lands.

The rainfall is far above the average of most countries. Two thirds of the annual downpour falls during the six months from April to October. The rainy season proper begins early in June and lasts about six weeks. At this season it sometimes rains for weeks consecutively. This year (1896) during the rainy season we did not once get a sight of the sun for at least three weeks. The amount of rain varies greatly from year to year, as also in different localities.

Notwithstanding the heavy rainfall, bright, sunny days are far in excess of dark, rainy ones. Clear, balmy skies are the rule rather than the exception. There is a softness and delicacy about Japanese skies rare in America, but common in European countries bordering on the Mediterranean Sea.

Japanese winds are irregular and violent, and subject to sudden changes. During three months of the year the dreaded typhoons are expected, and once or twice each year great damage is done by them. These typhoons generally blow from the southwest. They often sweep houses, forests, and everything else before them, their wake being a mass of ruins. In fair weather, on the sea-shore, there is a gentle land- and sea-breeze in summer.

Productions

Japan is blessed with a fertile soil, capable of bearing a variety of products. By centuries of the most careful fertilization and irrigation (arts in which the Japanese are adepts) the land has been brought to a very high state of cultivation. One of the peculiar things to the people of the West is the manner in which the fields are irrigated. Nearly all the land under cultivation can be freely watered at the will of the cultivator. Streams and canals everywhere wind in and out through the plains and round the hills, making easy the irrigation of all arable lands.

A striking feature of the farming is the manner of terracing the sides of the hills and mountains. These are not cultivated in their natural state, as in America, but stone walls are built at regular gradations on the mountain-sides, and the soil dug down until level with the tops of the walls. Arranged in this way a mountain-side looks not unlike a huge stairway, and lends beauty to the landscape.

The land here is not divided into large farms, as is usual in the West. Most of the farms are very small. One never sees a field of ten or fifteen acres, but little plots hardly as large as our vegetable gardens. The cultivation is mostly done by hand, the women laboring in the fields with their husbands and brothers. The implements in general use are very rude. Plows are used, but they are roughly made of wood, with an iron point attached, and do poor work. Nearly all the cultivating is done with a hoe, the blade of which is almost as long as the handle, and is attached to it at an angle of less than forty-five degrees, making it an awkward thing to use. All grains are harvested and threshed by hand. The land being so fertile, the yield is large.

In enumerating the products of their country, the native writers usually begin with the go-koku, or five cereals—wheat, rice, millet, beans, and sorghum. Fine crops of wheat are grown, especially in the southern provinces. Perhaps no country in the world produces better rice or a greater quantity per acre. One half of all the land under cultivation is used in the production of rice.

Green grasses are remarkably rare in Japan, and the soil does not seem to be adapted to their growth. Long plains of green meadow- and pasture-lands, so pleasing to the eye in home landscapes, are never seen. Almost the only grass in the empire is the long, coarse grass that grows on the hills and mountains.

Corn and oats are met with rarely. The cultivation of corn is now being introduced in the northern provinces, however, and will probably soon become more general. Hemp and cotton both flourish. The cotton does not grow as large or yield as bountifully as it does in our own Southern States, but a very good crop is raised each year. There is a large variety of vegetables, such as turnips, pumpkins, radishes, beets, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, etc.

Japan produces a great variety of fruits and berries. We can have fresh fruit all the year round. Some of the more prominent are oranges, persimmons, figs, apricots, pears, peaches, plums, loquats, grapes, etc. As a rule the fruit is inferior to that of the West, but the oranges, persimmons, and figs are excellent.

Until comparatively recent years apples were unknown here, but now they are being rapidly introduced and successfully cultivated. They are grown only in the northern provinces, the southern soil not being well adapted to them.

For bright, gay flowers Japan can hardly be excelled. At certain seasons the whole country resembles an immense garden. The crysanthemum is the national flower, and magnificent specimens of it are grown. The cherry blossoms are universal favorites, and when they are at their best the whole population turns out to see them. Lotus flowers are highly prized, and in our city of Saga there is an old castle moat, 200 or 300 yards wide and more than 1 mile long, filled with them, which in July and August is a sea of large red-and-white blossoms, beautiful to behold. The hills and valleys abound in wild flowers, but the natives seem to prize them less than the cultivated ones. In recent years Western flowers are being extensively cultivated, and most of them do well. Flowers that must be carefully housed and nursed in America, such as geraniums, fuchsias, etc., will grow all the year in the open in Japan. Some one only partially acquainted with Japan has said that the flowers have no odor, but this is not true; they are, however, less fragrant than those of the West.

There is no country in the East so well supplied with useful timber. On the island of Yezo alone there are thirty-six varieties of useful timber-trees, including the most useful of all trees, the oak. These vast forests as yet are untouched practically, and the whole of the Hokkaido is one huge lumber-yard. The main island, Kyushu, and Shikoku are also well timbered. But the demand for building material, fire-wood, and charcoal is so great that rapid inroads are being made upon the supply of timber. Unless a more thorough system of forestry is adopted the supply will some day be exhausted. The mulberry-tree flourishes, and immense tracts of land are given to its cultivation. The fruit is not used, but the leaves are highly valuable in silk culture. Lacquer-trees also abound, from which a considerable revenue is derived.

The camphor-supply of the world is almost entirely in the hands of Japan. Magnificent camphor-trees are growing over all southern Japan, and in the newly acquired territory of Formosa there are large groves of them. The camphor industry is a lucrative one, and happy is the man who possesses a few trees. Within a few yards of my former home in Saga, on a little strip of waste land, there were four camphor-trees which sold, standing, for $2000, silver.

This account would be very incomplete without a notice of the bamboo, which grows in large quantities over all the empire. In the northern provinces it is only a small shrub; in the southern it grows to a large tree. The uses to which it is put are innumerable, and the people hardly could do without it.

The chief articles of foreign export produced in Japan are silk, tea, and rice. Silk is produced throughout the country, with the exception of the island of Yezo, but the best yielding districts are in the center and north of the main island. The Japanese cocoon seems to be equally as good as the European, but the methods of manufacturing are not yet up to the highest