December 27, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



533 



it, in a deplorable condition, and although it is Govern- 

 ment property, and Japan has supplied herself with a Forest 

 Department, we saw no evidence that it is seriously oc- 

 cupying itself with the care of this part of its domain. 

 There appear to be no rules about cutting the trees in this 

 belt, which is invaded by bands of wood-choppers who 

 cut without system any trees that appear large enough to 

 answer their purpose ; and the only mature trees it con- 

 tains are those growing in inaccessible positions, or of 

 sorts which are not considered valuable. No attention is 

 paid to reproducing the valuable species, with the result, 

 of course, that such species being the most cut have be- 

 come the least common. Reproduction is chiefly by 

 coppice-growth which is cut at irregular intervals ; and the 

 Japanese deciduous forests display all the bad effects of 

 an indiscriminate and long-continued system of jardinage. 

 The application of the block system would in time, of 

 course, increase the output of these forests and supply 

 large quantities of valuable timber where only fuel or small 

 sticks are now produced. 



Still better results might be expected from covering some 

 parts of the desert land with forests. These so-called 

 deserts consist of sandy sea-shore plains and dunes, often 

 capable of producing a moderate growth of Pine ; the 

 alpine summits of mountains, their larva-covered slopes, 

 bare mountain-ridges from which the forests have been 

 artificially removed, and the Hara. This is the rolling 

 foot-hill region about the base of the high mountains or 

 below the mountain-forest belt, and must form a very 

 large part of the thirty-seven per cent, of desert ; it is 

 covered with a mat of coarse bunch grass (Eulalia) and 

 with many other perennial plants. Here the Japanese 

 cut the fodder for their animals and cure their hay for 

 winter use. Every spring the whole Hara is burnt over 

 to destroy the dried vegetation of the previous year and 

 start a new growth of grass. That fires have made 

 these foot-hills treeless by the destruction of all seedling 

 trees as fast as they appear seems to be shown in the fact 

 that where ravines or other depressions occur among the 

 hills, which the fire cannot easily reach, they are covered 

 with a vigorous growth of trees of many species. It is not 

 easy to find in existing conditions of Japanese life any 

 cause for the original destruction of the foot-hill forests, but 

 once destroyed it is easy to see why they have not been 

 able to grow again. Much of the Hara region is suited in 

 soil and elevation to produce Retinosporas and Cryptome- 

 rias, the most valuable of the Japanese timber-trees, and 

 its conversion from unproductive prairie, for not one per 

 cent, of the Hara is used for hay, into forest would add 

 enormously to the wood product of the empire. 



Japan is well situated geographically to supply a vast 

 number of people living in foreign countries with timber ; 

 its soil and climate are pre-eminently suited to produce 

 forests. It could easily send, if it had it to spare, conif- 

 erous timber to China, where the demand for building ma- 

 terial is practically inexhaustible, to the Strait Settlements 

 and Australia ; and oak-staves for wine casks to California, 

 which is now supplied from the fast vanishing forests of 

 the Missisippi Valley. 



From the changed conditions which have followed the 

 hasty and often ill-considered introduction of European 

 methods into Japan grave economic questions are rising. 

 The cessation of civil wars which followed the abolition of 

 the Shogunate and the deposition of the Dyamos, and the 

 introduction of western medical practices, have caused a 

 great increase of population in the last twenty years, and 

 the question of food-supply is becoming a vital one to 

 Japan. The limit to the production of rice, the one great 

 staple, has been practically reached, and all efforts to induce 

 the superfluous population of the southern islands to col- 

 onize Yezo have utterly failed, in spite of the great sums 

 of money spent by the general government during the last 

 twenty-five years to encourage its settlement A few thou- 

 sand coolies leavehome annually to work in other countries, 

 but this movement is comparatively small, and many of 



these emigrants return to their homes at the end of a few 

 years. Starvation threatens Japan unless it can import 

 food from other countries, and this it will only be able to 

 do by increasing its exports. There is still room to increase 

 the product of tea if the demand in this country for low 

 grades of Japanese tea justifies it, but the ground fit to grow 

 Mulberry-trees advantageously is practically all taken up, 

 and the silk-product cannot therefore be very materially 

 increased. Curios, of course, can be made in unlimited 

 quantities, but the demand for them in the United States 

 and Europe is more lilvcly to decrease than to increase; 

 and wood is really the only product upon which Japan can 

 depend to greatly increase the volume of her exports. The 

 care other existing forests and the planting of her waste 

 lands would give employment to thousands of coolies, and 

 in time would add important sums to the national ex- 

 chequer. 



The forests of Yezo are still intact, except where here 

 and there a struggling settlement has broken into the forest- 

 blanket which covers this noble island. Here are great 

 stores of oak and ash of the best quality, of cercidiphyl- 

 lum, walnut, fir, acanthopanax, cherry and birch — a 

 store-house of forest wealth, which, if properly managed, 

 could be drawn upon for all time, and which, if the timber 

 is not needed in Japan, may become, when the trans- 

 Asiatic railroad is finished, an important factor in the de- 

 velopment of southern Siberia and some of the treeless 

 countries of central Asia. C. S. S. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



Xanthorrh.=ea quadrangulata. — One of the most interest- 

 ing plants in flower at the present time at Kew is a speci- 

 men of this, one of the Black Boys, or Grass-gum-trees, of 

 Australia. It has a charred trunk, five feet high and nine 

 inches in diameter, bearing a crown of elegant Rush-like 

 leaves a yard long, from the centre of which rises an erect 

 stout spike, not unlike a Bullrush (T)'pha), but with a green, 

 instead of brown, head of flowers. Smaller plants of it 

 are more elegaiit and ornamental than the narrowest- 

 leaved Cordylines, and they grow freely here under ordi- 

 nary greenhouse treatment. There is a figure of X. quad- 

 rangulata in the Bo/a7iical Magazine, t. 6075 (1874), where 

 Sir Joseph Hooker states that "the Grass-gum-trees are 

 among the most remarkable vegetable features of that 

 country of wonderful vegetable forms, Australia. . . . 

 About fifteen species have been discovered, of which 

 X. hastilis, of New South Wales, is the best known, from 

 the uses of its long flower-spikes, which attain twenty feet 

 in height, as spear-shafts, and for the rich red-brown as- 

 tringent resin which forms between the densely compacted 

 bases of the leaves, and which has been used as a substi- 

 tute for gum-kino. It is often called the Black Boy, and a 

 native boy with a tuft of grass on his head, placed among 

 a group of them, is, from a little distance, with difticulty 

 distinguished from the surrounding trunks. Another spe- 

 cies, X. pecoris (=X. Preissii), of west Australia, forms a 

 staple fodder for cattle during a good part of the year." 

 There was a considerable quantity of red transparent resin 

 on the stems of X. quadrangulata when they arrived at 

 Kew last year. There are good examples of X. hastilis, 

 X. Prei-ssii, X. australis and X. gracilis in cultivation at Kew. 



Hardy Bamboos. — The growth made by these plants at 

 Kew this year has been astonishing, and the healthy green 

 of their elegant foliage is a novel feature among hardy 

 plants in November. It is true that we have not had more 

 than six degrees of frost here so far, and this amount of 

 cold has not appreciably affected any of the Bamboos. 

 Altogether there are about forty distinct sorts of Bamboos 

 in the outdoor collection at Kew. These, with very few 

 exceptions, are all Japanese, the exceptions being Arundi- 

 naria falcata, A. Khasyama and Thamnocalamus Falconeri, 

 all from the mountains of northern India, and Arundinaria 



