A 10 - year - old tree, which some 5 years ago only cost 1 to 2 sen, now costs 10 sen, which, allowing even for the depreciation in the value of paper currency, shows a rise of about 500 per cent.

The best transparent lacquer comes from the districts of Tsugaru, Nambu, Akita, and Aidzu. It is largely used by the workers of Kioto, Osaka, and the southern provinces, but though also used in Tokio, is not so much appreciated there as the lacquer produced from the neighbourhood of Chichibu, in the province of Mus - ashi, from Nikko, in Shi - motsuke, and that produced in the provinces of Kodzuke and Sagami, which hardens more rapidly, and is the best for black lacquer. There are some districts the lacquer obtained from which is best for certain kinds of work, but is not so well adapted for others. The kind which is used for transparent lacquer is mixed in large tubs, to ensure a uniform quality, and being allowed to stand for some time (say a week or 10 days), the best portion, which is ordinarily 70 per cent. of the whole, is skimmed off. This is used for Nashiji and Shu lacquer, while the remainder is used for making inferior mixtures, such as Johana, etc Almost all the various classes of lacquer are similarly dealt with to ensure uniformity, as some qualities dry much quicker, and are better than others, and the slow - drying qualities would otherwise remain unsold.

The whole country produces on an average 30,000 to 35,000 tubs per annum, each tub being of about 4 gal. capacity. Some 70 to 80 Per cent. of this total amount is produced from To - kio northwards. Nearly 1/2 the lacquer produced is sent to the Osaka market, where it is prepared as required, and resold all over the western and southern provinces, the remaining portion being used up locally and in Tokio.

The usual age at which a tree is tapped is 10 years, but in some few cases a tree is tapped when only 3 or 4 years old. The best lacquer for transparent varnish is obtained from trees 100 to 200 years old, as their sap has more body and is more glutinous. The tools used in obtaining the lacquer are as follows:-

Kawa - muki (bark - parer), a curved knife, with which the workman smoothes all inequalities of the bark before tapping the tree.

Yeda - gama (branch sickle), an instrument with a gouge on one side and a knife on the other, fitted with a piece of bamboo to give the hand a good hold when tapping branches.

Kaki - gama (scraping sickle), a similar instrument, without the piece of bamboo, used for tapping trees generally.

Yeguri (a gouge), used in autumn to scrape the bark smooth before giving the final cut with the Kaki - gama.

Natsu - bera (summer spatula), used for scraping the sap out of the incision into the receptacle named go.

Hocho (knife), used for cutting the bark of branches in obtaining seshime or branch lacquer.

Seshime - bera (seshime spatula), used for collecting the sap which exudes from the incisions in the bark of the branches.

Go, the bamboo or wooden pot in which the sap is put as it is collected.

Go - guri (pot - gouge), a long straight knife for scraping the lacquer out of the pot into the tub.

Te - bukuro (glove), worn by the tapper to protect his hand from contact with the sap.

The first tapping takes place about the beginning of June. The standard number of trees allotted to a tapper for the season is 1000, presuming them to be about 10 years old, or about 800 of the older trees, and so on, less and less according to the size of the trees. Having cleared away the grass from the roots, the workman makes the round of his allotted trees, marking each with small notches about 1/2 in. long. The first of these notches is made about 6 in. from the bottom of the tree on the right - hand side; the next, one " hand stretch" higher up on the left - hand side; the next, one "hand stretch" higher on the right; and so on, alternately, as far as the workman can reach. These preliminary markings, which are to determine all the places for subsequent tapping, take fully 4 days, being at the rate of 250 trees a day. The tapper then goes round provided with the bark scraper, the ordinary scraping sickle, the summer spatula, and the pot to hold the lacquer; and first smoothing the bark where required, gives one cut above and one cut below the two lower marks, and one cut above the remainder of the other marks, the cut being in each case about 1 1/2 in. long.

After giving the cut, the instrument is reversed, and the knife is run along the incision to ensure the bark being entirely cut through. This process is repeated every 4 days, each incision being made a little longer than the preceding one, up to the fifth tapping inclusive, after which the remaining incisions are made of the same length. At each round, when all the requisite incisions have been made on the tree, the workman gathers the sap, which has been exuded, with the spatula, beginning with the 2 lowest incisions, and so on to the uppermost cut; 25 is considered the normal number of cuts, which, at the rate of one incision at each place every 4 days, occupy 100 working days, and allowing for some 20 days of rain, during which the sap cannot be drawn, the season is brought to a close about the end of September. If the workman has any large trees to tap, the whole of which he cannot reach, when his round is concluded, he returns with a ladder, and, mounting each tree, taps the remainder of the trunk and the leading limbs in the same manner as above described, previous to making a fresh' round.

When the full number of incisions has been given, the workman gives an extra long cut underneath all the initial notches on each tree to obtain the sap which has collected there, and another above the uppermost cut of each set. These incisions are called ura - me (back marks). The workman also makes a number of cuts, each about 1 ft. apart, in all the branches whose diameter exceeds 1 in. This operation requires about 16 days to get through the whole number of trees. The next operation is called tome (the finish). This consists of a number of incisions completely encircling the tree wherever the workman perceives a likely place. The next process consists in cutting off all the branches; the larger ones are once more tapped after being cut off, to extract any sap that may still remain in them, and the small branches, which have not yet been tapped, are tied in bundles and steeped in water for about 10 days. When taken out and dried, the bark is cut with a knife, and the sap which exudes is collected with a branch spatula, and is called seshime lacquer. This word seems to be derived from sehi, the name of a machine, and shimeru (to press), from a practice which obtained in olden days of pressing the branches in such a machine to obtain the sap.