workers have two days off a month.

We saw the whole process, from the sorting of the yellow and white
cocoons to the huge bolts ready for the market, while one of our smiling
hosts significantly remarked, "The yellow and white blend very nicely
together."

We were interested in learning that the principal owner of this huge
plant has adopted his wife's family name in order to follow the custom
of not allowing a family name to die out, in case there are no sons and
none have been adopted.

As over one-third of Japan's trade is with the United States, and a
large portion of that is in silk, our clever hosts had printed on the
cover of the booklet presented to us, "Silk is the shining cord that
binds United States and Japan."

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce representatives had been given the
year book of Japan, all sorts of pamphlets containing figures and facts
concerning various enterprises, and so a day at Nikko, away from
statistics, was most welcome.

Nikko's sacred grove of Cryptomerie trees said to be over three hundred
years old, never looked more impressive than in the first rain we had
had while in Japan. One of the party who had traveled extensively in the
Orient previously, advised us to forget our trade commercial mission
long enough to see Nikko and then we could afford to overlook all the
other temples. Certainly nature and man's art achieved a double triumph
here, and this advice must have piqued the curiosity of most of the
stolid businessmen of the party; for yellow strips of rubber and paper