es. i. 50; S. PTD. —32: 
THREE NEW PLANT INTRODUCTIONS FROM JAPAN, 
MITSUMATA, A JAPANESE PAPER PLANT. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The facts for this paper were collected during a four months’ stay 
in Japan, and represent work accomplished by Mr. Barbour Lathrop’s 
third expedition in search of valuable seeds and plants. 
It is hoped that the introduction of this new Japanese paper plant 
and its ultimate culture in the warmer parts of the United States will 
be encouraged by this brief account of its cultivation in Japan, for 
| the production of any of the Japanese bark papers, which are for 
_ many purposes much superior to our own, will be a material addition 
| to the wealth of the country and give the cultivators of the South a 
new crop of value. | 
Japanese napkins, umbrellas, and lanterns have taught the Occi- 
| dentals new uses of paper, though the lesson has been but half 
| learned. 
| The papers employed by the common people of Japan are immeas- 
_urably more varied than with us. They form one of the important 
| economies in the life of the peasant, and it is such ingenious uses of 
| plant material as this employment of the bark of a shrub that makes 
| it possible for 42,000,000 Japanese to live on the productions of a cul- 
| tivated area about one-third the size of the State of Illinois. 
_ The walls of the Japanese houses are wooden frames covered with 
| thin paper which keeps out the wind but lets in the light, and when 
| one compares these paper-walled ‘‘doll houses” with the gloomy bam- 
| boo cabins of the inhabitants of the island of Java, or the small- 
| windowed huts of our forefathers, he realizes that, without glass and 
| ina rainy climate, these ingenious people have solved in a remarkable 
_ way the problem of lighting their dwellings and, at least in a meas- 
| ure, of keeping out the cold. 
_ Their oiled papers are another important element in the peasant life 
_ of the Japanese, and are astonishingly cheap and durable. As a cover 
| for his load of tea when a rain storm overtakes him, the Japanese 
_ farmer spreads over it a tough, pliable cover of oiled paper, which is 
| almost as impervious as tarpaulin and as light as gossamer. He has 
| 9 
