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horticulture of Europe and America, and to account for this 

 it must be stated that the lack of a arboricultural knowledge in 

 the direction of pomonology is largely due in this country to 

 the want of a market, in other words to a paucity of consumers, 

 fruit being regarded as an article of food of dietetic value only 

 by those above the middle class, and by the majority of the 

 community as a luxury only and as the comestibles of 

 children ; consequently even high-class fruit has not been 

 appreciated to the extent it deserved nor the grower awarded 

 the merit to which he was entitled. The time has not yet 

 arrived apparently, for competition in the production of fruit, 

 the main effort put forth being in the cultivation of the 

 universal daily food of the people. Although some progress 

 has been made in fruit culture the |^general tardiness in its 

 advancement cannot be denied, and it has been stated that not 

 one person out of ten is acquainted with the names of the 

 ordinary fruits grown. Japanese do not, apparently, care for 

 fruit as do the peoples cf the West, and this may be owing 

 partly to the difference in the dietary of the nations of the 

 East and West. In Japan albuminous food is not taken as the 

 principal portion of a meal, but is served as side dishes. 

 Thus while rice, barley, sweet potatoes, onions, maize and 

 other vegetables form the staple of the people, fish and fowl 

 are the adjuncts to the general diet, the opposite being the 

 case in the West where albuminous substances are the principal 

 and starchy and sugary substances the auxiliary food of the 

 people. After the introduction of Buddhism into Japan the 

 converts to that faith subsisted upon a so-called vegetarian diet, 

 the use of wine and meat being prohibited, the consequence 

 being that only vegetables were served with the starchy food 

 mentioned above. From remote ages Buddhism has been a, 

 widely spread religion in Japan, and the adherents to that 

 faith have always been in considerable numbers and it is due 

 to this fact that the production of meat for human consumption 

 has largely fallen off, and as the use of meat declined that of 



