AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 225 



mponica, J. Muller).^ Besides box, the heavier and harder woods 

 of Japan comprise Yusu {Distyliiun facemosum), the varied Tern- 

 stromiaceae (CamelHa, Tea plant, Stuartia, and others), the Sara- 

 suberi {^LagersU'Ojnia indicd)^ different kinds of plum, and the 

 numerous oaks, which have a specific gravity generally from 0750 

 to 0-850. 



Some of the most valuable trees of Japan attain an enormous 

 growth. These giants are very rarely found in the forest, but 

 generally in the neighbourhood of towns, in the courts and groves 

 which surround old temples, and among the trees giving shade 

 along the roads, especially those leading to celebrated temples. 

 The Japanese admires and protects them and even transfers to 

 them something of the reverence toward age which was instilled 

 into him from his youth up. Among leaf-bearing trees, those most 

 noted for size are the camphor-laurel and the Keaki ; among 

 conifers, the Cryptomeria and Ginko. A short classification of 

 those giant specimens that I have myself seen may be of interest, 

 and not out of place here. 



1. Camphor-laurel {Laurus CampJwra, L.) or Kusu-no-ki. A 

 specimen that I saw at Kaseda-mura in 1875, on the way from 

 Wakayama in Kishiu to the monastery-town Koyasan, at breast- 

 high was 11*5 meters in circumference. Like an old village 

 linden, the trunk separated somewhat higher up into a number of 

 mighty outspread branches. In the park at Uyeno in Tokio I 

 measured, in 1874, another camphor tree which rivalled the sur- 

 rounding conifers behind the temple of Gongesama, and at i meter 

 high showed a circumference of 5*50 meters. In 1884 Lehmann^ 

 found the circumference 5*55 meters, and the height of the tree he 

 estimated at 31 meters. Large as these dimensions are, they are 

 far behind those of the trees which one sees in Nagasaki and in 

 other parts of Kiushiu. Kaempfer mentioned in 1691 a camphor 

 tree which was celebrated for its enormous thickness. In 1826, 

 135 years later, Siebold found it rich in foliage and apparently 

 sound. The trunk, which measured i6'884 meters in circumference, 

 however was hollow. 



2. Keyaki {Zelkowa acuminata^ Planchon). At Meguro in the 

 neighbourhood of Tokio, in January, 1874, the "0 Keyaki" 

 (Great Keaki) was felled, and showed a circumference of 117 meters 

 at I meter high. 



3. Camellia {Camellia japonica, L.) or Tsubaki. In Southern 

 Japan I saw many trees from 8 to 10 meters high, and i meter 



^ R. H. Smith gives the specific gravity of box as only 0-839 \ of Paulownia, 

 as 0.329, and of Kashi {Querctis dentata^ Thunb.) I'oi/. There is no doubt an 

 error in this, especially concerning the weight of Kashi, for the boxwood of 

 Southern Japan is as marked above all others for its weight, as is Kiri for its 

 lightness. 



2 R, Lehmann, engineer, of Tokio, in accordance with an expressed wish of 

 mine in 1884, kindly subjected several other trees which I had indicated to 

 him to a careful measurement. 



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