OF SEVERAL JAPANESE FERTILIZERS. 
21 
of the steamed grain are left undissolved or unferrnented, 
and these when freed from alcoholic liquor by pressing, 
represent the saké cakes. The latter are not frequently 
applied directly as manure, hut usually first serve for pick¬ 
ling radishes (daikon) to which they infuse a good taste 
owing to their content of saké, which has not been removed 
by pressing. The cakes which consist of a soft mass are 
mixed for this purpose with much common salt and placed 
in tubs, the radishes which had been previously dried as 
much as possible in the air, are imbedded in the mass, and 
a lid with heavy stones is put on the top. When the fer¬ 
mentation of the radishes is complete, the cakes are applied 
to the fields. 
Sometimes the alcohol, left in the cakes after pressing 
is gained by distillation in a current of steam. As the soft 
cakes would, however, prevent the steam from passing freely 
through them, they are usually mixed before distillation 
with some rice hulls (about 1 part of hulls for 10 parts of 
cakes by weight). The remainders thus obtained are known 
as shochiu cakes (alcohol cakes) and are directly utilized as 
manure. 
The fertilizing properties of these two kinds of manures 
can be approximately deduced from analyses of the original 
cakes left after pressing. Mr. 1'. Mori, assistant in the 
laboratory, collected 5 specimens of such cakes, viz. 2, called 
Nada, 2 Ise and 1 Jimawari, made a portion of each air dry 
and mixed for the analyses equal quantities of the air dry 
samples. The proportion of moisture was in Jimawari 
45.74°/ 0 , in the other 61.25, 62.87, 63,10 resp. 60.74% ;— 
an average of 58.74%. As one of the samples proved ac¬ 
cordingly rather dry, and the other 1 exhibited nearly the 
same degree of moisture, we had better assume the average 
of the latter 4 samples e. g. 62.0% of moisture as the 
content of ordinary fresh saké cakes. 
