134 AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



Towards the end of April the shoots are strong enough to be trans- 

 planted into rows, as elsewhere. They are set out beside rows of 

 barley, which has by this time passed its bloom. Elsewhere, for 

 instance in Higo, tobacco-sowing does not take place till April, 

 but transplanting is in June, to barley or wheat fields which are not 

 intended to receive rice. 



Tobacco-growing is widely, though very unequally, spread 

 throughout the Japanese islands. The first picking takes place in 

 August, with a second and third in September. The leaves are 

 then hung about the houses to dry, as with us. I saw the following 

 arrangement employed for this purpose in Aidzu : one person was 

 twisting two thin straw ropes into a thicker one, another mean- 

 while inserting tobacco leaves in pairs, with their stems all turned 

 up at intervals of about lO cm. When fixed in this way the rope 

 was hung up on the walls of the building or on poles, with 

 numerous leaves pointing downward. 



Of all the varieties of Japanese tobacco that from the former 

 dominion of Satsuma, to which Kokubu also belongs, as we 

 have said already, has the greatest reputation among the natives. 

 Its flavour is too sweet for Europeans, however, and it is therefore 

 but little exported. The kind most valued for export, though it 

 too is far inferior to American tobacco, comes from Higo and 

 other provinces of the south. It is sent to Nagasaki packed in 

 straw mats. Here it is stemmed and repacked in bales. These 

 go exclusively to England. The leaf has a spongy character ; it 

 is therefore mixed with stronger sorts, with the result that it ab- 

 sorbs a considerable amount of the sharpness. As an article of 

 exportation, tobacco ranks far behind many other products, and is 

 in general not much in demand. 



b. Drugs. 



In the diary of my first journey in Japan, in the summer of 

 1874, there is this entry, at the town of Sunjo, at the foot of 

 Ibukiyama (See Rein, "Japan," vol. i. p. ']']) : — " My host told me 

 that Ibukiyama abounded in herbs, yielding 130 different medicines, 

 mostly vegetable. From his little collection he presented me with 

 two included in that number, the one a piece of stalactite, the other 

 a piece of fibrous woUastonite." The Chinese science of pharmacy, 

 which the Japanese followed blindly till thirty years ago, like our 

 own in the Middle Ages and even later, up to the development 

 of chemistry, enumerates a very large number of drugs, some of 

 which are exceedingly rare. Thunberg brought a small list of 

 Japanese plants used for pharmaceutical purposes, and v. Siebold 

 in the work already cited, " Verhandl. van het Batav. Genootschap, 

 xii. deel. Bat. 1830," furnished a long, but by no means exhaustive, 

 catalogue. Oyaku-yen (the Garden of Physic), which was estab- 



