May 1, 1902] 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
767 
our window glass, but even of our doors and walls. 
Considering that the climate in the provinces north 
of Tokio is colder in winter than in EngLmd, and 
that the Japanese have no stoves, only some burning 
charcoal in the Inha^Jd, a kind of brasier, you will 
understand how little at home the European traveller 
feels under such circumstances. I had exictly twelve 
months ago, when I was in Niigaoka and Nigat;i, to 
suifer very much from these primitive arrangements. 
"If the Japanese or Chinese paper is impregnated 
with Ye-no-L;bara, the oil from Perilla ocymoides, the 
Japanese substitute for boiled linseed oil, it becomes 
perfectly waterproof. It is used for making umbrellas 
aad macintoshes. Perhaps it will interest you to 
know that during my stay in Japan I never iiad an 
umbrella or a macintosh. If it happened that I was 
caught by a sudden shower, and this happened very 
frequently indeed, 1 went into the nearest paper 
shop and bought a macintosh of oil paper for 2d 
(S sen). The same with umbrellas, If the paper is 
oiled and varnished, then it takes the place of 
leather ; the roofing of the jinrickshas, the little 
hand carriages, is often made of paper, even the 
Japanese " tab " for rainy weather, the equivalent 
for our water boots, are n)ade of paper. 
"As the paper for the stencils as used in cotton 
and muslin printing mast stand a good deal of 
haa dliiig, moisture, and chemicals, it is treated 
'specially for this purpose. A very long fibrous paper, 
made of unbleached mulberry-bast, is impregnated 
with "shibu," which is an astringent milky extract 
the Kaki fruit, Diospiiros kali. This extract has 
the properties of varnish, it dries in the air, stiffens 
the paper, and makes it very resistant to water. 
" The cutting of these stencils is a special industry. 
It is raoitly done by hand ; at the most, the stencil 
cutter prints the outlines ou the paper before 
ccuting it." 
Dr Kempte called the Paper Mulberry tree Afoi 
papuV'fera". Its present name is Broussoiietioc 
2Japtrifera. It is closely allied to the ordinary 
Muy erry, and balongs to the Natural Order 
dloi hece. It grows wild in China and Japtu and 
alsobin many of the islands of the Paoifij Ocean, 
whea e the natives minufactare a large part of ihMr 
clot ring from its bark. It _ forms a small tree, 
attahning about twenty or thirty feet high, wi.h a 
truuik seldom more than a foot in diameter, and 
generally branching at a short distance from the 
ground. The young branches are covered with short 
soft hairs. The Japanese cultivate this plant very 
much in the same way that we grow osiers, and they 
use only the young shoots for the mauufacturo of 
pap er ; these are cut into conveniently sized pieces, 
and boiled until the bark separates readily from the 
wood, when it is peeled off and dried for future 
use. To convert this bark into paper, they proceed 
in the following manner :— The dried bark is first 
moistened by soaking for a few hours in water ; all 
supertiuous matter is then removed by scraping with 
a knife, after which the bark is boiled in a ley of 
wood ashes until its fibres are thoroughly separated, 
when it is reduced to a pulp by beating with wooden 
batons ; this pulp is then mixed with mucilage and 
spread upon frames made of rushes. The paper 
thus made ia of a whitey-brown colour, and very 
strong; it is in common uso in Jiipm. Instead of 
paper, the natives of the South Sea Islands manu- 
facture from this bark an exoesdingly tough cloth, 
called tapa or kapa cloth, which they commonly uso 
for clothing, either plain or priuteii, and dyed of 
various colors. Tliis cloth is principally made by the 
women, who adopt the foilowiog method of manufac- 
tm-e : — The bark is first softened by being soaked in 
Walter for a considerable length of time ; it is then 
placed upon a log of wood and beateu out with a 
bitou until it is of the requisite degree of fineness. 
The baton is made of very hard wood, and has four 
flat sides, each of which ia sharply ribbed. Two 
or four women usually work together, and as they 
eep time in beating, the uoise they make is loud 
and musical, la some ialaads, however, another and 
inferior method is adopted, the bark being placed upon 
a fiat board and scraped with different kinds of sharp- 
edged shells while kept ooustaiitly wet. By employing 
mucilage obtained from the arrowroot, the natives 
join pieces of cloth together, and Admiral Sir 
Everard Howe st ites that the King of Tongataboo 
(one of tlie friendly Islands) had a piece made which 
was two miles long and 120 feet wide. — Indian 
Gardening and Planting. 
♦ 
EGYPT FIFTY YEARS HENCE. 
This was the subject of the lecture which Mr 
VVillcocks fjiive at the meeting of the Kiiedivial 
Geograpiiical Society in the hail ot the mixed 
Tribunals on Saturday afternoon. 
Tiie endeavour to pierce the veil whicli clouds 
the future is an uii.'^a'.isfaclory task however one 
may contemplate it. But few of those who listened 
to Mr Willeoek»'s glowing description of the 
Ei'jpt of the future will be alive 50 years hence 
to i)ear witness to the value of his predictions, 
and no:ie we may peihaps say present; were so 
qualified as the lectuier to judge of tiie possibili- 
ties ot tlie country. Mr Willcoeks, besides being 
endowed -by nature with a vivid iniaginaiiou, lias 
an almost unrivalled knosvledge of Egypt, and 
especially of its capabilities under a perfected 
system of perennial irrigation. Mr Willcocka 
foresees an Egypt in which 
IRRIGATION W0I5KS 
will Iiave been laid out witli a most lavish hand. 
Dams and weirs at the Kipon FallS; where the 
Nile leaves the Victoria Nyanza Lake, at 
Fabougo south of Wadelai, at Senaar, at Aboii 
Harez, at a point near Esna, at Keneh, at; Sohag, 
and at the niouih of the Nile, come within ( lie 
sanguine view of Mr Willcocks's imagination. 
Apart froiji these expensive works all the canals 
which are to provide Hush irrigation to the 
Meroe and Senaar peninsulas, to a district of 
150,000 feddans at Kom Umbos, to 400,000 feddans 
in the Fayouin, liavc to be constructed. Dykes 
will be made to provide an escape for excessive 
floods, and, most expensive of all perhaps, a 
Ministry of Agriculture with bureaux to deal with 
forecasting the weather, animal industry, cheniis- 
tiy, soils, forestry, experimental stations, foreign 
pro<lucts, foreign markets, pisciculture, statisticp, 
ft is true that every new irrigation work pays for 
itself within a comparatively short number of 
years, but we cannot serioiisly consider that the 
country could possibly digest such an enormous 
programme within 50 years. 
Mr Wilicocks foresees the permission of the 
TOBACCO CULTIVATION 
and draws a striking picture of the fellah discour- 
sing upon the qualities of his home-grown tobacco 
beneatii tlie shade of his date palms and vines. 
Khartoum is to be one of the greatest cities of 
Africa, the centre of trade through which the pro- 
ducts of the Meroe and Senuar peninsulas, the 
New Egypt, will Da^s by railway. The exteiisive 
marshes of the ]>;ihr el Ghazal are to be drained 
and the White Nile confined within its banks and 
this )arge district will be cultivated with rice and 
the Indian water nut. The rivers will furnish 
water-power wheieby eleciricity will be furnished 
to supply power tor innumerable factories and for 
railway locomotion. Those factories, run by the 
power" obtained from the Ripon Falls, \vill be 
employed in 
