healthy Cryptomeria, from whose sap alone it must now be deriving its sole nourishment, as no decaying wood is visible, and it is about 20 feet from the ground. The shape of the trees here is more picturesque and less regular than at Nikko, some having spreading branches quite near the ground; the best of these measured 133 feet by 19 feet 3 inches, with a spread of 25 yards.
The finest trees in the cemetery, and probably the finest in existence, stand on the right at its extreme end, close to an enclosure, just before reaching the large barn-like temple called "Mandoro," or hall of ten thousand lamps, which is itself surrounded and backed up by a grove of superb trees standing very thickly together. Of the trees on the right just before reaching the temple one had previously been measured by Prof. Honda of Tokyo University, who made it 58 metres high. I made it 180 feet with a girth of 24 feet. But though this may be the tallest it is not so fine a timber tree as the one standing just beyond it, which does not swell so much at the ground, but carries its girth higher up and is cleaner. This tree is broken off at about 150 feet, but seems quite vigorous, and certainly contains 2000 feet or more of sound timber.[1]
So far I have spoken only of the Cryptomeria in a wild state and as an ornamental tree, but it is also planted very largely in many parts of Japan for timber, and forms a most profitable source of revenue to many of the smaller landowners and farmers as well as to the State. Its cultivation has attained a maximum in the district of Yoshino in the province of Yamato, and from The Forestry and Forest Products of Japan, published at Tokyo in 1904, we learn that this cultivation dates back 400 years, and covers as much as 38 per cent of the whole area of the district, of which no less than 93 per cent is forest land. The inhabitants have probably brought the art of profitable timber growing to a higher point of perfection than any other people in the world, no less than 85 per cent of the local male population consisting of woodmen, sawyers, timber carriers, and foresters. The quantity of Cryptomeria timber alone exported from Yoshino amounted in the year 1902 to 8,857,000 cubic feet, valued (I presume locally) at 1,695,000 yen, equal to about £175,000 sterling.
The trees are planted out at three years old after being twice transplanted in the nursery, where they are raised from seed and kept shaded during the first year. This, at least, is the rule in the Kisogawa district, though I was told that in the south Cryptomerias are more cheaply and quickly raised from cuttings, and that these produce as good trees as seedlings.
About 4000 per acre are usually planted, and weeded once or twice a year for three years, when they suppress the weeds by their shade. The plantations grow very fast, and are pruned from the eighth to the twenty-third year after planting out. Thinning is done at the earliest at twelve years, and the thinnings form such a profitable source of revenue that income is probably returned quicker by such a Cryptomeria plantation than by any other tree. The final felling takes place at about 120 years old, when as many as 180 trees, containing 15,000 cubic feet, may be found on an acre. The previous thinnings are estimated at 16,000 cubic feet, making the total product per acre in 120 years over 30,000 feet. This result, which
- ↑ Mayr, however, states that he measured a tree at Takaosan which attained 68 metres (over 200 feet) in height by 2 in diameter.
