AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 133 



celebrated for its tobacco. Its name has been everywhere applied 

 to the tobacco business. 



I visited the district of Kokubu in the spring of 1875. It com- 

 prises a small plain on the north-eastern shore of the Kagoshima 



Fig. I. KISERU — THE JAPANESE PIPE. 



Bay. Its light soil, mixed with much pumiceous sand, yields fairly 

 good harvests only when very carefully manured and worked. 

 The seed-bed of the tobacco is protected against too great cooling 

 from radiation on spring nights by straw roofs about a meter high. 



