THE ECONOMIC PLANTS OF JAPAN. 



9 



Andes.^and the Alps, still there is a wildness in the 

 view, tempered by an abundant and charming vegeta- 

 tion, Virhich is most gratifying to the beholder. 



This wilderness is seldom penetrated by the foreign 

 traveler and collector, except over the beaten routes, 

 and it would not be surprising if it should contain hor- 

 ticultural treasures of great value yet undiscovered. 



The inhabitants of Japan are huddled together in 

 populous towns, mostly situated along the sea-board. 



and around which, by slow and laborious pro- 

 cesses, they cultivate the best land. Accord- 

 ing to the statistics already quoted, the total 

 area of the main islands shown in the map is 

 112,000 square miles, but of this total, 68,000 

 square miles are entirely unproductive moun- 

 tain and desert lands, and 24,000 square miles 

 more are in forests and uncultivated agricul- 

 tural lands, making a grand total of 92,000 

 square miles of unproductive land. The re- 

 maining 20,000 square miles contain the 40,- 

 000,000 inhabitants of the country, which 

 thus gives an average of 2,000 people to the 

 square mile. Kansas contains 81,000 square 

 miles. If her people could live as the Japan- 

 ese do, she could sustain 40,000,000 souls and 

 still leave three-quarters of her territory a wilderness ! 



The character of the soil should be mentioned, for it 

 is peculiar. The soil of the large plain on which Tokio 

 stands may be taken as the type. It is a volcanic tufa, 

 naturally of a brown color, but the surface soil has be- 

 come almost black by the admixture with the accumu- 

 lated humus of ages. It is very light and very porous, 

 permitting the percolation of water as freely as does 

 sand, and never packing hard ; but it is not sand. 

 When dry, it is dust, and is blown about by the wind in 

 great black clouds, which obscure the sun, and the par- 

 ticles drift in through the smallest openings and cover 



Fig. 2. 



the floor and collect on furniture to the vexation of 

 house-wives. It is well suited to root-crops and rice : 

 bamboo luxuriates in it, and stone fruits do well, but it 

 is too light for apples and pears. In the mountain 

 valleys the soil is exceedingly varied, consisting, as it 

 does, of the washings from the hill-sides. This varia- 

 tion is one of the reasons why particular localities are 

 noted for special crops, which, as we shall see, is often 

 the case. 



Having thus thus taken a bird's-eye view of the 

 country and noted its leading physical characteristics, 

 we may proceed to the consideration of our subject 

 proper — the economic plants peculiar to Japan. 



POMACEOUS FRUITS. 

 ' N Apples and pears receive the first considera- 



tion in the estimation of most American fruit- 

 growers as the leading fruits, and I will, there- 

 •. fore, mention their classes first. It would, 

 however, be wrong to suppose that they also 

 J stand first in the estimation of the Japanese, 

 No fruit can rival the kaki (per- 

 simmon) in their judgment. Next 

 comes, perhaps, the nikan (orange). 



Japanese Pear — Taihk or Oikan. Natural Size. 

 (See page 10. ) 



and then grapes and pears occupy places of about equal 

 importance. Apples are scarcely known and rarely 

 cultivated, though there are a few native varieties. 

 They succeed best in the northern island, where foreign 

 varieties have been introduced. 



Pyrus Ussuriensis, Maxim. (P. Sinensis, Lindl. ; P. 

 connniinis, Thunb., var. Sinensis, C. Koch); Japanese 

 name, N'ashi* All the native varieties belong to this 

 species. The fruit has scarcely any resemblance to the 



* Hemsley, in his recent enumeration of Chinese plants, uses the 

 name Pyrus Sinensis, of Lindley, [or tliis Japanese pear, and pro- 

 poses the name Pyrus Cathayensis for the quince, or Pyrus Cliinen- 

 of Poiret. — Ed Am. G. 



