INTRODUCTION

I am indebted to Mr. Shigetoshi Yoshiwara, Vice-Minister of Finance, for the following statement of the quantity of the various kinds of alcoholic liquids produced in the year ending September 30th, 1880.

Table 2: Alcohol Production for Year Ending September 30, 1880

	Tax per koku	No. of koku	Revenue in yen
Ordinary sake (seishu)	1 yen	5,015,084	5,015,084
Turbid sake (nigorizake)	0.3 yen	65,494	19,648
White sake (shiro-zake)	2 yen	1,500	3,000
Sweet sake for cooking (mirin)	2 yen	38,569	77,138
Liquer (meishu)	3 yen	3,615	10,845
Spirit (shochu)	1.5 yen	83,708	125,562
		5,207,970	5,251,277
Fees from sale of licences to brewers and retail dealers			1,208,293
Total revenue derived from alcoholic liquors			6,459,570 yen

The estimated amount of revenue from alcoholic liquers for the year ending September 30th, 1881 is 10,795,025 yen, the total estimated revenue being 56,616,907 yen. The former estimate is much greater than the actual yield of the past year, owing to the considerable changes which have been made both in the amounts and in the mode of collecting the taxes.¹ The amount of the different kinds of sake given in the table above is 5,207,970 koku, or 206,756,409 gallons, but this number does not express the total quantity consumed, for without any doubt, much sake which is not taxes, is prepared in private houses in the country. Taking into consideration only the amount of ordinary sake used, say 5 million koku, or 198 million gallons, the consumption corresponds to 6 gallons per head per annum reckoning the population at 33 millions. If it were diluted twice so as to be about the same strength as beer, the consumption would be doubled, that is 12 gallons a head, whilst the consumption of beer in England averages 34 gallons per head, nearly three times as much as in Japan. The brewing of sake is, therefore, relatively of less importance than that of beer in England, and this is doubtless to be ascribed to the enormous consumption of tea, which serves at all times, in summer and in winter, as the national -beverage.

The study of the chemical reactions involved in the brewing process described in the following pages has brought to light a fact of some importance relating to the physiology of plants, vis. that the growth of a mold over the surface of perfectly dead rice grains causes a change in the character of the albumenoid matter of the grain resembling that which results from the germination of the embryo of similar grains. I cannot omit here to draw attention to the mutual advantage to be derived from an association of workers in industrial and in pure science; the cooperation cannot but be of the greatest utility on the one hand, by suggesting new subjects for research to the theoretical worker, and on the other, in aiding the practical man to attain the best results possible. The student of science in Japan has a wide field before him; that system of isolation which has prevented the introduction of Western knowledge till within the last quarter of a century has not been entirely fruitless, for it has resulted in the development of industrial processes which are as novel and interesting to the European as those of the latter are to Japanese. The scientific students of the university and colleges of Japan need not, therefore, look very far in order to find subjects that require investigation and explanation, and this search will, without doubt, add largely to the sum total of existing knowledge.