264 



THE GARDENER'S ASSISTANT. 



improvement by culture and selection of the 

 best varieties, of which there are now many, 

 differing greatly in size, shape, and quality; 

 ^ome being oblong, others resembling, both in 

 shape and colour, a large, red, smooth Tomato. 

 The soil most suitable for the Kaki is a 

 gravelly clay-loam, in an open situation neither 

 too dry nor too damp. The plants require 

 manuring once in winter, preferably with night- 

 soil applied in a circular furrow around each 



Kaki&t Bicton Rectory. iFruit scarlet 



plant. They must be pruned each alternate 

 year in early spring or in late autumn. In 

 Japan this is done by breaking the branches 

 with the hand without using any knife, because 

 this tree should not be touched with iron. 



The varieties are only propagated by grafting, 

 being seedlings very slow in bearing fruit, and 

 their fruit is always astringent. 



Professor Charles Sargent, in his notes on 

 The Forest Flora of Japan (1893), says: — 



" The more common and important of these 

 two species [D. Lotus and D. Kaki] is, of course, 

 the Kaki, which is planted everywhere in the 

 neighbourhood of houses, which in the interior 

 of the main island are often embowered in 

 small groves of this handsome tree. In shape 

 it resembles a well-grown Apple-tree, with a 

 straight trunk, spreading branches which droop 

 toward the extremities and form a compact 

 round head. Trees 30 to 40 feet high are often 

 seen, and in the autumn, when they are covered 

 with fruit, and the leaves have turned to the 



colour of old Spanish red leather, they are 

 exceedingly handsome. 



" Perhaps there is no tree except the Orange 

 which as a fruit-tree is as beautiful as the Kaki. 

 In central and northern Japan the variety 

 which produces large orange-coloured, ovate, 

 thick-skinned fruit is the only one planted, and 

 the cultivation of the red-fruited varieties with 

 which we have become acquainted in this 

 country is confined to the south. A hundred 

 varieties of Kaki, at least, 

 are now recognized and 

 named by Japanese gar- 

 deners, but few of them 

 are important commer- 

 cially in any part of the 

 country which we visited, 

 and, except in Kyoto, 

 where red Kakis ap- 

 peared, the only form I 

 saw exposed for sale 

 was the orange-coloured 

 variety, which, fresh and 

 dried, is consumed in 

 immense quantities by 

 the Japanese, who eat 

 it, as they do all their 

 fruits, before it is ripe, 

 and while it has the 

 texture and consistency 

 of a paving-stone (!). 



"DiuspyrosKaki is hardy 

 in Pekin, with a climate 

 similar to that of New 

 England, and fully as trying to plant-life; it fruits 

 in southern Yezo, and decorates every garden in 

 the elevated provinces of central Japan, where 

 the winter climate is intensely cold. There ap- 

 pears, therefore, to be no reason why it should 

 not flourish in New England, if plants of a 

 northern race can be obtained; and, so far as 

 climate is concerned, the tree, which, in the 

 central mountain districts of Hondo, covers 

 itself with fruit year after year, will certainly 

 succeed in all our Alleghany region from Penn- 

 sylvania southward. In this country [United 

 States] we have considered the Kaki a tender 

 plant, unable to survive outside the region 

 where the Orange flourishes. This is true of 

 the southern varieties which have been brought 

 to this country, and which may have originated 

 in a milder climate than southern Japan, for 

 the Kaki is a plant of wide distribution, either 

 natural or through cultivation in south-eastern 

 Asia. But the northern Kaki, the tree of 

 Pekin and the gardens of central Japan, has 



