96 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
One of their most remarkable products, 
that possibly some of you who have been 
in Tampa may have seen growing in my 
garden, is a radish,which they call the 
Sakai raj ama. It grows to be as much as 
two feet long and possibly six inches in 
diameter and weighs as much, sometimes, 
as forty pounds. It is as tender and 
of good flavor as any radish I ever ate. 
The Japanese eat it as taken from the 
ground. Besides, they dry it, pickle it in 
salt, cook it in various ways, and, next 
to rice, it is one of their mainstays. Tea 
is raised in large quantities and seems 
very profitable, as is also the silk-worm 
mulberry. 
They are unable to produce sufficient 
rice for their own requirements. Japan 
is not by any means able to sustain her¬ 
self on her own products, and has to im¬ 
port enormous quantities of all kinds of 
things. She imports the iron for her 
great battle-ships, but she has the men. 
They have but a limited area of territory 
that can be used for agricultural and hor¬ 
ticultural purposes, and are economical of 
it beyond conception, almost. They do 
not use horses or any other animals to 
any extent for cultivation of the soil, be¬ 
cause they take up too much room, and 
require too much food for sustenance. 
They have very few roads; there is not 
much necessity for roads because they go 
on foot in narrow paths, thus economiz¬ 
ing ground. 
Their fruit trees are planted close to¬ 
gether and are kept very small. They 
dwarf their trees methodically. No tree 
is permitted to grow so high but that a 
little Jap can reach up without a ladder 
and pick fruit from it. By planting so 
close together, they get, perhaps, quite a? 
much harvest to the acre as we do. They 
raise very good oranges, and better grape¬ 
fruit than is grown in California. I don’t 
know from where they get their stock— 
perhaps Mr. Tabor or Mr. Connor or Mr. 
Gillette can tell you. 
They are annoyed by all kinds of dis¬ 
eases, pests, and all sorts of insects. I 
never saw so many horrible things in the 
way of insects. I never dreamed or im¬ 
agined there could be such awful things 
as I saw there in the museum at the Im¬ 
perial Experiment Station. They are just 
beginning to spray and are using a great 
deal of Bordeaux, and think they have 
succeeded in getting in it something very 
satisfactory for insects. Their most com¬ 
mon method, however, in dealing with in¬ 
sects, is to catch them and kill them by 
hand. They have plenty of time for this. 
The wages of a good workman is from 
ten to fifteen cents a day. The women 
work side by side with the men. The 
women get ten cents, and the men fifteen 
cents a day. The women do some kinds 
of work better than the men, as they are 
more quick and nimble, but it is the same 
old story—they don’t get the same wages. 
To give you an idea of their care and 
patience in the management of their fruit¬ 
growing business, let me instance that in 
the raising of peaches; when the peach 
has passed out of bloom and the fruit is 
set, every little peach is enclosed in a 
strong paper sack, which is securely tied 
around the twig. The sack is large enough 
to accommodate the peach until it is fully 
grown. Every peach is raised in a paper 
sack, and that is the only way they seem 
to be able, owing to enemies, to raise 
peaches. Of course, the peaches are some¬ 
what lacking in color, as the sun cannot 
