which in return sends its poorer quality to be bought cheap by the Japanese lower classes. Hence the apparent anomaly that rice appears alike among Japanese imports and exports.
In the extreme south the sweet potato, which was introduced as late as A.D. 1698, now forms the chief food of the common people. Besides the cereals, vegetables of various sorts are raised, but are eaten chiefly pickled and in small quantities.
Some few of the principal agricultural industries, such as tea, camphor, and lacquer, will be found treated in separate articles.
Books recommended. For a careful general account, Rein's Industries of Japan.—For fuller technical details, Dr. M. Fesca's Beitriige zur Kenntniss der japanischen Landwirtschaft, and shorter articles by the same in the "German Asiatic Transactions."—Dr. K. Rathgen's Japan's Volkswirthschaft und Staatshaushalt.—The laws and customs of the peasantry are treated with interesting minuteness in Simmons and Wigmore's Notes on Land Tenure and Local Institutions in Old Japan, published in Vol. XIX. Part I. of the "Asiatic Transactions."
Ainos. The Ainos, called by themselves Ainu, that is "men," are a very peculiar race, now inhabiting only the northern island of Yezo, but formerly widely spread all over the Japanese archipelago. The Japanese proper, arriving from the south-west, gradually pressed the Ainos back towards the east and north. It was only in the eighteenth century that they were completely subjugated. In retreating, the aborigines left the country strewn with place-names belonging to their own language. Such are, for instance, Noto, the name of the big promontory stretching out into the Sea of Japan (nottu means "promontory" in Aino), the Tonegawa, or River Tone, near Tōkyō (tanne is Aino for "long"), and hundreds of others. So far as blood, however, is concerned, the Japanese have in the long run been little, if at all, affected by Aino influence. The simple reason is that the half-breeds, though numerous, die out in the second or third generation. The Ainos are the hairiest race in the world, their luxuriantly thick black beards and hirsute limbs giving them an appearance which contrasts strangely with the smoothness of their Japanese lords and masters. They are of sturdy build, and distinguished by a
