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Show relatively few of them are of profitable profit-able size and quality. In the comparatively warm sea water wa-ter of the Mikimoto pearl farms millions mil-lions of small oysters, hatched nat-, urally, but under a certain amount of supervision, float for a while and then attach themselves to small stones strewn on the bottom. There they remain for three years. Then Japanese diving girls go down and get them. Japanese "Pearl Farms" Prove Good Investment By leasing about 40,000 acres of warm salt water in various bays along the shores of Japan, planting 3,000,000 small oysters known scientifically scien-tifically as inngnritifera martensi each ye"r, performine a ma.ior surgical sur-gical operation nn each of them, then nursing the patients tenderly for seven years, nn average of $2,000.(XX) worth of Japanese culture pearls Is produced for world markets annually. Thp originator and controlling factor fac-tor in this si range industry Is Kochl-chi Kochl-chi Mikimoto, known as the "pearl king" of Jnpan. For 23 years he operated nine pearl farms before raising a profitable crop. Now, though by means of the scientific methods he developed, he and his thousand assistants care for 7.000,000 pearl oysters constantly, and the raising I of culture pearls has ceased to be an j experiment, writes Earl Chapin May I In Popular Science Monthly. All pearls are produced by Irritated Irri-tated oysters. A wild, natural or virgin vir-gin pearl results when n bit of sand, a minute crustacean or some other tiny forelt'n substance accidentally gets into the oyster's body. If It Is not able to eject the Intruder, the oyster surrounds It with layers of a substance which. In time, becomes a pearl. The great value of natural pearls is due chiefly to the fact that |