Page 144 - Changing Living Spaces

Taro Takemoto

Table 7 Comparison of Manures Available for Agriculture in Yamanashi
in the Mid-Meiji period
Manure Price (yen) Quantity
Rice nursery Karishiki 1.5–1.75 50 kan
(0.1 cho) Night soil 0.275–1.375 6–30 koku
Pea manure 0.4–1 20–50 kan
Lime phosphate 0.9–1.8 1–2 kan
Charcoal 0.75–1.8 1.5–3.6 kan
Rice paddy Karishiki 2.71–3.195 204 kan
(0.1 cho) Soy bean 1–2 1–2 to
Night soil 0.75–1.25 1.5–2.5 koku
Wheat field Grass 2.08–2.46 198 kan
(0.1 cho) Night soil 1.6~2.5 100–160 kan
Soy bean 2–3 2–3 to
Lime phosphate 0.9–1.9 1–2 kan
Note Prices of karishiki and grass were estimated from labour costs.
Quantities of karishiki and grass were based on those calculated in table 6
Source Yamanashi prefecture (1903c, 80).

amount. In wheat fields, labour costs were 2-2.5 yen and could be replaced
with lime phosphate for half that amount. In the nursery, labour costs
were 1.5-1.75 yen and could be replaced by charcoal or lime phosphate for
the same amount. The average percentage of karishiki and grasses applied
to rice paddies, fields, and nurseries was 40-60 percent (table 5), but what
other types of fertilizer were used was not reported.
Based on these findings, the Survey Report argued that it would be
more profitable for BIe, the iriai commoners, and national land security
to incorporate the CIL into conservation forests and then afforest it than
to leave it as it was.
Concluding Remarks
The socioeconomic and natural environment in the mountain village liv-
ing spaces of Yamanashi Prefecture in the middle of the Meiji period,
which is the subject of this chapter, underwent very rapid change. The
Meiji government enacted the Forest Act and other laws in response to
frequent flooding throughout Japan, but the prefecture had developed
countermeasures earlier or at the same time. Several years before Saito
became Head of Division 6, he published a newspaper article describing
his ‘Opinion on Flood Control in Yamanashi Prefecture’, in which he ac-
tively advocated the incorporation of degraded mountain forests, even on
the imperial estate, into the system of conservation forests, which was

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