Not only does rice form the chief food of the Japanese but also the national beverage, called sake, is brewed from it. In colour the best sake resembles very pale sherry; the taste Sake. is rather acid. None but the finest grain is used in its manufacture. Of sake there are many varieties, from the best quality down to shiro-zake or “white sake,” and the turbid sort, drunk only in the poorer districts, known as nigori-zake; there is also a sweet sort, called mirin.
The various cereal and other crops cultivated in Japan, the areas devoted to them and the annual production are shown in the following table:—
| 1898. Acres. | 1902. Acres. | 1906. Acres. | |
| Rice | 7,044,060 | 7,117,990 | 7,246,982 |
| Barley | 1,649,240 | 1,613,270 | 1,674,595 |
| Rye | 1,703,410 | 1,688,635 | 1,752,095 |
| Wheat | 1,164,020 | 1,210,435 | 1,107,967 |
| Millet | 693,812 | 652,492 | 594,280 |
| Beans | 1,503,395 | 1,488,600 | 1,478,345 |
| Buckwheat | 450,100 | 414,375 | 402,575 |
| Rape-seed | 377,070 | 392,612 | 352,807 |
| Potatoes | 92,297 | 105,350 | 140,197 |
| Sweet Potatoes | 668,130 | 693,427 | 717,620 |
| Cotton | 100,720 | 51,750 | 24,165 |
| Hemp | 62,970 | 42,227 | 34,845 |
| Indigo (leaf) | 122,180 | 92,982 | 40,910 |
| 1903. | 1905. | 1906. | |
| Sugar Cane | 41,750 | 43,308 | 45,087 |
It is observable that no marked increase is taking place in the area under cultivation, and that the business of growing cotton, hemp and indigo is gradually diminishing, these staples being supplied from abroad. In Germany and Italy the annual additions made to the arable area average 8% whereas in Japan the figure is only 5%. Moreover, of the latter amount the rate for paddy fields is only 3.3% against 7.9% in the case of upland farms. This means that the population is rapidly outgrowing its supply of home-produced rice, the great food-stuff of the nation, and the price of that cereal consequently shows a steady tendency to appreciate. Thus whereas the market value was 5s. 5d. per bushel in 1901, it rose to 6s. 9d. in 1906.
Scarcely less important to Japan than the cereals she raises are her Silk and Tea. silk and tea, both of which find markets abroad. Her production of the latter staple does not show any sign of marked development, for though tea is almost as essential an article of diet in Japan as rice, its foreign consumers are practically limited to the United States and their demand does not increase. The figures for the 10-year period ended 1906 are as follow:—
| Area under cultivation (acres). | Tea produced (℔ av.). | |
| 1897 | 147,230 | 70,063,076 |
| 1901 | 122,120 | 57,975,486 |
| 1906 | 126,125 | 58,279,286 |
Sericulture, on the contrary, shows steady development year by year. The demand of European and American markets has very elastic limits, and if Japanese growers are content with moderate, but still substantial, gains they can find an almost unrestricted sale in the West. The development from 1886 to 1906 was as follows:—
| Raw silk produced yearly (℔). | |
| Average from 1886 to 1889 | 8,739,273 |
| 1895 | 19,087,310 |
| 1900 | 20,705,644 |
| 1905 | 21,630,829 |
| 1906 | 24,215,324 |
The chief silk-producing prefectures in Japan, according to the order of production, are Nagano, Gumma, Yamanashi, Fukushima, Aichi and Saitama. At the close of 1906 there were 3843 filatures throughout the country, and the number of families engaged in sericulture was 397,885.
Lacquer, vegetable wax and tobacco are also important staples of production. The figures for the ten-year period, 1897 to 1906, are as follow:—