Page 179 - Changing Living Spaces

Structural Changes in Fertilizer Circulation in Modern Japan

Table 1 Trends in Agricultural Production in Nakashima–gun
year rice wheat cotton indigo mulberry Japanese vegetable
radish
1887 5.862 3.247 1.095 850 — — —
1897 6.529 3.859 79 1.005 411 — —
1907 6.846 4.071 13 146 455 651 —
1917 6.804 3.729 1 120 794 1.044 —
1927 5.950 2.851 2 34 998 837 2.141
1937 6.078 1.074 2 1 516 722 2.322
Source: Aichi Prefecture (1887; 1897; 1907; 1917; 1927; 1937).
1) The numbers after the decimal point are rounded off. 2) ‘No description’ is indicated
by — 3) The unit‘chou’ is about the same as ha.
the need to provide food for urban consumers and factory workers. The
cultivation of vegetables, such as Japanese radish, experienced a remark-
able increase. For example, table 1 shows changes in crops in Nakashima-
gun, a wool-producing area in Aichi Prefecture.
At the end of the nineteenth century, cotton and indigo were grown
as raw materials for hand-woven cotton textiles, in addition to the main
crops of rice and wheat. However, the textile industry gradually be-
came mechanized and electrified, imported cotton was introduced, and
Japanese cotton with short fibres was no longer used. Due to imports
from India and the introduction of chemical dyes, domestic production
of indigo gradually ceased. While cotton and indigo declined, production
of vegetables, especially Japanese radish, increased as demand for vegeta-
bles increased in Aichi Prefecture and industrial areas such as Osaka and
Kobe (Yuzawa 2015).

Figure 1 Fertilizer Trading Book, 1915
Source Takashi Suzuki, 0873.

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