The cotton plant principally cultivated in Japan is of the species
known as _Gossypium herbaceum_, resembling that of India, China, and
Egypt. The plant is of short stature, seldom attaining a growth of
over two feet; the flower is deciduous, with yellow petals and purple
center, and the staple is short, but fine. It is very widely
cultivated in Japan, and is produced in thirty-seven out of the
forty-four prefectures forming the empire, but the best qualities and
largest quantities are grown in the southern maritime provinces of the
mainland and on the islands of Kiusiu and Shikoku. Vice consul
Longford, in his last report, says that the plant is not indigenous to
Japan, the seed having been first imported from China in the year
1558. There are now many varieties of the original species, and the
cultivation of the plant varies in its details in different
localities. The variations are, however, mostly in dates, and the
general grinding principles of the several operations are nearly the
same throughout the whole country. The land best suited for cotton
growing is one of a sandy soil, the admixture of earth and sand being
in the proportion of two parts earth to one of sand. During the winter
and spring months, crops of wheat or barley are raised on it, and it
is when these crops have attained their full height during the month
of May that the cotton is sown. About fifty days prior to the sowing a
manure is prepared consisting of chopped straw, straw ashes, green
grass, rice, bran, and earth from the bottom of the stagnant pools.
These ingredients are all carefully mixed together in equal
proportions, and the manure thus made is allowed to stand till
required for use. Ten days before the time fixed for sowing, narrow
trenches, about one inch in depth, are dug in the furrows, between the
rows of standing wheat or barleys and the manure is liberally
sprinkled along them by hand. For one night before sowing the seed is
steeped in water. It is then taken out, slightly mixed with straw
ashes, and sown in the trenches at intervals of a few inches. When
sown, it is covered with earth to the depth of half an inch, and
gently trampled down by foot. Four or five days after sowing, the buds
begin to appear above the earth, and almost simultaneously the wheat
or barley between which they grow is ripe for the sickle. While the
latter is being harvested, the cotton may be left to itself, but not
for very long. The buds appear in much larger numbers than the soil
could support if they were allowed to grow. They have accordingly to
be carefully thinned out, so that not more than five or six plants are
left in each foot of length. The next process is the sprinkling of a
manure composed of one part night soil and three parts water, and
again, subsequent to this, there are two further manurings; one of a
mixture of dried sardines, lees of oil, and lees of rice beer, which
is applied about the middle of June, when the plant has attained a
height of four inches; and again early in July, when the plant has
grown to a height of six or seven inches, a further manuring of night
soil, mixed with a larger proportion of water than before. At this
stage the head of the plant is pinched off with the fingers, in order
to check the excessive growth of the stem, and direct the strength
into the branches, which usually number five or six. From these
branches minor ones spring, but the latter are carefully pruned off as
they appear. In the middle of August the flowers begin to appear
gradually. They fall soon after their appearance, leaving in their
place the pod or peach (_momo_), which, after ripening, opens in
October by three or four valves and exposes the cotton to view. The
cotton is gathered in baskets, in which it is allowed to remain till a
bright, sunshiny day, when it is spread out on mats to dry and swell
in the sun for two or three days. After drying, the cotton is packed
in bags made of straw matting, and either sold or put aside until such
time as the farmer's leisure from other agricultural operations
enables him to deal with it. The average yield of cotton in good
districts in Japan is about 120 lb. to the acre, but as cotton is only
a secondary crop, this does not therefore represent the whole profit
gained by the farmer from his land. The prefectures in which the
production is largest are Aichi on the east coast, Osaka, Hiogo,
Hiroshima, and Yamaguchi on the inland sea, and Fukui and Ishikawa on
the west coast. Vice-consul Longford says that the manufacture of
cotton in Japan is still in all its stages largely a domestic one.
Gin, spindle, and loom are all found in the house of the farmer on
whose land the cotton is grown, and not only what is required for the
wants of his own family is spun and woven by the female members
thereof, but a surplus is also produced for sale.
Several spinning factories with important English machinery have been
established during the last twenty years, but Consul Longford says
that he has only known of one similar cotton-weaving factory, and that
has not been a successful experiment. Other so called weaving
factories throughout the country consist only of a collection of the
ordinary hand looms, to the number of forty or fifty, scarcely ever
reaching to one hundred, in one building or shed, wherein individual
manufacturers have their own special piece goods made.
The first operation in the manufacture is that of ginning, which is
conducted by means of a small implement called the _rokuro_, or
windlass. This consists of two wooden rollers revolving in opposite
directions, fixed on a frame about 12 inches high and 6 inches in
width, standing on a small platform, the dimensions of which slightly
exceed that of the frame. The operator, usually a woman, kneels on one
side of the frame, holding it firm by her weight, works the roller
with one hand, and with the other presses the cotton, which she takes
from a heap at her side, between the rollers. The cotton passes
through, falling in small lumps on the other side of the frame, while
the seeds fall on that nearest the woman. The utmost weight of
unginned cotton that one woman working an entire day of ten hours can
give is from 8 lb. to 10 lb., which gives, in the end, only a little
over 3 lb. weight of ginned cotton, and her daily earnings amount to
less than 2d. A few saw gins have been introduced into Japan during
the last fifteen years, but no effort has been made to secure their
distribution throughout the country districts. After ginning, a
certain proportion of the seed is reserved for the agricultural
requirements of the following year, and the remainder is sent to oil
factories, where it is pressed, and yields about one-eighth of its
capacity in measurement in oil, the refuse, after pressing, being used
for manure. The ginning having been finished in the country districts,
the cotton is either packed in bales and sent to the dealers in the
cities, or else the next process, that of carding, is at once
proceeded with on the spot.
This process is almost as primitive as that of the ginning. A long
bamboo, sufficiently thin to be flexible, is fastened at its base to a
pillar or the corner of a small room. It slopes upward into the center
of the room, and from its upper end a hempen cord is suspended. To
this is fastened the "bow," an instrument made of oak, about five feet
in length, two inches in circumference, and shaped like a ladle. A
string of coarse catgut is tightly stretched from end to end of the
bow, and this is beaten with a small mallet made of willow, bound at
the end with a ring of iron or brass. The raw cotton, in its coarse
state, is piled on the floor just underneath the string of the bow.
The string is then rapidly beaten with the mallet, and as it rises and
falls it catches the rough cotton, cuts it to the required degree of
fineness, removes impurities from it, and flings it to the side of the
operator, where it falls on a hempen net stretched over a four-cornered
wooden frame. The spaces of the net are about one-quarter of an inch
square, and through these any particles of dust that may still have
adhered to the cotton fall to the floor, leaving piled on top of the
net the pure cotton wool in its finished state. This work is always
performed by a man, and by assiduous toil throughout a long day, one
man can card from ten to twenty pounds weight of raw cotton. Payment is
made in proportion to the work done, and in the less remote country
districts is at the rate of about one penny for each pound carded. As
regards spinning and weaving, in the first of these branches of cotton
manufacture the Japanese have largely had recourse to the aid of
foreign machinery, but it is still to a much greater extent a domestic
industry, or at best carried on like weaving in the establishments of
cotton traders, in which a number of workers, varying from 20 to 100 or
more, each with his own spinning wheel, are collected together. Consul
Longford says the spinning wheel used in Japan differs in no respect
from that used in the country 300 years ago or (except that bamboo
forms an integral part of the materials of which it is made) from that
used in England prior to the invention of the jenny. The cost of one of
the wheels is about 9d., it will last for five or six years, and with
it a woman of ordinary skill can spin about 1 lb. of yarn in a day of
ten hours, earning thereby about 2d. There are at present in various
parts of Japan, in all, 21 spinning factories worked by foreign
machinery. Of four of these there is no information, but of the
remainder, one has 120 spindles; eleven, 2,000 spindles; two, 3,000
spindles; two, 4,000 spindles; and one, 18,000 spindles.--_Journal Soc.
of Arts._
* * * * *
[Continued from SUPPLEMENT, No. 612, page 9774.]