i66 AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



linen, are also extensively made from hemp, and are called Nuno 

 or Jofu. 



Hemp is cultivated all over Japan, being most frequently found, 

 however, in the mountain valleys and the northern plains, where 

 the cotton-plant does not thrive. Like flax in many parts of Ger- 

 many, hemp is here raised on small patches of ground, and mostly 

 for home use. Climate and soil are everywhere favourable. It 

 flourishes well even on Yezo, as we learn from Gartner's reliable 

 accounts, and is without doubt one of the plants most to be re- 

 commended to Japanese agriculture in its further extension and 

 development. 



When harvested, the hemp-stalks are separated from their leaves 

 and roots, and then soaked in water 4 to 6 days. The loosened bast 

 is then stripped off by hand and dried, as are also the stalks, which 

 look like bare willow rods. They are used for thatching roofs, 

 composing the first layer above the rafters, and are covered in turn 

 by a layer of straw. The Japanese hemp-bast is i to i J m. long, and 

 of excellent quality, being soft and firm, and having a silky sheen. 

 It might become a prominent article of export if its cultivation were 

 more extensive. 



2. GossypiiLin herbaceuniy L. This, the most important of all 

 cotton-plants, and the only kind they cultivate, is called by the 

 Japanese Wata-no-ki or Ki-wata, and its product they call Wata. 

 This word recalls the German Watte, the French ouate, and similar 

 Romanic terms, as well as badard, the Sanskrit name for cotton. 

 Its derivation from the latter seems more natural than that given 

 by Diez, of ovuiUy especially as the plant has been longest culti- 

 vated in India. 



According to the oldest Japanese authorities, the first attempts 

 to raise cotton in Dai Nippon were made about the year 799, with 

 seeds brought by accident in a boat from India. But at that time 

 its cultivation did not secure a firm footing, and seems not to have 

 been tried again till 1570. And it only gained a wide extension 

 after the establishment of the Tokugawa regime, in the next cen- 

 tury. 



The production seems never to have equalled the demand, and 

 China appears to have furnished supplies of raw cotton for home 

 consumption then as in more recent times. With the present free- 

 dom of commerce, and the low prices of English and Indian cotton 

 goods, circumstances hardly favour a further extension of Japanese 

 cotton-growing. 



The northern limit of its cultivation is somewhere about the 

 thirty-eighth parallel. The Japanese probably became acquainted 

 with it through the Portuguese, and from them learned the name 

 Wata, for they have no word of their own for cotton, nor yet a 

 Chinese term, and the plant itself is thought not to have found 

 entry into Southern China till the eleventh century. 



There are three varieties of the cotton-plant in Japan, with 



