AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 167 



yellow, white, and red blossoms. The yellow-blossoming kind 

 much preponderates. Early in May the seeds are planted 3 to 4 

 cm. apart, in rows that are separated about 40 cm. from each 

 other. The ground is prepared beforehand, and afterwards the 

 seeds are covered with rice-straw ashes. As a rule, however, 

 cotton is planted alongside of and after a winter crop, especially 

 of barley and wheat, a row of cotton-seed being put into the ground 

 — which has been loosened a little for it — close beside each row 

 of ripening stalks. Having been previously softened in water a 

 whole day, they soon sprout. As soon as the first true leaves 

 appear, some strong manure, such as oil-cakes or fish-guano, is 

 added — the latter, however, only in a circular furrow running 

 around the sprout at a distance of 6 to 9 cm., lest the sharpness of 

 the fertilizer destroy the plant. But usually a kind of compost is 

 used, which has been prepared long beforehand, consisting of a 

 mixture of mud, straw-ashes, chopped weeds, oil-cakes, and fish- 

 guano, in equal parts. As soon as the grain-crop has been har- 

 vested, the ground is worked over and loosened with great care, 

 and a fresh supply of manure put on, being this time probably 

 made up partly of cesspool stuff. About June 20 the superfluous 

 plants are hoed out, and only 27 or 28 left standing to the ken 

 (rSom.). Two weeks later there is another clearing out. During 

 the hottest days (July 20 to Aug. 7) buds come out on the branching 

 stalks. August is the month of blossoms, and harvest is in Sep- 

 tember. It is considered a good harvest if 300 tsubo (9*92 are) 

 yield 253 kin of cotton (150-261 kg.). 



3. Boehmeria nivea, Hooker and Arn. {Urtica nivea^ L.), Jap. Mao, 

 Kusa-mao, and Kara-mushi, Chin. Tschou-ma. This plant is dis- 

 tinguished from all related species of nettle by the fact that its 

 leaves are white on their under side. It grows wild in Cochin 

 China, China, and Japan, but is also cultivated in these countries, 

 and in the southern monsoon region. In its bast it furnishes the 

 celebrated China-grass of the English, from which the Chinese 

 make their fine nettle-cloth. A related species, with higher stalks 

 and leaves green on both sides, is Boehmeria tenacissimay Gaud. 

 {B. titilis, BL), whose bast is called Ramee or Rheea-fibre. It be- 

 longs to the tropical monsoon region, and does not occur in Japan. 

 However the bast of China-grass is often called Ramee, as are 

 also the fibres of other Boehmeria species and of the Japanese 

 Urtica Thunbergiana, S. and Z., or Shi-kusa. 



Boehmeria nivea requires a moist, fruitful soil, and strong 

 manure. Our summer warmth is sufficient for it, as numerous 

 experiments in botanical gardens have long since proved.^ 



^ Its stalks grew to be i'3i m. high in the botanical garden at Marburg, in 

 1877, while stalks of B. iitilis^ Bl. close beside them had grown in the same time 

 i'9om. high and proportionately thicker. The former species was introduced 

 into England as early as 1739, under the name of Chinese or White-leaved 

 nettle. 



