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 are badly in need of spraying. Experiments have been made with dates. Flowers have a weaker scent than in Europe. A rose called the "thousand _ri_"--a _ri_ is two and a half miles--has only a slight perfume two and a half inches away, and then only when pulled. I met with no heather--it is to be seen in Saghalien, which has several things in common with Scotland--but found masses of sweet-scented thyme.