2i8 AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



nuts, elms, planes, various rosaceae and in moister places, ashes and 

 alders also " (vol. i. p. 147). As the most important of these will 

 be discussed in the next chapter, which deals with their timber, I 

 need not here enumerate their botanical names. 



Among the larger and most important of the deciduous trees of 

 the island of Yezo, may be mentioned the magnificent magnolias 

 {Magnolia hypoleiica and Cercidiphyllum japonicum), chestnuts, 

 horse chestnuts, walnuts, maples, alders, birch, ash, elm, linden and 

 the deciduous oaks. 



The Japanese Asa-ki is not at all a primeval forest. It may here 

 and there even be a plantation on what was once a field,^ but it has 

 the stamp of a thoroughly natural growth, and is left to itself and 

 renews itself. The woodman visits it with his axe, it is true, but 

 only for the sake of the most valuable and scattered timber, such 

 as H6-no-ki, Saru-suberi, Tsuta-no-ki, {Magnolia hypoleuca, Stnartia 

 mojiadelpha, Actinidia volnbilis), and some others, but this does 

 not in any wise affect the settled character of the forest. This is 

 accomplished by means of thorough destruction by forest fires. As 

 the Capoeira, in the forsaken plantations of Brazil, consist of plant- 

 forms entirely different from the primeval growth, so is it here also. 

 Its place is taken by a brushwood in which the narrow-leaved wild 

 rose {Epilobriuni angustifolinm, L.) springs up here and there as 

 in our burnt forest grounds, the stiff bamboo grass {Phyllostachys 

 bambusoides, S. and Z.), and in high damp places also the Itadzuri 

 {Polygonum cnspidatnin)y nearly three meters high. The forest 

 generally takes on its original character by degrees and after a 

 long time. 



In the deciduous forests of the mountains, the beech is among 

 the most frequent of trees. It shows itself here, as with us, a 

 tree which nourishes the ground in a high degree, as one may see 

 from the luxuriant foliage^ and the brush of the Lomaria and 

 other ferns which grow nearly to a height of one meter in the rich 

 soil. It also forces the various other trees which are associated with 

 it, — among them magnificent specimens of Magnolia hypoleuca, 

 Calopanax ricinifolia and ^Esculos turbinata, notable for their large, 

 strange leaves, — to produce long boles without many branches. 

 This is also done by the Momitanne {Abies firma) which grows in 

 wide-spread localities. 



It is clear that the composition of the natural deciduous forests 

 of Japan varies with the elevation as well as with the latitude. 

 Besides a large number of trees and bushes which are always 



^ According to a written communication kindly sent me, the famous acade- 

 mician Maximovicz, in the year 1863, botanized for a time near Nagasaki in a 

 forest so high that he took it for a primeval one, till he recognised in the terrac- 

 ing of the ground that he was in an old field.- 



2 According to what was said earher regarding cattle-raising and manuring, 

 there does not appear to be anything prejudicial to the self-preservation of the 

 Japanese forests in pasturing or withdrawing the bed of leaves. 



