Japan and the Japanese

FARMING. 421
fire-flies, so much more brilliant and active than the European
glow-worm, were noticed with admiration.
At this season the first gathering was made of the tea-leaves, yet
quite young and yielding
the finer kinds of tea. He observed in some
places the leaves carelessly spread before the houses on mate to dry.
He also observed the farmers, in several places, threshing barley,
wheat and mustard seed, on similar mats, with flails having three
ewingels, or sometimes by beating the ears against a tub. To separate
the exterior husk from the rice, it was pounded by hand in a
kind of mortar, or by means of a machine consisting of a number
of pestles set in motion by a water-wheel, or by a man's foot. After
the wheat and barley were gathered, French beans ( Phaseoli) were .
sown for a second crop. He observed many kinds of peas and
beans cultivated, especially the Dolichos soia, not only used for
making soy, but the chief ingredients of a soup, a daily dish with
most classes. The Dolichos polyatachos, which ran winding like
scarlet beans, was employed for arbors. Its flowers, hanging down
from long stalks, were very ornamental, and appeared in succession
for a long period. He mentions, also, lettuce, melons both with
red and white pulp, pumpkins, cucumbers, eaten both raw and
pickled, gourds, employed for flasks, mushrooms, very much used,
especially for soups and sauces, Seville and China oranges, lemons,
shaddocks, medlars (Mespillus j'aponica), a large sort of persimmon
(Dyosperos kaki], grapes, pomegranates, Spanish figs (Cactus ficus),
chestnuts and walnuts.* The condition of the Japanese farmer Thun-
berg contrasts very favorably with that of the Swedish agriculturalist,
overloaded as the latter was with feudal burdens, though doubt
less he knew better these burdens, which he indignantly enumer
ates, than he did the grievances of the Japanese cultivator.
At Osaka he saw the smelting of copper from the ores obtained
in that neighborhood, and the method of casting it into bars. A
mould was made for this purpose, by digging a hole in the ground
a foot deep, across which were laid ten square iron bars, barely a
finger's breadth apart. A strip of sail-cloth was spread over these
bars and forced down. The hole was then filled with water, and
* Kampfer represents the Japanese strawberry as entirely insipid, and the
raspberries and brambleberries as not agreeable ; and Golownin, from hia
own experience, agrees with him in this statement.
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