {Saccharum sinense Roxb.), a variety native to 

 China, small but hardy, and able to resist low temperatures. It 

 is raised to a small extent in the above-named provinces. Its 

 vitality, however, is not great enough to enable it to withstand the 

 frosts which even in Satsuma are not infrequent all the winter. 

 Therefore the cultivation of sugar-cane is confined in Japan to the 

 summer months. It is planted in the third or fourth month, and 

 harvested in the ninth, having thus a period of only six months. 

 It cannot blossom in so short a time, nor develop sugar as abun- 

 dantly as canes of a greater age in more suitable climates. The 

 cane which is used for planting is buried all the winter under earth 

 and sand in a dry place, secure against cold. In the spring it is 

 cut into pieces, which are planted as scions in the usual way. The 

 process of sugar-making offers nothing worthy of note. It is not 

 sufficient for the demand. Considerable quantities of raw sugar 

 (white, yellow, dark-brown) have to be imported from Southern 

 China (Swatau, Amoi, and Canton), but principally from Formosa. 

 There is no refining. 



14. Su, vinegar, is made chiefly from Sake. That from Mume- 

 plums is more .highly prized, and that from oranges still more so. 



15. Kan ten, or Tokoroten, in French coile du Japon^ gelatine 

 vegetale^ in English Japanese isinglass, is a preparation from 

 various algae, which we may designate AlgcB jellies. It is largely 

 exported from Japan to China, and of late to us also. It is used 

 instead of gelatine, isinglass, and similar substances, both in house- 

 keeping and in the trades, eg. as a finish for woven goods. Before 

 use, the Kanten-s6 or Kanten-gusa [i.e. Kanten-plants) {Gelidiiim 

 coreum Lamour.), and various other floridae) are soaked and 

 cleansed in fresh water, in which they swell up quickly into a 

 gelatinous mass. But previously they are dried in the air, and put 

 away dry until needed. Then they are boiled in a kettle with 

 water, in which they easily and completely break up and dissolve. 

 The sticky fluid is now squeezed through a hemp bag into a vessel, 

 in which it coagulates to jelly upon cooling. This substance is 

 now cut up, and the pieces are perfectly dried in the air on plaited 

 bamboo or mats. 



This algae -jelly, which appears in commerce with the unsuitable 

 English name isinglass, and is generally sold with us as Agar-Agar, 

 appears as a rule in the form of irregular prismatic sticks, 3 cm. 



