394 ART INDUSTRY AND RELATED OCCUPATIONS. 



emphasize the fact that 1 met the plant as a tree in Japan only in 

 the rarest instance, e.g. in the Botanical Garden. Its cultivation 

 for the paper industry resembles our treatment of basket willows. 

 Its propagation is by means of slips. Every autumn, after the 

 leaves have fallen, the young shoots near the ground are cut off, 

 and in this way, after three or four years, bushes with from 4 to 7 

 one-year shoots are obtained. From the fourth year after planting, 

 onward, these reach a height of from i to 3 meters and a circum- 

 ference of 4 centimeters, and are now ready to be used for paper. 

 The bark does not entirely ripen till after the leaves have fallen, the 

 harvest, therefore, does not usually come before November, after that 

 of rice and other field products. 



The collected shoots of the paper mulberry are cut into lengths 

 of I meter, and bound together in small fagots, then placed in 

 a covered iron kettle of boiling water, to which some ashes have 

 been added, and left till the bark is easily loosened. When it is 

 separated from the wood, the bark is washed in running water, 

 then dried in the air and brought to market. In many cases, the 

 operation is carried a step further, and the epidermis with the still 

 green parts of the bark is removed and serves, together with the 

 unripe bark of the tips of the shoot, to make an inferior paper, the 

 Chiri-gami (rubbish paper). The outer skin and green parts of 

 the bark loosen themselves first, and with a blunt knife are easily 

 scraped away from the white fibre, if the bark has had a thorough 

 maceration in running water. A longer or shorter bleaching of 

 the bast in the sun is often added, but is not at all universally 

 practised. 



The provinces of lyo and Tosa on the island of Shikoku furnish 

 the greatest amount of Kozo bark, for which the city of Osaka is 

 the chief market. One hundred kilogrammes of raw Broussonetia 

 bark yield 45 kg. of white bast. 



The Japanese, according to the colour and thickness of the bark 

 and form of the leaves, distinguish many varieties of Kodzo, to which 

 those classified in Miquel's " Prolusio Florae Japonicae " and in the 

 " Enumeratio Plantarum" of Franchet and Savatier as independent 

 species belong, viz. Broitssonetia Kasiiioki, Sieb., and B. Kaempferi^ 

 Sieb. The typical and most widely distributed form has generally 

 symmetrical three or five-lobed leaves whose underside is covered, 

 like the stems of 5 or 6 centimeters length and the young branches, 

 with a thick, greyish white down, and whose edges are serrated. 

 The bark of the one-year old shoot is reddish brown. Plate X. 

 has a well outlined picture of such a paper-mulberry bush, as it 

 appears in midsummer. The illustration is taken from the fifth 

 part of the Japanese work K6-yeki-koku sanok, and is only un- 

 reliable in this, that it does not show the serration of the leaves. 

 In Plate XI., is a wood-cut prepared in Tokio of a variety of 

 the paper mulberry on pure bast paper of the dioecious plant. On 

 the left is a twig and on the right a catkin not fully developed. 



