AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 



and fish-guano. To these belong especially the Iwashi, or Japan- 

 ese sardines {Clnpea melanosticta and CI. gracilis), and the Nishin 

 CI. harengus). Of the former sorts one can buy 24 to 40 for three 

 half-pence, at Choshi, for example, at the mouth of the Tone-gawa 

 (see Rein's "Japan," vol. i. p. 189). The fish, as soon as caught, 

 are put into large iron kettles filled with water, and made to boil. 

 The fat floats on the surface of the water, and is skimmed off. 

 Then the residue is spread out on mats in the sun to dry. It 

 creates an abominable smell in the neighbourhood of fishing- 

 villages, but furnishes later a valuable fertilizer, which is carried 

 away by merchants from the larger towns, and retailed to gardeners 

 and farmers in the tea-districts. 



(d) Textile Plants. 



We include under this head all the plants of Japan which contri- 

 bute in any sense to textile industries, hence not only textile 

 plants proper, but also those which are used in different kinds of 

 wicker-work, as rushes and willows, or in the manufacture of ropes 

 and paper, as many species of bast. 



I. Cannabis sativa, L., Jap. Asa. This figures as the oldest 

 textile plant of the Mongolian-Tartar races, as far back as the 

 history of hemp can be followed.^ It has been spread with them 

 far from their old home in Central Asia, eastward across China, 

 Corea, and Japan, and westward, chiefly by the Scythians, across 

 anterior Asia and Sclavic countries. By the Sclavs it was made 

 known to the Germanic peoples, and by them to the Romans, in 

 so far as these had not already made its acquaintance by way of 

 Asia Minor directly. Hemp-smoking, or Hashish, was known even 

 then to the Scythians, as we learn from Herodotus, and is still wide- 

 spread in the Mohammedan countries of Asia and Africa ; but was 

 never taken up by the Buddhistic East Asiatics. 



Hemp was grown in Japan several thousand years ago, like flax 

 in ancient Egypt. Before silk and wool were introduced, it was the 

 most important for all classes, and for most the exclusive clothing 

 material. An old legend ascribes its introduction to the sublime 

 creative divinity Taka-mi-musubi, who commanded two subject 

 gods to plant Kodzu [Broussonetia) and Asa {Cannabis), in order 

 to obtain and utilize the bark of the one and the bast of the 

 other.^ To this day coarse hemp-yarn is the material of which 

 a considerable part of the country population make their trousers 

 and blouses ; and fish-nets and mosquito-nets are made of it. 

 But fine white textures, not much inferior to good European 



' See on this subject, among others, Hunfalvy: "Die Ungarn oder Mag- 

 yaren." Vienna, 1881. 



2 See Satow : "The Shinto Temples of Ise." "Transactions As. Soc. of 

 Japan," vol. ii. p. 129. 



