i6o AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



products of the field, shading the roads in some places, and is 

 cultivated with great care. Under Daimio-rule there were exact 

 regulations, even as to the minimum number of trees to be planted 

 annually in each place. The punishment for injuring them was 

 most severe. Female trees (me-gi) were allowed to be tapped 

 only once in four years, in autumn, and at a few points only. It 

 was believed that they were benefited by this, as by a sort of 

 blood-letting, and accordingly it was called Yojo-gaki (Yojo = 

 health-culture, gaki = kaki = scratching). By this means hardy fruit 

 was obtained and a little lacquer, but that excellent. The pro- 

 duction of wax was regarded as the principal thing. But with 

 male trees (0-gi) every one could take what course he chose. 



Aidzu-ro and Aidzu-ro-soku, i.e., plant-tallow, and candles made 

 therefrom, came from Aidzu, and had always a great reputation in 

 Yedo. They are still much in use, notwithstanding the serious com- 

 petition of petroleum. Their manufacture and peculiar properties 

 are the same as those of the fruits of species next to be men- 

 tioned, and will be treated more particularly at the close. Yone- 

 zawa, north of Aidzu, yields in many years more than 30,000 

 kg. of R6-soku from the R6 of the tallow-tree. 



For many years an Indian shrub-like species of sumach has been 

 cultivated in various botanical gardens under the wrong name of 

 Rhus vernicifera. It, however, bears only a slight resemblance to 

 our plant.^ The real plant was actually unknown until I intro- 

 duced it in 1875 and 1876. Lacquer-trees grown from seeds have 

 developed especially well in the botanical gardens at Frankfort on 

 the Main and Strasburg, so much so, indeed, that in one or two 

 years it will be possible in the former to proceed to attempts at 

 lacquer-making. 



They stood splendidly the hard winter of 1879-80, when the 

 thermometer stood at — 27°C., thereby proving themselves quite 

 proof against the winter climate of Germany. This fact is the 

 more surprising when one considers that lacquer-trees in the snowy 

 winters of Northern Honshiu are exposed to a temperature of 

 — I2°C. at the lowest. It proves that the possibility of acclimatizing 

 a plant cannot be decided upon a priori, according to the actual 

 conditions of its life as already known, but a certain capacity 

 of accommodation must be taken into account, which varies 

 greatly, and can be definitely determined only by experiments. 



Rhus succedanea, L., Jap. Haze-no-ki or R6-no-ki, i.e., wax-tree or 

 tallow-tree. The range of its cultivation, as has been said already, 

 is in the south. The plantations of it I found farthest north in 

 Kii, on the Linschoten Strait, where it develops more slowly and 

 its fruit does not reach the normal size. The fruit falls still farther 

 short of this in the botanical garden at Tokio, so that there is no 

 possibility of the plant succeeding in Germany. 



1 Ailanthiis glandidosa, Desf., occurs frequently in France under the wrong 

 name, " Vernis de Japon." 



