268 AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



ago arranged, according to their flowering seasons, in a flower 

 calendar, at a time when no one in our country would have thought 

 of such a work. 



In the old reckoning of time by lunar years, borrowed from the 

 Chinese, Guwan-jitsu, or New Year's Day, occurred in the middle 

 or at the end of February, and with it began " the lovely month," 

 Mutzuki. The festival of the New Year consequently became a 

 time for rejoicing over the newly awakened forces of nature, and 

 was celebrated in many ways both without and within doors. 

 Flora brought to the merry making the first flowers of spring in all 

 their beauty, and Uguisu, the nightingale, in the mild evenings, 

 made glad the pleasure gardens or temple groves with her lovely 

 song.^ Of plants, the white and red blossoms of the Mume (^Pi'unus 

 Mume^ S. and Z.) contributed not a little to the festal mood, appear- 

 ing as they do at this season, as heralds of spring in advance of 

 the leaves. No Japanese house was without them. We greet our 

 primrose {Pi'imula veris, L.) every year afresh, and rejoice in its 

 appearance. The Mume is in much greater degree the favourite 

 of the Japanese people and inspires them with longing and delight. 

 Poets praise its blossoms more even for their lovely fragrance, ex- 

 haling especially at night, than for their number and colour. 



" Schwer erkennst Du im Glanze des Mondes die Bliithe der Pflaume. 

 Aber Du findest sie gleich, gehst Du dem Dufte nur nach." 



MlTSUNE.2 



The Uguisu, or Japanese nightingale [Cettia canta7is, T. and 

 Schl.), joins the poet in spring, and sings as if rejoicingly over 

 the year's first-blown perfume, and mourning over the speedy 

 withering. And the pictorial art of the country, more developed 

 than its modest poetry, has bound the Mume and the nightingale, 

 or Uguisu, together, and represented them in picture and in plastic 

 form in the various creations of art-industry. The Mume thus 

 devoid of leaves resembles the blooming branches of our black- 

 thorn. 



Beside the Mume, the Japanese gardener at New Year's time 

 bring also much to the market, the Rengyo {Forsythia suspensa, 

 Vahl) with branches hanging full of yellow bells. This plant has 

 been introduced into Europe from Japan, but is as little at home 

 there as the Mume, and the following species which, like it, have 

 their origin in China. 



The Dodan {Efikianthiis japoniciis, Hook.), which is cultivated in 

 gardens on account of the beautiful red colour of its leaves in 

 autumn, is also used for decorating the houses at the New Year's 

 festival. It does not bloom in the open air till one or two months 



^ In accepting our calendar, and moving the New Year's festival into the 

 rough weather of January, it has lost a great part of its earlier poetic charm. 



2 "Tsukiyo ni wa | sore tomo miye zu | mume no hana | ka wo tazunete zo | 

 shiru bekari keru."— Lange, Old Japanese Spring Ballads, p. 30. 



