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The World's Commercial Products 



added to it. The whole mass is stirred five or six times a day with the big wooden spatula,, 

 at which the second fermentation immediately begins, and is checked after five or six days 

 by pouring the liquid into another vessel. In about twelve days the sake is ready for use. 

 The whole preparation thus takes about a month. Sake is sold in casks which in their turn 

 are again packed in a straw cover, so that they resemble bales of rice. Sake contains about 

 thirteen per cent, of alcohol ; the Japanese usually drink it hot out of very small porcelain 

 cups. It is sold in bottles of porcelain, earthenware, or glass. The Japanese drink sake 

 at the beginning of a meal, and it is an important beverage at weddings. 



The Chinese also prepare an alcoholic drink from rice containing about thirty-six per 

 cent, of alcohol, and made in less time than the sake of the Japanese. In Java an arrack 

 is made from rice by the action of a substance known locally as " raggi," the active agent in 

 which is apparently another kind of mould. The Dyaks in Central Borneo also prepare a sort 

 of arrack from rice. 



WILD RICE 



Over a large area of the United States, Southern Canada, and also in Japan, Formosa^ 

 and China, there occurs, usually in sluggish streams and along the edges of lakes, a tall 

 grass known as the Wild Rice plant, and botanically called Zizania aquatica. It has been 

 estimated by the botanists of the United States Department of Agriculture that this plant 



JAPAN. MAKING USE OF THE BAMBOO TO LIGHTEN THE LABOUR OF HUSKING RICE 



