o cherry-blossom poems I gathered by the way. The first
is, "Why do you wear such a long sword, you who have come only to see
the cherry blossoms?" The second is, "Why fasten your horse to the
cherry tree which is in full bloom, when the petals would fall off if
the horse reared?" A Japanese once told me that a foreigner had
greatly surprised him by asking if the cherry trees bore much fruit.

Orange as well as tea culture is a feature of the agricultural life of
the prefecture. As in California and South Africa, ladybirds have been
reared in large numbers in order to destroy scale. I saw at the
experiment station miserable orange trees encaged for producing scale
for the breeding ladybirds. The insects are distributed from the
station chiefly as larvae. They are sent through the post about a
hundred at a time in boxes. The ladybird, which has, I believe, eight
generations a year, and as an adult lives some twenty days, lays from
200 to 250 eggs, 150 of the larvae from which may survive. Alas for
the released ladybirds of Shidzuoka! Scale is said to be disappearing
so quickly that they are having but a hard life of it.

In the neighbouring prefecture of Kanagawa I paid a visit to a
gentleman who, with his brother, had devoted himself extensively to
fruit and flower growing. Their produce was sent the twenty-six hours'
journey by road to Tokyo, where four shops were maintained. A
considerable quantity of foreign pears had been produced on the
palmette verrier system. The branches of the extensively grown native
pear are everywhere tied to an overhead framework which completely
covers in the land on which the trees stand. This method was adopted
in order to cope with high winds and at the same time to arrest
growth, for in the damp soil in which Japanese pears are rooted, the
branches would be too sappy. Foreign pears are not more generally
cultivated because they come to the market in competition with
oranges, and the Japanese have not yet learnt to buy ripe pears. The
native pear looks rather like an enormous russet apple but it is as
hard as a turnip, and, though it is refreshing because of its
wateriness, has little flavour. Progress is being made with peaches
and apricots. Figs are common but inferior. A fine native fruit, when
well grown, is the _biwa_ or loquat. And homage must be paid to the
best persimmons, which yield place only to oranges and
tangerines.[199] In the north the apples are good, but most orchards