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home consumption. To remedy this, however, much is being done in Formosa, Liuchiu, and Kagoshima, and there is every reason to hope for an early and decided improvement. Government effort in relation to sugar, as in other branches of agriculture, has been rather to improve the quality than to increase the quantity, in proof of which we have the fact that, while in one year the sugar area was increased by 5 per cent., the quantity produced decreased by a like amount. The same condition obtains in tobacco-growing, which has become a State monopoly, and which, under strict supervision, has much improved in quality.
The cotton-growers have hardly kept pace with the times, and the fibre, or staple, of the home-grown product is shorter than that of the best cotton-growing countries, while the goods themselves are more costly than the imported article from India, China, and America. Thus, the cotton crop has decreased by nearly two-thirds during a period of eight years. Hemp suffers from the rivalry of China and India, while Japanese mint is coming into great demand for export, to be used for medicinal and other purposes.
The paper mulberry-tree, or rather shrub, is a hardy growth which can be profitably raised on almost any waste land, and has great possibilities as the basis for a tough but rather coarse grade of paper. The Mitsuma, while naturally making a smooth and useful paper, is not of itself sufficiently tough, but this objection has been overcome by a process devised in the Printing Bureau. This improvement, added to its original popularity with foreign buyers, makes the industry a safe and promising investment for both cultivator and manufacturer.
As the quality of the tobacco crop has been redeemed under Government monopoly, and as the paper trade has been improved through the ingenuity of the Printing Bureau, so in every branch of agriculture may be seen the beneficial influence of intelligent official interest. Model farming, lectures on agriculture, agricultural colleges, and experimental farming at public expense, have received the support of the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, with whom the local boards have willingly co-operated.
The work of experimental farming is technically divided into three branches—viz., original research, practical application, and model farming. For the actual working of these three general divisions, the ideal of the Government was to have original research undertaken by the State; practical application of knowledge published by State experts to be dealt with by localities, so that each might be governed by the conditions of its own climate, soil, etc., and the model farming to be under the control of the cities and corporations.