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The Green Archipelago Forestry in Pre-Industrial Japan by Conrad Totman

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The Green Archipelago Forestry in Pre-Industrial Japan by Conrad Totman

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The Green Archipelago:

Forestry in
Preindustrial Japan

CONRAD TOTMAN

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

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THE GREEN ARCHIPELAGO

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A

Book

The Philip E. Lilienthal imprint

honors special books
in commemoration of a man whose work
at the University of California Press from 1954 to 1979
was marked by dedication to young authors
and to high standards in the field of Asian Studies.
Friends, family, authors, and foundations have together
endowed the Lilienthal Fund, which enables the Press
to publish under this imprint selected books
in a way that reflects the taste and judgment
of a great and beloved editor.

CONRAD TOTMAN

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

BERKELEY Los ANGELES LONDON

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This book is a print-on-demand volume. It is manufactured
using toner in place of ink. Type and images may be less
sharp than the same material seen in traditionally printed
University of California Press editions.

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 1989 by
The Regents of the University of California

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Totman, Conrad D.
The green archipelago: forestry in preindustrial Japan/
Conrad Totman.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-520-06313-9 (alk. paper)
i. Forests and forestry Japan. 2. Forest policy—Japan.
I. Title.
SD225.T67 1989
333.75'15' °95 2 —dc 19 88-17504
GIF

Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
A Brief Chronology xiv
Maps xv
Introduction: An Overview of Preindustrial Japanese
Forest History I

Part One: A Millennium of Exploitation Forestry 7

1. The Ancient Predation, 600-850 9

2. Forests and Forestry in Medieval Japan, 1050—1550 34
3. Timber Depletion during the Early Modern Predation,
1570—1670 50

Part Two: The Emergence of Regenerative Forestry in

Early Modern Japan 81

4. The Negative Regimen: Forest Regulation 83

5. Silviculture: Its Principles and Practice 116
6. Plantation Forestry: Economic Aspects of Its Emergence 130
7. Land-Use Patterns and Afforestation 149

Vll

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viii Contents

Conclusion 171
Bibliographical Essay: Scholarship on Preindustrial
Japanese Forestry, 1880-1980 191

Notes 215
Glossaries 253
General Glossary 253
Glossary of Vegetation 260

Bibliography 263
Index 291

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Illustrations

Maps
1. Early Modern Japan xv
2. Areas Logged by Monumental Builders xvi
3. The Kinai Basin xvii
4. Provinces of Tokugawa Japan xviii
5. Major Rivers and Mountains xix
6. Central Japan xx
7. Cities and Towns xxi
8. Geographical Distribution of Late Edo-Period
Afforestation (on private land) xxii

Figures
I. Changes in a Hypothetical Forest Site
176

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Preface

More and more our choices on this planet appear to be fire or ice:
the fire of nuclear holocaust or the ice of environmental catastro-
phe. In both choices the heart of the problem is our continued domi-
nation by anachronistic attitudes that blind us to an essential truth:
the multibillion-year history of life on earth reached a watershed in
the twentieth century. The old history of our ecosystem has ended;
a new history has begun. Whether it will be the history of a planet
whose living face is much like that of former eons, or the history of a
planet with a dramatically new face, is yet to be decided.
In either case it will be a new history. For billions of years the
earth's ecosystem was immune to the depredations of any of its own.
External forces could visit disaster upon it. Particular species could
grievously wound one another, but none could threaten life as a
whole. Because this condition provided each species or symbiotic
group with a secure field of action, each could pursue its own im-
mediate interests, utterly indifferent to the general well-being, con-
fident that the system was self-correcting, self-perpetuating, safe
from abuse by any of its members.
Today that is all changed. Now one species—our own—can rav-
age the whole extraordinary structure of life on earth. And we seem
determined to do it. We direct our highest skills and our most elab-
orately organized powers to the pursuit of enterprises that will most
assuredly accomplish that pathetic end: we devise ever more de-
structive explosives and equip them with increasingly intricate and
unmanageable triggering devices; we create ever more deadly chem-
icals and spew out more and more poisonous wastes; and we exploit

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xii Preface

ever vaster reaches of the ecosystem and its physical foundation

with little serious attention to the broader ramifications of our
conduct. While doing these things, we produce endless streams
of rhetoric and information that divert our attention from critical
matters to secondary and tertiary issues arising from parochial prej-
udice and short-term, selfish interest.
This performance cannot long continue. Technological romantics
may see salvation in flight to another planet, but that is not the solu-
tion. We humans are the problem: wherever we go, the problem
goes with us. To cope with the problem, we must change. And if we
change appropriately, there will be no need to flee anywhere. Our
home here on earth will be quite sufficient for us.
Like it or not, as our planet enters a new era we humans must re-
linquish a forty-thousand-year legacy of thought and behavior that
is no longer adequate. We must now learn more about how the eco-
system works to understand how we properly fit into it. We must
learn how to manage ourselves and how to deal with our environ-
ment so that it may endure, thereby enabling our own species to
endure. Or we shall ruin everything.
Historians cannot ignore the implications of our dilemma. Unless
we are content to be part of the problem rather than part of the
solution, we too must rethink where we stand and what we do.
This study constitutes an effort by one historian—a historian who
previously spent twenty years happily reconstructing a political
history that is of no consequence to any living creature—to look
anew at the human record in hopes of saying something worth
hearing.
This examination of forestry in preindustrial Japan focuses on
human interaction with the environment. From an ecologist's per-
spective the work will surely be disappointing. It employs a homo-
centric autecological approach rather than a synecological one;
that is, instead of looking at the operation of the ecosystem as a
whole, with the human component treated as but one of myriad vari-
ables, it focuses explicitly on the relationship of humans to environ-
ment. It does so in part because the historical record is radically
skewed in that direction: preindustrial Japanese, and the present-
day historians who study them, have paid great attention to human
affairs but little to the rest of the archipelago's history. In addition,
this approach has been used because it maximizes common ground

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Preface xiii

with nonecological studies and because my own understanding of

environmental history is still embryonic.
Despite its shortcomings, I hope this inquiry into the record of
Japan's preindustrial use of forests will in its own small way help us
understand the dynamics of ecological relationships as they have
worked in historical practice. This understanding may in turn assist
us in determining which traditional behaviors we must or must not
abandon if we are to keep the surface of our little, green planet
alive.

This study was made possible by a grant from the Japan Foun-
dation, which sustained me during a year of research in Japan in
1981-82. Thanks to Professor Oishi Shinzaburo, I was able to
spend that year affiliated with the Tokugawa Institute for the His-
tory of Forestry (Tokugawa Rinseishi Kenkyujo) in Mejiro. There
I had the pleasure of meeting Tokoro Mitsuo, lioka Masatake, and
other scholars and staff of the institute. I thank them for their
friendship, patience, and helpfulness as I learned the basics of
Japanese forest history, and I thank Professor Kanai Madoka for
helping arrange that year of study. I am grateful to Northwestern
University for facilitating my year of leave and to the Yale Univer-
sity Library for providing additional research materials. I appre-
ciate the warm interest that many colleagues have shown in my
work, and, of course, I thank Michiko for continuing to bear with
my puzzlements.

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A Brief Chronology

Epochs General Periods Notable

in Historical and Estimated Historical
Years Forestry Periods Capitals Population Entries

agriculture spreads 2500 B.C.-A.D. 500

smelting A.D. zoo-
political consolidation A.D. 300-
A.D.
6oo

700 ancient Nara: 5 million

Todaiji built 7405
predation Heijo- ky5 7«x>
600—850 710-7 94 Heian-kyo built 7905
n__
OOO
ancient
i
Heian:
900 Heian-kyo
Heian-kyo decays ca. 95off.
794-1185

I OOO 6.5 million

I OOO

1100 exploitation Todaiji rebuilt nSos

forestry
Kamakura:
1200 Kamakura
1185-1337 Kamakura burns 1219

1300
medieval

1400 Muromachi: iriai proliferate ca. i4Ooff.

Kyoto
1337-1600
1500
early Hideyoshi builds 15905
modern
1600 predation 12 million Meireki fire 1657
1570-1670 early 1600
modern Tokugawa: bakufu seizes Hida 1692
Edo Nogyo zensho 1697
1700 31 million
1603-1868 buwakebayashi appear 17205
regenerative 1720
forestry nenkiyama proliferate 17605
1800 modern: 33 million essays by Sat5 Shin'en 1809-1844
Tokyo 1870
modern 1868- national forests established 18805
1900

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Map i . Early Modern Japan

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PROVINCES
Aki...48 lyo...44 Shimosa...11
Awa...42 lzu.,.28 Shimotsuke...9
Awa (BSshu).. 13 lzumi...37 Shinano (ShinshD).
Awaji...41 lzumo...59 Suruga...27
Bingo. .50 Kaga...19 Su5...46
Bitch0...49 Kai...26 Tajima...35
Bizen...51 Kawachi 38 Tanba...53
Bungo...63 Kazusa...12 Tango.. .54
Buzen...62 Kii (Kishu)...35 Tosa...43
Chikugo...64 KSzuke...10 TatBmi...29
Chikuzen...61 Mikawa.30 Ugo...3
Echigo...16 Mimasaka...57 Uzen...5
Echizen...20 Mino...23 Wakasa. 21
EtchB...18 Musashi.. 15 Yamashiro...39
Harima...52 Mutsu...1 Yamato...38
Hida...24 Nagato...47
Higo...66 Noto...17 REGIONS
Hitachi.. .8 Omi...22 Hokuriku... 16-21
Hizsn...65 Osumi...69 Kant5...8-15
HBki.,58 Owari...31 Kinai... 36-40
Hyuga...67 Rikjchu...2 Kyushu. ..61 -69
lga...32 Rikuzen...4 San'in...53-60
lnaba.,56 Sagami...14 SanyB...46-52
!se...33 Sanuki...45 Shikoku... 42-45
lwaki...6 Satsuma...68 T5hoku...1-7
lwami...60 Settsu (SesshD). ..40 TBkai... 28-34
lwashiro.,.7 Shima...34 T5san...22-26

Note: In the early Tokugawa period the northeast was divided

into only two provinces, rather than the seven shown here.
Mutsu included nos. 1, 2, 4, 6, and 7; nos. 3 and 5 were
known as Dewa.

Map 4. Provinces of Tokugawa Japan. Based on Thomas C. Smith, Native

Sources of Japanese Industrialization, ij^o-igzo (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1988).

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Map ~j. Cities and Towns

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Map 8. Geographical Distribution of Late Edo-Period Afforestation (on
private land). Based on Fujita Yoshihisa, "Kinsei ni okeru ikurin gijutsu
taikei no chiikisei," Tokugawa Rinseishi Kenkyujo Kenkyu kiyo 55 (1980): 120.

Every foreign traveler in Japan is delighted by the verdant forest-

shrouded mountains that thrust skyward from one end of the island
chain to the other.1 The Japanese themselves are conscious of the
lush green of their homeland, which they sometimes refer to as
midori no retto, "the green archipelago." At first glance Japan seems
to be a world of primeval forests, a gorgeous natural creation re-
flecting that frequently mentioned Japanese love of nature. In fact,
the abundant verdure is not a monument to nature's benevolence
and Japanese aesthetic sensibilities but the hard-earned result of
generations of human toil that have converted the archipelago into
one great forest preserve.
To put the issue directly, Japan today should be an impov-
erished, slum-ridden, peasant society subsisting on a barren, eroded
moonscape characterized by bald mountains and debris-strewn
lowlands. Instead, it is a highly industrialized society living in a
luxuriantly green realm. Despite intense pressure on a vulnerable
topography, the people of Japan have done less to ravage their land
and bring ruin upon it than have many other societies past and
present that have been favored by a less dense population and more
benign terrain. We can look at the heaths and bogs of northwest
Europe; the barren littoral of the Mediterranean; the ravaged
mountains of south-central Korea and China; the dying Sahel re-
gion of Africa; or the disasters now unfolding in Latin America and

i
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2 Introduction

Southeast Asia as forests there are ripped out with no effective

thought for the morrow.
Japan should be a ruined land because of the particular interac-
tion there of geography and history. Geologically, the Japanese
archipelago is an unstable complex of acutely inclined upthrust arcs
and nodes.2 These convoluted, quake-prone mountains tower
above narrow valleys whose swift-running streams debouch onto
small deposition plains that mostly front the ocean. The steep
mountainsides are covered by a thin, coarse, immature soil that is
continually being leached of the few nutrients it has. Periodically,
patches slide, exposing raw bedrock. This sliding frequently results
from heavy deluges that occur during the early summer monsoons
and autumn typhoons. Upland and riverine surfaces facing the Sea
of Japan are also threatened by heavy spring-snow runoff.
When left untouched by humans, the island chain's dense and
varied natural vegetation can usually hold its soil in place, with
only sporadic avalanches and surface damage occurring after vol-
canic activity, earthquakes, or forest fires. However, humans have
not left those mountains untouched. For centuries the island chain
has supported on its limited arable land an extremely dense popula-
tion that has consumed great quantities of forest products obtained
directly from the mountains. 3
Such heavy consumption could easily have led to the denuding of
mountainsides, permitting regolith to thunder down into valleys,
whence it would surge out across once-fertile plains, repeatedly
covering them with debris and exposing them to chronic and un-
predictable drought, flood, and erosion. It is this sequence of
events, resulting from a dense population pressing for centuries
against an easily destabilized forest terrain, that long ago should
have turned Japan into a zone of ecological desolation and human
misery. But that did not happen, and we can wonder why.

In broadest terms the history of Japan's human-forest relationship

has consisted of two phases.4 First was a thirty-thousand-year
preagricultural phase, during which Homo sapiens sapiens used puny
wood, bone, and stone tools to exploit a wooded landscape whose
essential character he could not alter. Second has been a far shorter
phase encompassing the past twenty-five hundred years, during
which a swelling human population, equipped with an increasingly

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Introduction 3

complex and demanding technology, has altered fundamentally the

character of more and more woodland—not only bottomland but
also accessible upland areas.
This second phase emerged silently, with deforestation first
occurring gradually as a corollary of agricultural land clearing.
During the seventh century the introduction from the Asian conti-
nent of a large-scale architecture led to a tremendous building
boom that was sustained by a surge in logging. This surge, the
"ancient predation," severely tested the carrying capacity of forests
in the Kinai basin, the watershed on the main island of Honshu
where Japan's rulers were headquartered.5 With construction boom-
ing, forest output began to fall short of demand, and ecological de-
spoliation became apparent near the two successive capital cities of
Nara and Heian (later known as Kyoto). As these conditions de-
veloped, there were attempts to control woodland use. Institutions,
notably governments and monasteries, initiated forest closure as a
way to preserve timber supplies. After a few generations of splen-
dor, however, the ruling elite that had spawned the building boom
gradually lost the will and capacity to pursue monumental projects.
As building slackened, the pressure on woodland eased and interest
in forest closure waned.
Several centuries of wider-ranging but less intensive "medieval"
forest exploitation followed, during which the realm experienced
great incremental development and socioeconomic change. The de-
mand for woodland products escalated, most notably for the green
fertilizer material needed to sustain production on fields now sub-
ject to more intensive tillage. Greater agricultural dependency on
woodland inspired a new, local, and often communal interest in
closure of untilled land. This new impulse to restrict forest use first
manifested itself in the populous Kinai region, doing so from the
fourteenth century. Later the practice spread as pressure on wood-
land dictated. Concurrently, the ruling warrior, or samurai, elite
engaged in a brutal struggle for supremacy that by the sixteenth
century was prompting regional military leaders, or daimyo, to
tighten control over woodland as a means of assuring resources for
military use.
Before the seventeenth century, in short, there were gestures to-
ward a human-managed forestry, but in terms of the general im-
pact on either woodland or on human culture, they amounted to

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4 Introduction

little more than gestures. For all practical purposes, therefore, we

may speak of Japan's forest history prior to the seventeenth century
as a stereotypical era of exploitation forestry, in which woodland
users generally showed little concern for preservation of site or res-
toration of yield. The resolution of civil strife late in the sixteenth
century ended that era, however, by giving rise to a period of un-
precedented nationwide timber consumption, the "early modern
predation," that willy-nilly propelled Japan into the age of re-
generative forestry. 6
During the era of exploitation forestry the general populace sat-
isfied most of its forest needs from nearby areas, which spread the
impact of this consumption throughout the islands. The impact of
the rulers, by contrast, was more concentrated geographically, and
its scale and locus changed as the centuries passed. Map 2 attempts
to show these changes in the broadest terms: as of A.D. 800 the rul-
ing elite was making heavy demands on woodland but in only a
small part of Japan. By 1550 a substantially larger area was provid-
ing timber for rulers in Kyoto (and, for a period, Kamakura), but
in much of that expanded area harvesting was spotty and selective.7
During the early modern predation, woodland throughout the
country was for the first time harvested to satisfy the appetites of
central power holders.8 Logging was so intensive that when Japan
entered the twentieth century only the northern island of Hokkaido
still held major areas of virgin timber. Elsewhere, save for inac-
cessible mountainous sites, good timber existed only in plantations
or as naturally seeded and supervised replacement growth.
The transition to regenerative forestry occurred during the Edo
(or Tokugawa) period (1600—1867), when the Tokugawa regime
ruled Japan from its capital city of Edo, the metropolis known since
1868 as Tokyo. To foreshadow the matter, for about a century after
1570 Japan experienced extraordinarily rapid population growth
and a surge in castle and temple construction and city building.
The food and construction demands of this mushrooming popula-
tion and its newly powerful rulers led to wholesale forest clearing,
which was followed by erosion that denuded mountains and dam-
aged lowlands. Particularly hard hit was the Kinai basin, whose
forest cover was already precarious due to prior centuries of heavy
use. In due course the environmental damage prompted riparian
work and the development of protection forestry.

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Introduction 5

Even more than terrain deterioration, forest product scarcities

caused by overconsumption generated problems. Two separate but
interconnected social groups—rulers in their cities and peasants in
their villages—were the principal exploiters of woodland, and even
though their needs were not identical, they overlapped enough that
as the population grew and forest cover deteriorated, the two
groups came into severe competition for use of the land. From
about the mid-seventeenth century scarcity of timber and fuel, and
the conflicts and litigation that accompanied it, led to active
attempts at forest regulation. Land and stand management prac-
tices were substantially tightened up, and an elaborate array of
sumptuary regulations was promulgated to restrain consumption.
Neither maneuvering nor legislation overcame the intense competi-
tion for scarce goods, but they do appear to have helped stop the
worst of terrain degradation.
In consequence of the failure to restore forest abundance, during
the eighteenth century professional agronomists, itinerant scholars,
entrepreneurial woodsmen, and government forest officials de-
veloped and disseminated positive policies of afforestation. Varieties
of shared-use forestry appeared that may have ameliorated ruler-
villager tension and facilitated the rise of plantation forestry,
although the tension itself may have been a modest boon to the for-
ests insofar as it prevented peasants from denuding as much wood-
land and rulers from promoting as extensive conifer monoculture as
they otherwise might have done. By the late eighteenth century
plantation forestry was emerging as a widely practiced art, and
although only a small portion of total woodland was hand planted,
nearly all forested areas were subject to some degree of purposeful
regulation and management. During the nineteenth century planta-
tion culture spread rapidly, becoming a major source of timber.
In its entirety this early modern forest system had both protective
and productive functions. It was designed to stabilize land surfaces
and also to regulate and maximize the output of valued forest prod-
ucts, doing so by the careful formation, maintenance, and utiliza-
tion of healthy stands. It was grounded in an extensive silvicultural
literature and was operated by knowledgeable woodsmen, both
government foresters and entrepreneurial lumbermen. The forest
system that had taken shape by the nineteenth century managed
not only to prevent widespread forest devastation but also to

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6 Introduction

help sustain a yield that maintained the physical plant of the

archipelago's densely settled, heavily woodland-dependent human
civilization.
It would be misleading, of course, to leave a reader with the im-
plication that the rich forests of contemporary Japan can be attrib-
uted directly to pre-twentieth-century policies. Today's lushness is
the immediate result of the decades of forest recovery—partly pur-
poseful, partly attributable to the international marketplace—that
followed World War II. Because of these decades of planting and
natural rejuvenation, much of the country is clothed in a mantle of
young plantation stands and natural growth, and Japan remains
more forested than nearly any other country in the temperate zone.
However, that story of postwar recovery—the most recent phase
of Japan's experience with "modern" forestry, which began with
the formation of national forests late in the nineteenth century—is
generically familiar to readers of English as an integral part of the
recent global phenomenon of forest management. So this study ends
with the passing of the earlier, autochthonous phase, which is less
familiar but no less important. Without the forest achievements of
that phase, Japan would have no modern forest system; indeed,
there might not even be a modern Japan resembling the one we
know.
As those comments suggest, this story of forest usage fits into two
English-language historiographical contexts: that of Japanese his-
tory and that of forest history. In the former context it introduces
another dimension to the existing corpus on socioeconomic history,
which has examined the early modern phase of agricultural land
use and village society with care but generally not dwelt on wood-
land usage. In the latter it adds a major non-Western case to a lit-
erature that has focused on the European and American historical
experiences. In that literature Germany is commonly viewed as the
society that first developed the practices of regenerative forestry.
This study shows that such practices arose independently in Japan
at least as early as in Germany.

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Part One

A Millennium of
Exploitation Forestry

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Chapter One

The Ancient Predation, 600-850

The ancient predation was the first of three periods of severe defor-
estation in Japan's history. The other two were the early modern,
which occurred from 1570 to 1670, and the modern, of the first half
of the twentieth century. The first predation was the least severe of
the three, with damaging deforestation largely confined to wood-
lands of the Kinai basin.1
Prior to the ancient predation, millennia of Stone Age forest
utilization had made little lasting impact on the archipelago's
woodland. Eventually, however, field crops, including most nota-
bly rice, were introduced to Japan, and by about 300 B.C. rice
culture was well established in the west. During the next several
hundred years cultivation spread across the islands as far into the
northeast as available varieties of grain would grow. The forest clear-
ance that permitted this diffusion was humankind's first dramatic
and permanent modification of Japanese woodland.
Not long after the establishment of rice culture, both bronze and
iron appeared in Japan. Initially, metal implements were brought
from the continent, but by A.D. 200 or so smelting was practiced in
the islands. It required substantial volumes of high-quality char-
coal, which was made from oak, chestnut, or other dense hard-
woods.2 The products of the blacksmith, in turn, gave the Japa-
nese powerful new tools with which to expand their assault on the
forests.
The diffusion of iron tools proceeded slowly, as sources of ore
were located and techniques of production mastered. As villagers
accumulated wealth enough to acquire the new types of tools, stone

implements were gradually replaced. New cultivating tools, such as

metal hoes and spades, enabled tillers to work appreciably greater
acreages of grain. And iron adzes, axes, chisels, drills, hammers,
hatchets, planes, nails, wedges, and, somewhat later, small saws
allowed them to clear more brush, fell larger trees, and process the
wood more rapidly and skillfully into construction timber, larger
dugout boats, and household and production tools and implements.
The new woodworking tools enabled tillers to split and shape wood
to make walls and irrigation ditches and dams for their rice fields
and to build elevated warehouses in which harvested grain could be
stored, safe from rodents and mildew.
Agriculture and metallurgy were the human innovations that
most dramatically affected prehistoric Japanese forests. But other
developments of A.D. 300 600 added to the intensity of human-
forest relations. Horse-mounted warriors armed with swords,
spears, and bows and arrows; protected by metal slat armor; and
commanding armies of pike-carrying foot soldiers undertook politi-
cal consolidation. Their need for weapons expanded the demand
for smithing charcoal, and their steeds required forage, much of
which came from woodland. As leaders gained power, moreover,
they erected larger, wooden-stockaded headquarters and cele-
brated their accomplishments by building grand residences. To
facilitate military operations, they adopted shipbuilding techniques
from the continent, using plank construction to form seagoing
vessels each capable of carrying scores of fighting men. And after
they died, they were buried in carefully constructed wooden coffins
of choice water-resistant woods, preferably kqyamaki.3 Each coffin,
together with artifacts of the fallen leader's life, was placed in a
great burial mound (kofun) whose size reflected its occupant's
power, the greatest rivaling the pyramids of Egypt and Meso-
america. The mounds were then lined with prodigious numbers of
pottery cylinders and figurines, whose firing alone must have con-
sumed great quantities of fuel.
Thus, by A.D. 600 the people of Japan were using woodland
much more intensively than a millennium earlier and were es-
tablishing the basic characteristics of the archipelago's human-
forest relationship as it would survive until the twentieth century.
Villagers needed cleared land for tillage. They needed well-wooded
uplands to assure adequate water for paddy culture. And they

needed woodland to provide various types of building materials, fuel,

fodder, and natural food supplies. In subsequent centuries they
would add only one major forest demand: green fertilizer material,
which eventually surpassed all the others in political importance.
The rulers needed fodder for their steeds, fuel for forging weapons
and for domestic uses, and most of all, timber for their vessels, for-
tifications, private and public buildings, and other implements of
war and peace.
Around 600 Japan's ruling elite initiated the ancient predation,
employing new principles of political and economic organization
and new styles of architecture in a construction boom of extra-
ordinary magnitude. In the process they established the character
of Japanese buildings for the next 1,250 years. A rash of construc-
tion projects endowed the country with a string of small provincial
headquarters and dotted the Kinai basin with a plethora of great
monasteries, shrines, palaces, and mansions. Most of these were
situated in or near Nara and Heian, the two successive capital cities
whose back streets were lined with the crudely framed bark and
wattle homes of perhaps one hundred thousand to two hundred
thousand urban commoners.
The social and ecological consequences of this construction boom
were profound. It appears that all the accessible old-growth stands
in the mountains adjoining the Kinai basin were felled. Because
technical or political limitations or both precluded the importation
of large timber or great volumes of wood from more distant areas,
the timber scarcity that followed the felling of Kinai woodlands led
to modifications in construction practices, wood use, and forest use
and management. The intensive logging, together with an escalat-
ing demand for fuel and fodder, permanently changed the vegeta-
tion in parts of Omi, Yamashiro, and Yamato provinces, and these
changes gave rise to wildfire, flooding, and erosion, which elicited
tentative measures of forest protection and rehabilitation.4

Monumental Construction
The most striking use of forests during the ancient predation was for
monumental construction. Part was secular, for palaces and man-
sions of the ruling elite, and part was ecclesiastical, for Buddhist
monasteries and Shintd shrines. How much timber was consumed

cannot be established, but the quantity was immense and its re-
moval altered Kinai forest composition in ways detrimental to the
monumental builders themselves.
It is impossible to know with certitude what sort of woodland
produced the lumber used in this building activity. However, the
species and quality requirements of builders suggest that stands
were probably dense and more or less monocultural in character.
Furthermore, having evidence of the general location of some log-
ging projects; bearing in mind that hinoki (the species of choice) pre-
fers relatively moist, shaded, sheltered sites; and being mindful that
a major secondary objective of lumbering was to open land to cul-
tivation, it seems most probable that conifer logging occurred in
dense stands on lowlands, in shallow valleys, and along the lower
reaches of hillsides. In other words, it likely entailed clear-cutting of
varying-sized patches of dense conifer growth situated at lower el-
evations within broader areas of mixed forest. After the best stands
in accessible watersheds were gone, felling became more selective,
moving up the slopes to take the best of whatever was available in
the mixed forest. As that occurred, standards of architectural excel-
lence had to adjust downward to accommodate changes in raw
material quality.

Secular Construction

By the sixth century regional rulers in Japan had enough power

to build themselves sumptuous tribal (uji) headquarters and res-
idences. Periodically, they had to replace the structures because
supporting pillars were set directly into the soil where termites and
rot could attack them, and framing timbers were lashed together
with straw rope, which gradually became brittle. 6 These char-
acteristics made rebuilding every twenty years or so unavoidable,
and even sensible. In J. Edward Kidder's words: "The flimsy
nature of the architecture often made it better to build anew than to
repair."6 The hegemonial Yamato tribal rulers (uji no kami] of cen-
tral Japan evidently made a virtue out of necessity by specifying
succession to family headship as the occasion for these periodic re-
constructions. Tearing down the rotten old palace and replacing it
with a fresh, new one symbolized the auspicious start of a new
reign, and the political value of this also practical measure was

enhanced by an accompanying Shinto purification ritual that en-

dowed the event with sacred significance.
From about A.D. 550 migrants from the continent introduced a
cultural "tool kit" that included such architectural elements as
raised stone foundations, mortise-and-tenon framing, and tile roofs.
Builders employed the new elements in structures associated with
continental culture, namely government offices and Buddhist mon-
asteries. Indigenous (ShintS) shrines and aristocratic residences,
however, continued to be built in the customary manner. Even the
Yamato chiefs, who by 650 were self-proclaimed emperors, evi-
dently continued to erect their ever more extravagant residences
(dairi) in the old posthole manner despite the necessity of periodic
reconstruction, doing so until the establishment of Heian in the
7gos.7
Besides rebuilding their residences periodically, the Yamato
rulers frequently moved their headquarters. Why they did so is a
subject of scholarly debate,8 but to some degree their choice of sites
seems influenced by the need for proximity to satisfactory timber.
Empress Suiko's great palace at Asuka, built circa 600, and later
palaces in that vicinity, had easy access to nearby woodland in cen-
tral Yamato. Naniwa, which Emperor K5toku first occupied in 645
and which other emperors also used later, obtained timber easily
via the old Yamato and Yodo rivers.9 In 667 Emperor Tenchi built
his palace at Otsu on Lake Biwa, which gave him access to the still-
rich forests of western Omi.
Around 690, government leaders, who previously had returned to
Asuka, decided to build a rectangular Chinese-style capital on the
open plain at the nearby site of the former Fujiwara palace. By
then, however, the surrounding forests were so thoroughly depleted
that builders had to haul timber over a long and tortuous route
from Mount Tanakami in south Omi, moving it by water down the
Uji and back up the Kizu river to the landing at Izumi (modern-
day Kizu) and thence south by oxcart to the construction site. In
710 they transferred their headquarters northward to a more spa-
cious location known as Nara, which placed them much nearer
their timber supply. There they began constructing a capital city
designated Heij5, obtaining lumber for that grand project from the
forests of Tanakami and K5ga in Omi and from other mountains in
Iga province.10

Even after the construction of these elaborate cities, emperors

still maintained secondary palaces, in some cases because they con-
sidered it correct to have at least two capitals (baito), one for the sov-
ereign and one for the heir.11 The most notable instances occurred
in the 7405 and 7608. In 740—41 Emperor Shomu built a palace at
Kuni, on the Kizu river, directly downstream from the forests of
Iga. Within two years he erected another, at Shigaraki, adjacent
the still-verdant Koga hills east of Tanakami. During the next two
years, he dwelt briefly at Naniwa, later returning to Shigaraki, and
he toyed with the idea of making one of those capitals a replace-
ment for HeijS. The sites reportedly proved too constricted, how-
ever, which allegedly prompted him to return to Nara in the
summer of 745, abandoning both Kuni and Shigaraki.12
In the second instance, near the end of 759, government leaders
ordered construction of a palace complex for a "northern capital"
at Hora. They situated it close to where Lake Biwa flows into the
Seta river, thereby giving themselves easy access to the forests
rimming Omi province. Even while that project was consuming
substantial timber, the government also repaired the palace at
Heijo and ordered the construction of 393 seagoing vessels to trans-
port an army to fight the government of Silla in Korea. In hopes of
assuring a successful expedition, leaders also ordered the erection of
a major new monastery, the Ishiyamadera, adjacent to the new
capital city. In 761 the imperial family, officials, and aristocrats
moved to Hora, but less than a year later internal feuds erupted,
and the rulers returned to Nara. Within two more years Hora was
abandoned. The Ishiyamadera, whose twenty-eight buildings were
partially constructed with lumber salvaged from Shigaraki, sur-
vived, but the palace complex was disassembled and parts of it were
taken south to build the Saidaiji, a monastery near Nara.13
The next attempt to develop a new capital occurred in 784, when
Emperor Kammu took the government northwestward, crossing
the Yodo river to Nagaoka, a site he declared "convenient by water
and by land."14 Convenient for what, the surviving record does not
say, but the location did give Kammu direct access to woodlands on
the Yamashiro-Tanba border and indirect access via the Oi river to
other forests within Tanba. During "a six-month burst of activity,
roughly 300,000 people were thrown into the project," and a new

capital was erected.15 A decade later Kammu moved again, this

time to Heian, which brought his builders even closer to the rich
stands of Tanba. To assure his timber supply, he seized the forests of
Yamaguni, the last major old-growth area on the Kinai periphery.
His loggers promptly commenced harvesting Yamaguni's great
conifers, especially sugi but also hinoki, sawara, and others, floating
timber down the Oi to the construction site.16 When they finished
their work a decade or so later, Japan had a capital city that would
endure for a millennium.17
The quest for good forests was intense because emperors were
choosy about their housing. Their residences, like those of aris-
tocrats in general, were both framed and paneled in wood, and em-
perors wanted hinoki used throughout because of its attractive scent
and color, fine grain, and resistance to rot. The best hinoki lumber
came from large, knot-free, straight-grained trees, which acquired
those qualities by growing undisturbed in dense stands. The grand
hinoki palace of Empress Suiko at Asuka, for example, was consi-
dered a marvel of construction in its day. Of particular note was its
roof, which was made entirely of large shingles (itabuki) instead
of the traditional reed thatch (kayo) or the hinoki bark (hiwada} that
became customary for residential structures from the eighth century
on.18
Wooden roofing went out of vogue within a few decades because
it consumed an immense amount of large timber that was difficult
to prepare and ever harder to find. Roofs of hiwada, by contrast,
were easily made from long, broad strips of bark that otherwise
would go to waste. Bark was also comparatively easy to transport.
During the eighth century workmen felling hinoki cut the bark into
strips about three or four feet long, bound these into bundles with
three-foot pieces of rope, and transported them to the work site by
hand, horse, or cart, or by piling them atop log rafts.19
Bark roofing was less wasteful than board, but its use still sus-
tained pressure on high-quality hinoki stands because other species
produced inferior roofing and good hiwada derived only from
straight, mature trees growing in dense woods.20 Moreover, palace
construction as a whole consumed immense quantities of high-
quality hinoki because builders used wood lavishly and selectively.
Resulting demand for the best timber, together with difficult trans-

port, prompted leaders to build where adequate supplies were still

accessible. As timber became scarce, the restless moving from
palace to palace and the maintenance of multiple residences com-
pelled the imperial family to send woodsmen into ever more distant
forests. One after another the woodlands of central Yamato, eastern
Settsu, Iga, south Omi, and Tanba became inadequate for imperial
needs.
The imperial family was not alone in its extravagant use of
timber. Aristocrats as a whole consumed it freely. A surviving ar-
chitectural record reveals the lavishness and inefficiency of their
wood use. In the 7405 Fujiwara Toyonari, one of Emperor Shomu's
closest advisers, built a residence at Shigaraki. His house, an un-
exceptional mansion of pedestrian design that was supported by
pillars set in the ground, required a total of 313.4 koku of lumber
(equivalent to more than 3,000 one-inch boards i foot wide by 10
feet long). This lumber, mostly used for framing timbers and floor,
wall, and roof boards, yielded a house about 50 feet long, 25 feet
wide, and 15 feet high at the ridgepole, with broad open porches
front and rear. The amount of lumber used per unit of walled floor
space (some 8.7 koku per tsubo} was about four times that of a
modern Japanese house.21 And it far exceeded the approximate 2
koku per tsubo that Tokoro Mitsuo has estimated for the dwelling
represented by a clay model (haniwa) from the preceding tomb
period.22
A government decree of 724 suggests how burdensome this style
of building was becoming, even early in the Nara period.
The capital, where the emperor resides and every region conies to court,
lacks the magnificence by which virtue is expressed. Its wood shingled
roofs and thatched dwellings are relics of the building modes of antiquity,
are difficult to build, easily destroyed, and exhaust the people's resources.
It is requested that an order be issued that those persons of the Fifth Court
Rank and above, and those commoners able to do so, should build tiled-
roof houses and paint them red and white. 23

Presumably the advantages of tile were that they replaced wood

and thatch roofs, thereby saving hinoki and hiwada directly, and
were nonflammable, which reduced losses from urban conflagra-
tions. Whether the rot-resistance of paint was recognized or appre-
ciated is not clear.

Ecclesiastical Construction

Secular construction was only one element in the ancient pre-

dation. Monastery and shrine building may have been even more
extensive, and ecclesiastical builders selected only the best wood,
using it fully as lavishly as their aristocratic peers. By the time of
Empress Suiko's death in 628 some forty-six Buddhist monasteries
had already been erected, including the original version of the
Horyuji.24 Greater projects followed, including the Yakushiji,
begun in 701; the Kofukuji, built in the 7205; and the greatest of all,
the T5daiji, commenced during the 7405.
The Todaiji required eighty-four major pillars, each nearly 4
feet in basal diameter by 100 feet long. Tokoro has calculated that
in its entirety the monastery's construction required some 100,000
koku of processed lumber (yozai),K a volume sufficient to build three
thousand ordinary igsos-style (:8-by-24-foot) Japanese dwellings.
Further, he estimates that during these centuries monastery build-
ing consumed in toto some 10,000,000 koku of processed lumber. 28
In addition, immense amounts of wood went into the numerous
Shinto shrines, which also required periodic replacement, origin-
ally because their pillars were set directly into the ground and later
because of religious custom. The greatest shrines consumed so much
lumber because they were large structures built with heavy timber.
The main building of Izumo Shrine, first built by Empress Saimei
in 659, was a square edifice about 40 feet on a side and 75 feet high.
Its secondary shrine (karidono) was nearly as large. For the Ise
Shrine, which has been replaced at fixed twenty-year intervals since
685, Tokoro has estimated that each reconstruction requires about
16,663 koku of processed lumber. Over the course of several centu-
ries, that work consumed the nearby forests originally reserved for
the purpose and in later times used timber from elsewhere around
the country. 27
Ecclesiastical construction did not, of course, stop abruptly in 850.
Routine maintenance and rebuilding of shrines and monasteries
continued. The greatest families, that is, the imperial and the
Fujiwara, which controlled large tracts of forest as household es-
tates (shden), continued to build major temples, notably the Hqjqji
(circa 1020) of Fujiwara Michinaga and the Hosshoji (1077) and
Sonshqji (1102) of the imperial family. As Alexander Soper has

written, however, "where the eighth century had produced such

monuments with careless fecundity, the power of the Heian age to
continue was limited to not more than one a generation."28

Consequences of Monumental Construction

Estimating the total acreage of timber consumed by the construc-

tion boom of 600-850 is impossible. But, given that a fully stocked,
even-aged, monocultural stand of mature hinoki growing on good
soil in central Japan will yield some 450 cubic meters of lumber per
hectare,29 it is possible to calculate that the T5daiji work alone
consumed timber equivalent to at least that produced by 900
hectares (2,200 acres) of first-quality forest. Given the selectivity of
monumental construction and the irregular stocking of most nat-
ural forest stands, the actual acreage was probably many times
greater. If we apply that same figure of 450 to Tokoro's estimate for
total monastery construction, we are talking of clear-cutting 90,000
hectares of pristine, monocultural hinoki forest, or selectively cut-
ting many times that amount of natural woodland, just to satisfy
the church's appetite for lumber. And that figure provides not a
single board for Shinto priests, aristocrats, or emperors and their
governments.
After Heian's construction monumental builders lost a major
source of timber—the recycled wood from existing structures that
accompanied imperial moves from site to site. We have information
on Fujiwara Toyonari's mansion, for example, because twenty years
after its construction, and years after Toyonari vacated it, the
building was sold, disassembled, and floated downstream to become
part of the Ishiyamadera. The mansion's fate, like that of Hora
palace itself, illustrates how, in contrast to today's "throwaway"
culture, classical builders recycled their lumber. The, difficulty of
obtaining new timber and the high cost of processing it into finished
pieces made such reuse sensible. Doubtless, recycling helped sustain
the building boom and made possible a scale of aristocratic luxury
that otherwise would have been impossible, given the technological
and political limitations of the age and the biological limits of the
Kinai basin.
Such recycling notwithstanding, timber consumption at the
eighth-century rate could not go on indefinitely. Heian required

maintenance, but even that proved difficult. During the late ninth
and tenth centuries the quest for satisfactory wood sent logging
crews ever deeper into the Oi river watershed, southward into the
poorly accessible forests of Kii, across the Kii channel into the ex-
tensive and timber-rich watershed of the Yoshino river in Shikoku,
and eastward into Japan's greatest forest area, the Mino-Hida-
Shinano watershed of the Kiso river system. From the Kiso, carters
hauled timber overland to Lake Biwa and floated it from there to
the city. Because of the difficult transport, they chopped much of
that timber into five- or six-foot lengths that they then split into six
or eight pieces per log before loading onto carts. This processing
into split pieces, known generically as kure (or kureki),30 reduced the
timber's utility, but builders still deemed it worth the trek. They
simply had no better choice. Indeed, although the forested pe-
riphery of Omi continued to produce kure, its quality declined
enough so that by the eleventh century, kure from the Hiroshima
area enjoyed a superior repute.31
It thus appears that by the time Heian was erected builders had
pretty well stripped the Kinai periphery of construction timber.
Perhaps for that reason the imperial family made no subsequent
moves to new capital cities. Moreover, during later centuries dif-
ficulty in obtaining building material may have been a major factor
in the gradual deterioration of Heian itself. Timber scarcity may
also explain why the better classes gradually modified their style
of house construction, substantially reducing unit demand for
high-quality wood. Not only were wooden roofs abandoned, but
wooden walls gave way to plaster, fine wooden floors were replaced
by sedge mats (tatami) laid over rough boarding of inferior stock,
and buildings became smaller, which reduced the size of fram-
ing timbers. Finally, more and more of the large edifices that did
get built were erected out in the hills nearer surviving sources of
wood.
When monumental construction revived in the twelfth century,
much was centered far to the east in Kamakura, among forests un-
ravaged by the ancient predation. It was pursued, moreover, by a
new ruling elite that could mobilize more power and move timber
longer distances than its predecessors. By then some Kinai forests
had had three centuries in which to reestablish stands of construc-
tion timber through natural regeneration, yet builders in Heian still

had to hunt far and wide to find the large pillars required by mon-
umental construction.

Other Uses of Forest Growth

Besides erecting towering monuments and great cities, the rulers of
ancient Japan consumed forests in other ways, most notably for
firewood and charcoal, but also for maritime construction and
statuary. Commoners as well made demands on woodland, but
their needs were more diverse and geographically less concentrated.

Boats, Ships, and Statuary

For thousands of years before the ancient predation the people of
Japan fashioned dugout vessels from tree trunks. Mostly, it appears,
they made boats some fifteen feet long, but a few were much
longer.32 By about A.D. 200, for an arbitrary date, they were sup-
plementing dugouts with vessels constructed from planking. By the
sixth century rulers in the archipelago commanded enough large
oceangoing vessels to wage war in Korea, and during the seventh
century ships bearing embassies to China each carried over one
hundred people.
For dugout construction, wrights preferred large, relatively soft,
rot-resistant trees, especially sugi and kusunoki, the latter a broadleaf
evergreen that grows to great size. For building plank ships, work-
ability, flexibility, and resistance to rot and waterlogging were the
most valued characteristics, and sugi emerged as the maritime wood
of choice. Armadas carried armies to Korea on several occasions
during the seventh century and prepared to do so during the
eighth. But by the ninth century accessible timber for shipbuilding
was so scarce that an imperial order of 882 forbade felling on the
western side of Noto peninsula for any purpose save naval con-
struction. In subsequent centuries, perhaps in part because of the
difficulty of finding satisfactory naval timber, large-scale shipbuild-
ing declined, not reviving until more powerful rulers tapped forest
resources in other areas of Japan.
One other highly visible use of wood was in sculpture, a major
Buddhist art form throughout these centuries.33 During the decades
at Asuka (circa 550-650) much sculpting was done with kusunoki

wood. Easy to mold and strongly scented, it made a fit substitute for
sandalwood (byakudari), the powerfully fragrant Southeast Asian
wood preferred on the continent for Buddhist images. By the eighth
century, perhaps because kusunoki was less available, sculptors used
hinoki more commonly.34 They also utilized a few other woods, with
preferences varying by region in accordance with species availabil-
ity.35 Some forms of sculpture required lacquer as well, and when
lacquer trees (urushi) became scarce during the eighth century,
seedlings were planted at convenient sites to sustain production.
Sculpturing continued in following centuries. From the eleventh
century, especially in the Kinai basin, artisans began employing a
new technique in which they fitted separate pieces of wood together
to form the great images once carved from solid logs. The adoption
of this technique may reveal a dearth of logs adequate for a sculp-
tor's needs. During the Kamakura period (1185—1333), sculpture
enjoyed a new burst of popularity, but by then sculptors used hinoki
less prevalently, and wood for carving became more diverse, per-
haps because good sticks were difficult to locate and artists made do
with whatever they could find.

Firewood and Charcoal

Of the several human uses of forest growth, fuel for cooking and
heating has everywhere been one of the most important. Figures on
fuel consumption in ancient Japan are almost nonexistent, but
the volume of wood used as fuel must have been immense. In
eighteenth-century Germany, for a suggestive comparison, some
nine-tenths of all wood production reportedly was for fuel.36 In
Nara-Heian Japan the proportion surely was lower. Japan, being
warmer than Germany, required less heating fuel per capita, and
the ancient Japanese may have consumed appreciably less in in-
dustrial production, even allowing for the use of coal in Germany.
In contrast, in their residential and monumental construction
the Japanese used lumber far more than the Germans, who had
access to workable building stone and used it extensively.
Nevertheless, fuelwood was important. Firewood was so precious
to the rulers that government regulations required aristocrats living
in the capital to present such wood to the imperial court on New
Years. The gifts were fixed according to rank, nobles of the first

rank presenting ten tan of firewood (twenty pieces cut in seven-foot

lengths); those of the third, eight tan; and so on down the hierarchy.
Urban aristocrats could also buy firewood at markets. In Nara
wood was provided by villagers who produced it and brought it to
the city by shoulder pole. In 739 a shoulder-pole load sold for nine
man, which suggests that a villager would have to provide at least
two pole loads per day to match the income of a woodland la-
borer.37 By 760 the price had risen to twelve man per load, perhaps
because the fuel came from more distant sources as woodland
near Nara was converted to tillage or reduced to fire-prone scrub
growth. Subsequent price trends are unclear, but the move to
Heian may have eased the problem for a few decades.
Charcoal as well as firewood served as fuel. Its use dated back at
least to the introduction of iron smelting, which required higher
temperatures than raw wood could generate. There were two types
of charcoal. Watan, used for home cooking and heating, was gen-
erally made from such deciduous broadleafs as nara and kunugi
(species of oak), and kotan, used for smithing, generally came from
chestnut (hurt).
Doubtless, mountain villagers produced some charcoal, espe-
cially watan, and shipped it by raft or marketed it in the city along
with firewood. But project workmen produced most of the smithing
charcoal for monumental construction, operating their kilns in the
loggers' camp, at other sources of supply, or sometimes at the proj-
ect site. In one eighth-century instance a charcoal maker, who was
working a small three-bay kiln that held 1.6 koku of wood per bay,
charred each load of wood for three to four days and produced an
average of 1.3 koku of charcoal per day, perhaps by processing the
yield from one bay daily in three-day rotations.
Monumental builders consumed huge quantities of smithing
charcoal in manufacturing tools, metal accessories, and religious
images, not to mention metal coinage and the perennial weapons of
war. During the 7405 over 16,650 koku (about 163,200 cubic feet) of
charcoal were required to cast the great bronze Buddha image for
the T5daiji.38 If we assume that one workman could produce 1.3
koku of charcoal per day, it would have required ten men working
ten three-bay kilns continuously for three and a half years simply to
provide fuel for casting the image. And if i .6 koku of raw chestnut
yielded 1.3 koku of smithing charcoal, the enterprise consumed over

20,000 koku of chestnut. Given the usual character of chestnut

stands as poorly stocked, intermediate growth present in mixed
forests, this output required the gathering of chestnut wood from
hundreds or, more likely, thousands of acres of forestland.
The demand for charcoal was persistent. Even after monumental
building went out of style, charcoal was still essential for the manu-
facture of armor, swords, and other weapons of war. And it re-
mained a valued heating fuel. Indeed, its superiority over firewood
(because it is nearly smokeless and sparkless and provides a steady,
focused heat) made it so popular that aristocrats used it in gift
exchanges. Perhaps to satisfy increased demand, during the ninth
century large kilns that could handle great quantities of charring
wood were introduced from China. Their presence surely added to
the pressure on Kinai forests.

Commoners' Uses of Forests

Commoners, who constituted about 98 percent of the populace,

surely consumed more forest products overall than did the ruling
elite, even though their demand per capita was immeasurably less.
The main items they utilized were simple construction materials,
firewood, brush and grass for fodder, woodland foods (such as
chestnuts, mushrooms, warabi [a bracken], game, and freshwater
fish), and water for paddy irrigation and home use.39 And of course
the peasantry consumed forests by opening them to tillage, whether
permanently or intermittently.
Whereas the rulers were heavy users of construction timber, com-
moners had extremely modest per capita requirements, and what
they used were small-sized sticks, boards, and bark. Their needs
were slowly increasing, however, as traditional post-and-thatch
construction began giving way, in some areas at least, to houses
with heavy framing and board walls. This new style of architecture
roughly doubled the wood requirement of ordinary housing and
added to the pressure on timber stands.40
Much more significant was use of fuelwood by commoners.
Although the masses probably consumed domestically almost none
of the charcoal they produced and much less firewood per capita
than did their rulers, in the aggregate they burned great quantities
of wood in cooking and heating. Demand for fuel was particularly

heavy in the Kinai region. Part of this came from villagers them-
selves, but near the big cities urban fuel requirements probably were
greater. In addition, manufacturing, much of it on behalf of the city
populace, required substantial fuel. Along the seashore, for ex-
ample, salt makers burned wood under their evaporator vats. And
inland, potters consumed wood in their kilns. During the ninth cen-
tury, scarcity of fuelwood along the forested provincial border of
Kawachi and Izumi even precipitated disputes among potters that
required intervention by government officials from Heian.41
As those comments suggest, provisioning the metropolitan popu-
lace, most of whom were commoners, probably caused the primary
drain on woodlands near the great cities. The concentrated and
enduring metropolitan demand for fuel sustained so much woodcut-
ting in the Kinai basin that major timber users, such as monasteries,
tried to preserve their lumber sources by keeping woodcutters out of
their forests. During the eighth century, as we note below, disputes
over forest use in the Kinai became a political problem, and they
commonly pitted the high-born, who were seeking to preserve
timber stands, against the low-born, who were seeking fuelwood,
fodder, and other woodland products. Away from the cities, how-
ever, and especially outside the Kinai, fuel demand was much less
intense; peasant and ruler seem to have found current supplies
adequate for their needs throughout the ancient predation.

The Consequences of Predation

Excessive deforestation usually manifests itself in two ways: as wood
scarcity and as environmental deterioration. Several developments
of the Nara-Heian period seem to demonstrate that both conditions
were appearing.
We have cited a number of these developments already.42 Log-
ging areas were expanded relentlessly as builders consumed stands
of hinoki and sugi, as well as the less valued sawara, momi, and tsuga.
To note some chronological benchmarks, by 655 hinoki stands near
Asuka were so depleted that Empress Saimei had to settle for the
less-esteemed sawara when she built her palace. By the mid-eighth
century institutional loggers were cutting off the mountain fringes
of Omi and the upper reaches of the Kizu river and its tributaries in
Iga. Mount Tanakami, which had provided so much timber for the

establishment of Fujiwara and Heijo, contained by the y6os scat-

tered trees capable of providing the Ishiyamadera with only four-
inch timbers and short boards.43 The move to Heian in the ygos led
to a new burst of construction that drew heavily on Yamaguni in
Tanba. In following centuries workmen laboriously brought more
and more timber into the Kinai region from elsewhere to make up
for what the basin no longer could produce.
In theory, of course, forests are a renewable resource, and even-
tually they will restock themselves. A number of factors, however,
slowed or even stymied their regrowth in central Japan. Conversion
of large tracts to agriculture, even intermittently, removed land
from timber production while permitting an increase in the human
population that further exploited surviving woodland. In untilled
areas the harvesting of fuelwood totally prevented revival of conifer
growth. And where needle trees were able to reseed, the natural
pattern of forest succession (in which logged terrain evolves through
cycles of fast-growing weeds, brush, and intermediate broadleaf
growth before reestablishing heavy conifer stands) meant that two
or three generations—that is, a century or two—had to pass be-
fore a new climax stand was old enough for monumental use. And
finally, wildfire could delay the restocking for additional scores of
years.
The upshot was that once its old-growth forests were felled, the
Kinai region was unable to sustain the wooden-structured civiliza-
tion it had originally made possible. In consequence, the imperial
family stopped migrating, monumental construction petered out,
and in due course the buildings of Heian itself decayed.
Besides these large-scale trends a number of more specific devel-
opments accompanied deforestation. We noted that in construction
work there was a gradual acceptance of inferior species and smaller
pieces of wood. To sum up one facet of the trend, wooden roofs gave
way to hiwada, but by the y6os widespread use of hinoki bark led to
its scarcity and thus reliance on poorer quality bark, which in turn
necessitated thicker roofs to keep out the rain. Thicker roofs required
more bark, however, and even though hiwada was brought from
farther afield, it proved insufficient, so more and more sugi and other
inferior types of bark had to be utilized. Enough undersized and in-
ferior pieces were showing up in city markets that late in 796 the
court complained about woodsmen in adjoining provinces providing

unsatisfactory hiwada and ordered officials to enforce size and quality

standards and prevent the sale of nonconforming bark. Although
the immediate problems may have been eased, scarcity persisted,
and two centuries later (in 1030) aristocrats of the sixth rank and
below were simply forbidden to use hiwada.**
Other changes in architecture appeared. Monasteries became
less pretentious and were built back in the mountains, closer to sur-
viving stands of timber. Sculptors became more eclectic in their
choices of wood and eventually shifted from carving single timbers
to using multipiece construction in which small sticks sufficed. As
logging moved deeper into the mountains, rafting and other trans-
portation techniques grew more elaborate.45 Scattered data suggest
that wood became more expensive, and some figures indicate that
the rising cost of transportation, caused by longer and more labori-
ous supply lines, was a key factor in that trend.46
Finally, we noted that the government tried to preserve its
shipbuilding capacity by reserving the windward forests of Noto
peninsula for maritime construction. That measure, Japan's first
attempt to preserve naval stores, illustrates a fundamental change
taking place in social policy toward forests. That change, caused by
the growing scarcity of wood in the Kinai basin, was adoption of
measures of forest closure.

Forest Closure: The First Impulse

Before the ancient predation, forests had been open to general use,
and reform edicts of the seventh century sought to preserve that
customary practice. Whereas arable land was to be measured, allo-
cated to tillers, and taxed, most forestland was to be kept open for
general use, unsurveyed, unassigned, and unassessed. The few ex-
ceptions to the open policy were sacred groves, a few government
timber preserves, some hunting grounds for officialdom, and wind-
breaks and erosion-control plantings.47
In practice, however, as the seventh century advanced, monas-
teries and aristocrats rapidly gained control of woodlands and tried
to regulate their use. The trend threatened government attempts,
especially those of Emperor Temmu, to establish solid imperial con-
trol of the realm, and early in 675 Temmu ordered princes, other
aristocrats, and monasteries to restore to the throne all uncultivated

lands previously granted them.48 Similar orders were issued in later

years, and government administrative codes formalized the prin-
ciple of open forests.49 The standard phrasing appeared in the Yoro
Code of 718: "The benefits of mountain, river, grove, and marsh
are for government and people alike."50 Such strictures notwith-
standing, as the eighth and ninth centuries progressed, monasteries,
shrines, and aristocrats acquired more and more landed estates
(shoen), and these encompassed large tracts of woodland, whose use
they tried to regulate.
Indeed, much shorn formation may have been pursued primarily
as a means of obtaining forestland; at least the court periodically
complained that woodland was being seized by aristocrats but not
opened to tillage.51 In an age when loggers were rapidly felling for-
ests, monumental builders could best assure themselves adequate
timber supplies by controlling land, government directives notwith-
standing, and both ecclesiastical and secular shoen holders acquired
ever more forestland and tried to close it to unauthorized use. By
the mid-Heian period, when good Kinai woodland was a precious
commodity, the great aristocratic families reserved extensive tracts
of forest for maintenance of their monuments. Most notably, the
dominant Fujiwara households (sekkanke) secured control of most
woodland in western Omi, as well as some on the eastern border,
and used it as a restricted source of hiwada and sugi lumber for their
establishments.52
Not all peasants willingly gave up their customary access to
woodland, and shoen holders on occasion used force to expel them.
Some estate holders evidently instructed forest overseers to seize the
cutting tools, such as sickles (kama) and axes, of anyone who entered
illegally to gather wood, brush, or grass.53 In response, a court
notice of 706 denounced aristocrats who seized wild land, neglected
to till it, and yet confiscated the tools of peasants gathering brush
there. Five years later the court reiterated its complaint and or-
dered the behavior stopped.54 Despite such edicts forest holders con-
tinued to close their lands to outsiders. The Todaiji, for example,
forbade felling on its lands in Harima in 793 and on designated areas
in Yamato in 805. When shoen holders did permit outsiders to
gather fuel, they sometimes charged a fee for the material. In the
Kinai basin, moreover, where forest scarcities were most acute,
even peasants resident on a shoen ordinarily paid for any yield they

obtained from the estate holder's woods, often by providing him

with labor or a portion of the forest yield.55
Woodland scarcity sustained disputes over exploitation rights. In
798 Emperor Kammu repeated the official policy of unrestricted
use and warned that because of abuses by estate holders he would
confiscate the woodland of any secular or churchly holder who
seized sickles or otherwise interfered with people gathering brush.
The order went on to state, however, that anyone who reforested up
to five chobu (twelve acres) of land inherited from his ancestors
could retain that land.66 Whereas the court complaint of 706 had
suggested that land seizure was tolerable if it resulted in more cul-
tivation, Kammu's order indicated that woodland closure would
be acceptable, at least on a modest scale, if it led to reforestation.
Government priorities seemed to be changing.
Even as the court opposed unauthorized forest closure by others,
it restricted access to woodland under its own control.57 In the early
summer of 676 Emperor Temmu forbade fuel and fodder cutting on
Minabuchi and Hosokawa mountains near Asuka and reiterated a
standing proscription on unauthorized burning of Kinai brushland.
In 710, as the court pressed on with the construction of Heijo, it
ordered forest wardens (yamamori be] to control felling on its
mountain lands.58 Later the government closed more areas in the
Kinai basin and, as earlier noted, the maritime forests of western
Noto peninsula.
Outside the Kinai region the pressure on forests was much less in-
tense, which doubtless permitted peasant and power holder to share
woodlands more amicably. Even in the Kinai basin, after the great
surge of monumental construction had passed and former conifer
forests had grown up to brush and mixed broadleafs, pressure seems
to have eased enough so that substantial areas of wooded upland
remained open, at least to local people. In any event, attempts at
forest closure eased, the movement went into abeyance for several
hundred years, and full closures did not occur until the early
modern predation of the seventeenth century.

Environmental Damage and Forest Protection

Forest closure, while normally undertaken for selfish reasons, con-
stituted a forest-protection measure. At times its protective function

was made explicit. In the early ninth century, when the govern-
ment issued several orders against woodcutting, it stated directly
that their purpose was to protect rivers or otherwise prevent water
supplies from being muddied.89 In an order of 821 that was in-
tended to protect agricultural land by regulating peasant wood-
cutting, the court put it this way:
The fundamental principle for securing water is found in the combination
of rivers and trees. The vegetation on mountains should always be lush.
The reason for this is that, while the origin of great rivers is always near
thickly vegetated mountains, the flow of small streams comes from bald
hills. We know the amount of run-off depends on mountains. If a
mountain produces clouds and rain, rivers will be full for 9 ri [about 5
miles]. If the mountain is stripped bald, the streams in the valleys will dry
up.60

Unquestionably, erosion and flooding were problems, but in

much of the Kinai basin destruction may have been quite modest:
loss of virgin stands did not necessarily mean a rape of the land. For
one thing, much harvesting was selective because the quest was for
large, high-quality stock. Usually, loggers left forest cover partially
intact, clear-cutting only scattered natural monocultural stands.
Moreover, some stands were located in lowlands, which could be
safely converted to tillage after logging.
Ironically, the clear-cutting of conifers in a high forest could give
rise to replacement vegetation that was more responsive to human
demand than the original stand. In the natural sequence of forest
succession many logged conifer areas of the Kinai probably grew
back to contain much broadleaf growth, such as chestnut (kuri),
beech (buna), and oak (e.g., kunugi and konard). These trees, which
provide high-quality fuel, grow quite rapidly and reproduce vege-
tatively by sending out new shoots from stumps and roots. Conse-
quently, they can be harvested repeatedly at intervals of only ten to
fifteen years. By thus shifting forests from conifer to broadleaf
growth, logging increased the volume of fuelwood being produced
by that portion of Kinai woodland not converted to tillage, thereby
helping it meet the most compelling need of the swelling metro-
politan population.
Nor was frequent gathering of fuelwood necessarily destructive.
Despite repeated cutting, coppice stumps and roots would remain

alive and hold soil in place. Moreover, new growth, being fed by
preexisting root systems, would push out rapidly and spread
quickly over harvested areas, leaving soil much less exposed to pre-
cipitation and erosion than areas clear-cut from mature conifer
stands. Finally, coppice stands permitted a more luxuriant under-
growth, and this surface vegetation also helped preserve soil stability.
As long as people did not rake up all the litter and dig up roots for
fuel, food, or fodder, conversion of high forest to coppice growth
need not have posed basic ecological dangers.
Indeed, the opening of forest floor to sunlight and highly varied
pioneer growth could have had broader ecological benefits, im-
proving the land's capacity to support a diverse population of birds
and other fauna. The conversion of high forest to young mixed
growth in the Kinai region may have been a precondition for the
wide range of animal pelts and similar items sold in the city of
Heian. But carrying the trend too far—through conversion of ever
more land to tillage and the eventual decay of surviving woodlands
into sparse scrub because of excessive exploitation—may underlie
the disappearance of such items from the urban marketplace in
later generations.61
Despite its ecological merits coppice growth also has liabilities.
Most especially, it is highly vulnerable to forest fire. Whereas wild-
fire is uncommon in climax stands whose crowns tower in the air, it
runs easily through scrub brush and low coppice. If it burns too
hot at ground level, moreover, it does substantial damage to the
soil, making revegetation problematic. That process seems to have
occurred in parts of the Kinai basin.
Ever since the ancient predation Omi has been plagued by wild-
fire, and during the Nara-Heian period destructive fires erupted
throughout the Kinai area. Some ten major forest conflagrations
were recorded between 703 and 803.62 In the spring of 745 a notori-
ous fire erupted on Mount Maki in Iga, burned across hundreds of
hectares, and raced westward out of control into Yamashiro and
Omi provinces, panicking the court at Shigaraki before rain halted
its thirteen-day rampage.63 Wildfires commonly resulted from
slash-and-burn tillage, careless use of fire in opening new areas to
permanent cultivation, and probably from other uses of fire in
woodlands, such as feeding kilns or felling large trees. Some burns
resulted from lightning or, elsewhere in Japan, from geological ac-

tivity. But whether fires were ignited by natural forces or humans,

the conversion of high forest to brushwood and the intensive
exploitation of that growth contributed to their scale and frequency
in the Kinai basin.
When forest fires did break out, they generally ran free because
no organized system existed for fighting them. Prayers for divine in-
tervention were the usual extent of human resistance. In 745, how-
ever, a few months after the major burn that started on Mount
Maki, a large brushfire erupted near the recently abandoned cap-
ital of Shigaraki. It is recorded that, lest everything be lost, "several
thousand men and women from the town went out to the mountains
to cut [brush], and then the fire died out." 64
In short, the conversion of Kinai forestland from conifer to
broadleaf growth embodied both favorable and unfavorable pos-
sibilities. Near the cities the unfavorable possibilities seem to have
been realized. Because transportation was a major factor in both
lumber and fuel costs, nearby forests were ruthlessly overcut. And
they remained overcut. Beginning with the ancient predation up-
lands in the Koga-Tanakami area of south Omi were repeatedly
cut and burned over, and forests there were unable to proceed
through a natural process of succession to reestablish climax stands.
Instead, woodlands produced generation after generation of pio-
neer species: grass, brush, scrub pine (akamatsu), and miscellaneous
broadleafs. And because this growth was persistently overexploited,
forestlands steadily eroded, gradually lost fertility, and shifted to
ever poorer vegetation, deteriorating a millennium later during the
early modern predation into infertile, bald mountains (hageyama).
Elsewhere in the central Kinai region soil became drier and
poorer. Areas around Kyoto that in the Nara and early Heian
periods produced the mushroom hiratake, which prefers moist, shaded
sites, deteriorated by the thirteenth century to the extent that they
habitually produced matsutake, a mushroom that grows atop the
shallow roots of pine trees in dry, comparatively sunlit soil. And the
pines were there because they could grow in soil so nutrient-poor it
would not support vegetation capable of suppressing them.65
These malign consequences emerged despite modest attempts at
forest protection. Closing forests to timber felling and regulating
fuel gathering were the first "negative" protective measures. Con-
temporaneously, there were a few scattered "positive" measures of

forest rehabilitation, meaning tree planting.66 Some planting was

undertaken for the yield; most was designed to form protection
forests.
There are only one or two records of reforesting to produce new
stands of building timber. Most noteworthy is a document of the
year 866 that mentions an order to plant 5,700 kuri and 40,000 sugi
seedlings in Hitachi province, far to the east of the Kinai basin. The
planting was to occur on shrine land (of the Kashima jingu), and it
was intended to enhance the scenic beauty of the area as much as to
replace trees consumed in the shrine's periodic reconstructions.
Whether or how the planting was done is unclear.
The protective value of forests in capturing rainfall and modulat-
ing runoff, and hence the value of afforestation in harvested areas,
was clearly recognized. Two clauses in the Yoro Code of 718 ex-
pressly prohibited cultivation in mountain areas and advocated
tree planting along river banks and dams to prevent erosion and
water damage to cropland, and throughout the eighth century the
government promoted tree planting. Shade trees, such as nire and
jianagi, were planted along national highways that the court was
developing. Fruit trees, such as biwa (loquat), momo (peach), ume
(plum), kaki (persimmon), and kuri (chestnut), were also planted,
mostly around homesteads. Trees were planted around graves to
benefit the spirits of the deceased and around dwellings and tilled
land, usually to protect buildings, water courses, and irrigation
ponds, but sometimes for ornamentation. Later the order of 821
pointed out the water-retaining capacity of woodland.

During the centuries of the ancient predation the luxurious archi-

tectural demand by rulers, together with the general needs of the
metropolitan populace, subjected Kinai vegetation to unprecedented
pressure, in the process exhausting the region's high-quality timber
supply and changing significantly the character of its forests. The
experience elicited only tentative and simple responses, however, in
terms of forest enhancement and damage control. It may, therefore,
be correct to infer that outside the Kinai basin forests continued to
meet human demand without difficulty. And in much of the Kinai
itself, forest exploitation may have had only a modestly deleterious
ecological impact. Nevertheless, in those parts of Yamashiro,

Yamato, and Omi provinces near the cities, where human pressure
was greatest, the ancient predation created serious ecological prob-
lems, problems that foreshadowed what the nation as a whole would
confront a millennium later, following the seventeenth-century
predation.

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Chapter Two

Forests and Forestry in

Medieval Japan, 1050—1550

During the ancient predation Japan's rulers consumed woodland in

central Honshu at an exorbitant rate. Subsequently, forest exploita-
tion stabilized in less intense harvesting that continued until the
late sixteenth century, when a second, far more rapacious, phase of
overconsumption swept the islands. Construction projects of the
social elite provided dramatic highlights in the "medieval" period's
forest history. Technical and social changes in rural society, how-
ever, which sharply altered the human-forest relationship, bore
greater significance for woodland and its users during both medi-
eval and subsequent centuries.
Several developments combined to intensify agricultural pres-
sure on the woodland. After about A.D. 1200 the human population
grew more rapidly and economic development brought more
people a higher standard of living, which meant they consumed
more food, fuel, clothing, housing materials, and other goods that
came from the land. Concurrently, expansion of arable and
changes in agricultural techniques increased the need for green
fertilizer material, most of which came from woodland growth.
Meanwhile, changes in social and political organization shifted
control of more and more arable and woodland from central au-
thorities to local people. That shift altered the way woodland was
used and fostered a new surge of forest closure late in the medieval
period.

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Forests and Forestry, i050-7550 35

Agronomic Change and

Woodland Consumption
Japan's estimated population of 6,500,000 souls in A.D. 1000
doubled by iGoo.1 This multiplication of mouths affected woodland
directly by fostering land clearance, most especially on alluvial flat-
land, on geologically older, less fertile terrace deposits, and on
lower reaches of bedrock mountains—areas that had supported the
most lush woodland vegetation.
More was changing than mere numbers, however. Modifications
in agricultural practice also increased village use of forest products.2
Widespread adoption of plows and other iron implements, double
cropping, irrigation, and abandonment of fallowing increased sharply
the need for regular and timely fertilizing lest soil become so de-
pleted as to lose agricultural value.3 The fertilizer consisted pri-
marily of natural grasses, scrub growth, and forest litter (leaves,
bark, and twigs), which cultivators accumulated and worked into
the soil or more commonly burned and stirred in as ash. It came
from forests and wasteland (gen'ya).
These tillage practices also increased the use of draft animals,
namely, oxen and horses, which provided comparatively rich fer-
tilizer. Large animals are inefficient producers of fertilizer, how-
ever, yielding little manure from a great deal of fodder. Because
most fodder, like green fertilizer, came from woods and wasteland,
the use of draft animals increased village demand on upland nat-
ural production. The swelling human food needs of medieval Japan
thus required not only many more acres of arable but also a much
larger area of untilled land.
Besides fertilizer and fodder, villagers needed fuel, which they
used in cooking and in such industries as metallurgy, ceramics pro-
duction, and salt making, a portion of whose products they con-
sumed locally. They also required building materials for houses,
outbuildings, gates, walls, wells, bridges, irrigation equipment, and
household and work implements. No dramatic technical changes
increased consumption of fuel and building wood, but gross de-
mand rose as the population grew and housing improved.
Slash-and-burn, or swidden, culture was another burden that
villagers placed on woodland. Indeed, with its potential for wild-

fire, erosion, and soil depletion, it may have been their most de-
structive use of upland. Widely practiced in Japan from prehistoric
times, swidden may have intensified during the medieval period as
overall population growth exacerbated pressure on the land, forcing
more and more marginal tillers to work nearby hills sporadically to
sustain their families during difficult years.4 Moreover, the endemic
warfare of these centuries generated a large population of losers and
displaced people, some of whom retreated into the woods to escape
pursuit and eke out a living.
The ecological ramifications of these medieval agricultural de-
velopments are difficult to ascertain because evidence of the en-
vironmental condition is scarce. Doubtless, the opening of so much
lowland to tillage eradicated some valley-floor biota and drove
others into marginal habitats. Within the Kinai basin, soil degrada-
tion continued to spread. More and more woodland evolved from
moist-soiled, mixed forest through coppice and scrub into poorly
stocked pine barrens. By the latter part of the fifteenth century, hira-
take, the mushroom that prefers a moist, dark environment, was found
in the Kinai heartland only in protected monastery woodland.5
Outside the Kinai the situation was much less severe. Most hard-
pressed were the adjoining Tokai and Inland Sea regions, which
were extensively deforested. There substantial areas of mixed high
forest shifted to coppice growth. The woodland was sufficiently ex-
tensive, however, that up to 1550 these regions appear by and large
to have coped with agricultural expansion: forest composition
changed, but species diversity and biomass production probably
did not decline. They may have even increased where mixed decid-
uous growth replaced more purely coniferous stands. Elsewhere, in
T5hoku, in the central cordillera of Kai-Shinano-Hida provinces,
and along the Kii-Shikoku-Kyushu axis to the south, much fine
woodland remained.
Fortunately for the ecosystem, not all aspects of rural land
use were harmful. Although doubtless much small-scale erosion
occurred as imprudent or hard-pressed tillers opened hill land to
cultivation, the practice of forming terraces reduced damage by
spreading and slowing the movement of water, thereby cutting
dramatically its capacity to erode and carry sediment and debris.
In central and western Japan especially, many diluvial areas, foot-
hills of bedrock mountains, and small alluvial fans and upland val-

leys were successfully opened to cultivation, both as elaborately

terraced paddy land and as semiterraced dry fields.
Furthermore, the timber requirements of rural people were rela-
tively benign. They needed few large, high-quality conifers. Trees
of sapling or small-pole size met most construction needs, and these
generally could be obtained from coppice stands after one or two
decades of growth, thus allowing for frequent recutting. Moreover,
some rural construction needs could be met by bamboo, which
grows densely and rapidly (attaining full height in a single season),
and is admirably durable even though it is a tropical grass and not
a tree at all. As an additional virtue, bamboo can be cut to the
ground, where it retains a thriving root mass that holds soil in
place. It will then send up new shoots in another growing season
even more readily than beech.
In short, population growth and agronomic change increased the
rural pressure on woodland in much of central Japan. However,
certain aspects of rural forest use ameliorated the environmental
impact of this pressure, enabling forests to sustain themselves even
while satisfying the expanded human demand.

Social Change and Forest Control

Socioeconomic developments of the medieval period also influenced
forest affairs by shifting control of woodland into local hands. That
control was exercised in various ways: powerful local families en-
joyed a preeminent role in some places, while villagers, acting more
or less communally, regulated upland use in others.
The macro political history of these centuries can fruitfully be
viewed as a process of decentralization in which the governing
system of early Heian rulers slowly disintegrated, until the last
vestiges of shoen, imperial tax land, and delegated imperial author-
ity finally disappeared around 1500-1550. As Heian rule dissolved,
power devolved into the hands of regional and local leaders, mostly
military men, or samurai. They established two consecutive regimes,
the Kamakura (1185-1333) and Muromachi (1336-1573) shogun-
ates (bakufu). The former was headquartered in the newly erected
town of Kamakura and the latter in the Muromachi district of
Kyoto, as Heian was called by the fourteenth century.
This broader weakening of central control was reflected in the

handling of forests. Rulers in Heian had relaxed their supervision of

woodland by the eleventh century, and their shogunal successors
paid little attention to it. The shogunates appear occasionally to
have designated a timber superintendent (zaimoku bugyo), but the
appointee's tasks apparently were limited to overseeing lumber
marketing or a temporary logging project. What interest medieval
rulers did show in forests pertained to taxing them or laying down
guidelines for settling disputes over use rights. Thus, the Kamakura
regime reiterated classical anticlosure policy: where irrigation water,
fuel supplies, or other common-use resources were found, access was
to remain unrestricted.6 Otherwise, it evidently did little beyond
issuing occasional restraining orders of uncertain effect to samurai
accused of stealing timber from temple forests.7 And the Muromachi
shogunate seems to have given woodland even less attention. 8
In contrast to central secular authorities, some monasteries and
shrines retained active control of their shoen forests. More and more
they imposed rental fees (variously called yamate, yamayaku, yama
nengu, and so on) on users, charging them for the brush, timber, or
other goods they took. As tillage intensified, moreover, some shoen
holders tried to maintain the productivity of their own fields by for-
bidding outsiders to remove fertilizer material from their woodland.9
Increasingly, however, shoen holders, whether churchly or aris-
tocratic, lost wooded terrain to influential local figures, who often
were military leaders. This was especially true outside the Kinai
region in areas where holders had rarely asserted firm control of
woodland, probably because they had little incentive to claim dis-
tant timber. From the late thirteenth century the most successful of
these military men developed into regional barons, or daimyo as
they eventually were called, and during the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries rebellious daimyo crippled and finally toppled the Muro-
machi regime. Most barons paid little heed to silvicultural matters,
ordinarily obtaining forest products locally by purchase or levy.
Not until the mid-sixteenth century, as the scale of warfare expanded
and the medieval period hastened to a close, did some daimyo begin
directly controlling forests for strategic military reasons, as noted in
the next chapter.10
Despite the medieval elite's disregard of forests, intensifying ex-
ploitation was creating the need for some sort of woodland gover-
nance. In the absence of effective forest policy by emperor, shogun,

shoen holder, or daimyo, woodland management became a local

matter. At the village level extremely convoluted processes of social
change were occurring that determined how local people exercised
their control of the woods. The salient changes may be summarized
as follows.11
During the early medieval period most villages were small
clusters of human dwellings situated on shoen or imperial tax land.
The major landholders in a locality were formally responsible for
affairs there, in particular for assuring shoen holders their legally
stipulated rental income. As intensifying warfare and disorder un-
dermined the rent-collecting power of shoen holders and the central
government, these local landholders established more autonomous
roles as community leaders. Some used military power to dominate
their localities. Some expanded their influence by promoting land-
clearing operations that government and shoen holders no longer
pursued, in the process acquiring rights to more land. Others,
especially in the Kinai, where they faced stronger residual rule by
the elite, relied on the support of fellow villagers.
The villages themselves were developing into more densely and
compactly settled entities. This may have occurred in response to
escalating warfare, or it may have resulted from the adoption of
intensive cultivation. The increase in output per acre, by enabling
tillers to live on smaller plots of arable and hence closer together,
certainly permitted given localities to support larger villages. More
positively, the new agronomy also bound cultivators more closely to
their land, both the nearby woodland on which they depended so
greatly and the arable itself, which required such continuous and
careful attention that it acquired value as a capital investment.
These developments laid a foundation upon which a sense of village
identification and commitment could establish itself.
Whatever its cause, the increase in size and density of villages
made them stronger power bases for any local leaders who could
dominate them. Especially in the Kinai region, however, villages
were able to resist local hegemons and instead control affairs com-
munally. As communal procedures matured, villages became more
self-conscious political units in which people thought of themselves
as members of such and such a village rather than of such and such
a shoen. Even where they looked to local notables for guidance, they
organized their lives in terms of village rather than shoen.

Medieval social change thus created new patterns of local leader-

ship and, in some cases, increased interdependence among village
leaders and their neighbors. These patterns manifested themselves
in the handling of forests. At one extreme, powerful local families
controlled woodland, using their positions to dominate lesser neigh-
bors who depended on them for green fertilizer and other forest
produce.12 At the other extreme, villages worked out communal
patterns of shared use. Most villages probably encompassed both
patterns, with powerful families exploiting their own woodlands
more or less autonomously while villagers as a group controlled
communal lands.
Some locally powerful families acquired forests by having wooded
areas included in real estate deeds of purchase.13 They subsequently
used these patents to justify denying others use of the areas. Other
local magnates were, or claimed to be, descended from professional
loggers (soma) who had worked on shoen during the decades when
Nara and Heian were built.14 Later, as timber became depleted and
construction petered out, these soma evolyed into landholding
peasants who gained legal title to their land as freeholders (myoshu).
Often they retained a special claim to designated forestland
through the hereditary woodcutting and provisioning duties (soma
yaku) that originally required them to pay part of their rent to the
shoen holder in the form of timber or fuelwood. In later generations,
even after shoen holders disappeared, such myoshu frequently
claimed that their family's old soma yaku titles gave them exclusive
rights to continue exploiting the woodland as of old.
Some of these restricted forest sites eventually came to be known
as tateyama or tatebayashi, literally standing or stocked forests. The
terms may have been adopted because the visual appearance of
these sites as high forest contrasted so sharply with the communally
used coppice and scrub areas that were becoming prevalent in more
densely inhabited districts. Coppice and scrub were proliferating
because of increasing local demand, particularly for green fertilizer.
As centuries passed, villagers opened more and more hillsides to
cultivation and laboriously terraced them into workable fields. Ex-
ceptionally heavy applications of mulch were needed to restore fer-
tility to such sites because they generally had had poor soil to begin
with and had been severely disrupted by the terracing. As more in-
tensive tillage practices spread, moreover, all cultivators required

fertilizer and fodder at crucial moments in the cropping cycle.

Where woodland was ample there was no problem, but in more
densely settled areas the growing need for fertilizer pitted villagers
against those landholders who claimed somayaku privileges or other
exclusive rights to woodland usufruct. Hence, the visual contrast
between the village coppice and the local magnate's tatebayashi was
symptomatic of the growing pressure on woodland and, as a corol-
lary, of the growing tension between powerful local families and
villagers in general.
The competition for usufruct that set large landholders against
villagers was partially obscured by dissimilarities in their priorities
and hence in their preferences among vegetation. Somayaku holders
were particularly interested in controlling well-wooded sites, while
villagers generally valued areas of grass, scrub, and coppice growth,
which best met their most essential needs. Timbered areas usually
grew some brush, however, so the woodlands of soma yaku holders
had at least modest value for others, as revealed by a dispute that
arose in the hills of Yamaguni north of Kyoto. There in 1497 two vil-
lage officials who were soma yaku holders sold their felling rights to
some city merchants. The sale threatened to deprive village residents
of forest understory and emergency supplies that they considered
theirs by customary right. They protested vigorously, contending
that the sale constituted abandonment of soma yaku responsibility
because the office was part of an old shoen post that was inseparable
from myoshu status and duty within the village. After carrying their
protest to authorities in Kyoto, they finally succeeded in having the
somayaku authority revested in the original local officials.15
The capacity of villagers acting conjointly to influence the dis-
position of woodland, as in the Yamaguni case, points toward the
other major pattern of local forest control, that of the village acting
as a community. In establishing communal control over woodland,
villagers were not perpetuating the ancient principle of open for-
ests. Rather, they were articulating a new principle of exclusive
communal usage. Identifying communal lands after the thirteenth
century by such words as iriai (which they wrote in various ways),
villagers defined who within and without the village had what use
rights to which areas and under what conditions.16
This communal control of woodland developed as the larger
polity decayed, emerging with communal arrangements for self-

defense and local administration. It was prompted by the adoption

of more intensive tillage, which gave villagers a shared need for
effective control of scarce fertilizer and fodder material. They evi-
dently found communal management effective for excluding out-
side competitors, regulating allocation to insiders, and preventing
abuses that might precipitate erosion, wildfire, or other damaging
outcomes.
Surviving documents from the village of Imabori in Omi prov-
ince provide clues to the operation of communal forest control. Late
in the year 1448, when people were about to start gathering fuel for
the winter, the villagers met, discussed the problem of damage that
wood gatherers had inflicted on forests in the past, and agreed on a
policy to prevent it in future. They posted regulations specifying the
punishment for anyone who cut trees without proper authorization,
whether on village land or their own. There was to be a large fine of
five hundred man for anyone convicted of cutting forest trees or
seedlings, a fine of one hundred man for cutting mulberry trees or
taking litter, and a separate fifty mon fee for second offenders. The
effectiveness of the policy is unclear, but it may have proven inad-
equate after the generation that established it died off, because a
half century later, in 1502, the villagers posted a new and stiffer
schedule of fines not only for actually harvesting illicitly but for
even being caught in the forest with harvesting tools. Those reg-
ulations stated that on either village or individually held lands, one
would be fined eight hundred mon if caught breaking off branches
by hand, or if one was apprehended with a sickle, a hatchet, or a
heavy ax one would be fined two hundred, three hundred, or five
hundred mon, respectively.17
As demand rose, villagers found it more difficult to work out
mutually acceptable forest-use practices.18 To settle disputes, they
might appeal to community leaders. Or villages as a whole took
their grievances to a higher authority, such as it was, whether mon-
astery, shrine, aristocratic landholder, daimyo, shogun, or repre-
sentative thereof. No doubt many disputes were settled in favor of
the stronger party by simple abuse of position or resort to main
force. If secular methods of settlement failed, villages might invoke
religious authority, subjecting the disputants to trial by ordeal. In
cases of illegal brush cutting or logging, for example, the accused
parties might have to handle red-hot sickles or axes, and their burns

determined their guilt or innocence. Many a guilty soul surely con-

fessed before being put to the test, inadvertently sparing the hand of
a falsely accused neighbor. Such instances notwithstanding, the
technique of forest-use regulation most commonly visible in the sur-
viving record is a process of litigation and rule making. It usually
was undertaken to resolve disputes over the boundaries of forests
and scrubland or to define the conditions of access to iriai
(communal land) for gathering fuel, fodder, and fertilizer.
Whatever the particulars of specific settlements, cumulatively
local forest management served to exclude outsiders, allocate wood-
land resources internally, and assure that villagers abided by any
restrictions the communal leadership established on the cutting of
grass, brush, bamboo, and trees; the use of water; and the grazing of
animals. Forest closure was reviving. But whereas closure during
the ancient predation had been initiated by the elite primarily to
prevent unapproved extraction of construction timber, this was
closure by commoners to guard a variety of agriculture-related prod-
ucts. The process of closure was giving rise to a human-forest
relationship very unlike that of the early Nara period, when an
abundance of resources had obviated the need for close manage-
ment by anyone.

Urban Fuel and Timber Use

Not all village woodcutting was for home consumption. The urban
populace also required forest products, and upland villagers spent
considerable time getting them out and sending them downstream.
Urban demand contributed to the general pressure on woodland
and thus to the changing human-forest relationship.
The medieval period witnessed a great increase in demand for
hardwood charcoal. Only it could generate the intense heat that
forged swords for the nourishing armies of samurai. The manufac-
ture of other weapons—armor, spear points, arrowheads, daggers,
and eventually arquebuses and cannons—the iron tools and equip-
ment of commoner life, and the cast bells, lanterns, and other im-
plements of monumental architecture also consumed charcoal.
Moreover, changes in urban and upper-class housing, notably
the use of paper-covered sliding doors and sedge mats (tatami) for
flooring, made spark-free, smoke-free fuel highly desirable. Char-

coal replaced firewood in urban heating and cooking not only

among the aristocratic few but also among samurai and well-to-do
urban commoners. In consequence, charcoal production boomed
around the major cities and towns, consuming the wood production
of countless hillsides and providing by-employment for peasants
and business for kiln operators, which often were forest-holding
monasteries.19
In earlier centuries urban demand for fuel had damaged wood-
land near Nara and Heian, and during the medieval period it
continued to exceed the reproductive capacity of nearby coppice
stands, compelling providers to bring fuel from afar and raise fees
accordingly. As Kamakura developed into a major city during the
thirteenth century, its fuel needs expanded commensurately. Price
increases in the city led the shogunate in 1253 to complain of recent
excesses and to post guidelines for both charcoal and firewood
prices.20
Builders continued to use construction timber in great quantities.
A substantial amount was even exported to China after Sino-
Japanese trade revived during the twelfth century. China's forests
had become depleted by then, and a demand for large, high-quality
kinoki, sugi, and malsu developed. Lumber exports flourished, most
shiploads originating in western Japan and consisting of logs that
measured some fifteen feet in length and up to four feet in diameter.
Both rulers and monasteries despatched timber-laden ships to
China, and by the I22OS the shogunate was sending as many as
forty to fifty shiploads of lumber annually in large, oceangoing
vessels.21
Timber exports were minor, however, compared to medieval
domestic consumption. Erecting the new city of Kamakura, with its
great monasteries and shrines, required vast quantities of timber.
Many private residences also were elegant wooden structures sur-
rounded by wooden walls and equipped with handsome wooden
gates. Less pretentious houses utilized simpler timber construction
and had shingle or thatch roofs.22 Forests of the Tokai and Kanto
regions, notably those in Izu and Suruga, and of the lower reaches
of the Tenryu river valley, provided much of the city's lumber, but
the great forests of the Kiso also contributed, with timber from
there, for example, going to Kamakura to build the Enkakuji. 23
Furthermore, rebuilding the city after periodic fires sustained de-

mand. An entry in the Azuma kagami for the year 1219 says, "On the
twenty-second the center of Kamakura was destroyed by fire. It
erupted north of the harbor residence of Kono Shir5. Wind was
blowing fiercely from the south, and fires spread up as far as the
gates of Eifukuji and down to the front of the harbor warehouses."24
Burning from the harbor in the south to Eifukuji on the northeast
edge of town, the fire consumed the heart of the city. Its reconstruc-
tion must have required immense amounts of material. How much
is not recorded, but when the Enkakuji burned in 1421, its recon-
struction required one hundred raft loads (about two thousand
logs) of timber. 25
By the mid-thirteenth century Kamakura leaders found it
difficult to obtain satisfactory timber. The notice of 1253 that set
charcoal prices also complained about the sale of undersized con-
struction lumber. "As of old," it stated, logs for split timber (kureki)
must measure eight feet, or a minimum of seven feet, in length. It
instructed supervisors to impound any undersized kureki and bring
it to the attention of the proper authorities.26
Kamakura's political importance during the thirteenth century
notwithstanding, the Kinai basin remained the center of Japanese
civilization throughout the medieval period. As a corollary, it re-
mained the area of the most persistent lumber consumption.27 In-
sofar as nearby forests in Tanba, Omi, Iga, and the Yoshino moun-
tains produced usable, new timber, it was utilized: not only sugi and
hinoki were consumed but also less valued conifers such as momi,
tsuga, togasawara, and akamatsu. On the Kinai periphery, moreover,
cutters pushed farther back into valleys previously regarded as too
difficult to harvest. Nonetheless, for many purposes the volume of
timber was insufficient, stick size inadequate, or quality unsatis-
factory. So cutting for Kinai consumption spread into southern
Kii; over into Ise; westward into Mimasaka, Inaba, and Aki; and
across the straits into Shikoku, where loggers pressed farther inland
across Awa and Tosa. Most especially, logging to meet Kinai needs
penetrated deeper into the Kiso watershed in Hida and Mino
provinces.28
The quest for great timbers even sent Kinai builders to the far
western end of Honshu and into Kyushu. One of the most well-
documented projects was rebuilding the Todaiji, which had burned
during a battle in i i8o.29 Records of that effort suggest the magni-

tude and difficulty of the provisioning. After considerable search-

ing, project directors located timber of sufficient size for the main
pillars along the upper reaches of the Saba river near the western
tip of Honshu. The stand was well past its prime, but logging crews
commenced felling anyway. Many trees were found to be hollow,
knotty, or untrue, and workmen had to fell several hundred to ob-
tain the few score required for pillars. The chosen trunks measured
eighty to ninety feet in length and about five feet in butt diameter.30
Supervisors stamped the monsters "T5daiji" and prepared them for
removal.
To reach the Saba, work crews leveled a narrow valley floor to
form a twenty-mile roadway and laboriously winched the tree
trunks along it, probably on skid-mounted rollers. The river proved
too shallow to float the trees, so transporters built 118 temporary
dams along a seventeen-mile stretch to raise the water level suffi-
ciently. A few miles from the river's mouth they dredged a sea-level
channel to float the trunks on the tide. At the coast they aligned
them, bound them together with vines to form rafts, and attached
four ships to each raft to pull it along the Inland Sea and up the
Yodo to the Kizu river. There laborers lashed the trunks directly to
shallow-draft boats, which buoyed them enough to float to the land-
ing. Workmen dragged them ashore and hoisted them onto huge
carts, which i2O-ox teams drew to the construction site at Nara.31
All that effort merely produced the main pillars. Except for some
smaller pieces extracted from Saba rejects, T5daiji builders obtained
the rest of their material elsewhere: from Settsu, Iga, Bitchu, and
about nine other provinces. Reconstruction was completed during
the i igos, but it still yielded a main hall only half as spacious as the
original.
The old grandeur was proving difficult to maintain, but people
kept trying. The imperial court still harvested its forests, notably
the stands remaining in the upper reaches of Yamaguni in Tanba,
using some timber and selling the rest.32 Similarly, aristocratic
families, monasteries, and shrines continued to cut away at their
holdings. Two major instances of such consumption involved Zen
monasteries that burned and were rebuilt. To restore the Tdfukuji
in 1442, packhorse operators transported some six thousand horse
loads of Mino lumber overland from the Nagara river to Lake
Biwa, from whence they were rafted to the city. Five years later

eight-horse teams hauled one thousand cartloads of Mino and Hida

timber from the Nagara to Biwa and Kyoto to rebuild the Buddha
Hall of the Nanzenji.33
As these instances suggest, for the medieval age, as for the
ancient, great construction projects are what remain most visible
to the historian. They reveal a continuation of earlier trends:
the spreading quest for large, high-quality lumber, the development
of more elaborate transportation techniques, and the acceptance
of smaller pieces and less treasured species. One result of these
trends was that new edifices tended to be less grandiose and made
with smaller timber. Perhaps as a by-product modesty of scale
rather than grandeur became a common measure of aesthetic
sophistication.34

A Recapitulation
Following the ancient predation, Japan settled into several cen-
turies of slowly growing forest exploitation. Agriculturists became
more dependent on woodland yield to sustain tillage, which
prompted them to strengthen control of accessible woodland.
Their efforts were facilitated by a decline in the control that higher-
status groups exercised over rural areas. Not until the sixteenth
century, as daimyo warred for supremacy, did the ruling elite
gradually assert control over woodland in a manner reminiscent of
the Nara period.
During the centuries to 1550 the forest arts themselves, those of
both exploitation and rehabilitation, made only modest advances.
In general, the equipment and techniques of felling, splitting, mea-
suring, marking, squaring, sawing, hewing, and finishing wood
appear to have changed very little. Bigger saws were developed, but
they still lacked temper enough for heavy-duty use. The need to
move logs longer distances and through more difficult terrain did
lead to advances in transportation: workmen devised more sophis-
ticated methods of chuting and winching, refined river damming
and channeling techniques, and practiced log rafting more widely.
Ocean transport, which originally meant carrying small pieces
aboard ship, came to include both towing rafts and escorting logs
strapped to the sides of the propelling vessel.
Changes in forest-preservation measures were no greater than

those of exploitation. Woodland received only modest protection

during the ancient predation and even less during the medieval
period, probably because no interested authority had sufficient con-
trol to enforce any conservation rules. Not until the latter part of
the medieval period did signs appear of villagers acting effectively
to protect their forest areas or, later yet, of daimyo taking measures
to protect theirs. And, needless to say, these signs, when they did
appear, were signs of closure designed to protect human interests,
not the interests of forest biota per se.
Afforestation had yet to acquire quantitative significance. Scat-
tered records indicate occasional tree planting, mostly for protec-
tion forests to hold riverbanks or shores in place, or for windbreaks
around buildings, highways, and villages, or for aesthetic purposes.
The government occasionally admonished peasants to establish
woodlots and plant useful trees such as chestnut.35 Afforestation for
the purpose of timber production, however, consisted essentially of
measures to protect naturally seeded areas from human wear and
tear so that seedlings could mature safely.
A very few documents of the Heian and medieval periods men-
tion instances of sugi planting, commonly by use of cuttings (slips),
which root well under properly humid conditions. Most notable are
instances in the Kitayama area north of Kyoto, where sugi were
started on imperial shoen in about 1460 to provide poles for teahouse
construction.36 Still, clear evidence of extensive afforestation, sugi
or otherwise, dates only from the the sixteenth century, when use of
sugi cuttings appeared in southern Kyushu and Shikoku and arti-
ficial planting of hinoki, sugi, and other timber stock began to be
practiced elsewhere.37
The condition of forests changed substantially in some areas,
very little in others. In the Kinai region original stands in accessible
areas were cut off, to be replaced by natural growth whose fate de-
pended primarily on its proximity to a city and tilled land.38 Where
not opened to tillage, the most exploitable areas became permanent
sources of fuel and green fertilizer, surviving as more or less infertile
areas of grass, brush, miscellaneous scrub hardwood, and hardy
pine. Whereas Omi and Yamato, for example, had once been
praised for their great stands of sugi and hinoki, by the medieval
period the products of scrub forest—"the firewood of Ohara" and
"the charcoal of Ono" —enjoyed prestige.39 Often located on

diluvial deposits and foothills, these overworked areas became

known as gen'ya, or wasteland.
Farther from the cities, wooded areas that were readily accessible
to villages commonly survived as better managed coppice stands
useful for fuel, fertilizer, small-dimension lumber, and foodstuffs,
notably chestnuts. And scattered about in some monastery pre-
cincts and myoshu woodlands were groves of good-quality timber.
Deeper in the mountains, cutover areas seem gradually to have
grown up to all-age, mixed forests. If allowed enough time, these
would again provide large timber of reasonably high quality. And
finally, inaccessible and more distant areas in Tohoku and the
deeper valleys of central Honshu and Shikoku remained almost un-
touched prior to the seventeenth century.
Some Kinai areas deteriorated biologically; elsewhere forest
composition changed, but serious biosphere decline appears to have
been negligible. That the forests of Japan survived as well as they
did the intensive harvesting of the ancient predation and then the
escalating demand and persistent neglect of the medieval age seems
to be primarily attributable to the following factors. First, because
of the types of need and level of demand that commoners placed on
the forests during these centuries, their impact was relatively be-
nign. Second, the social elite, who pursued most of the high forest
logging, lacked the power to harvest all of the archipelago's wood-
land, and the logging it did undertake was usually selective and
probably left considerable cover on hillsides. Third, the mountains
most vulnerable to damage were so difficult to penetrate and har-
vest that cutting proceeded slowly, which gave them sufficient time
to repair the wounds they suffered at the hands of loggers and thus
maintain their basic biological vitality. Finally, the islands of Japan
were not forced to support a population of domesticated meat- and
milch-producing animals, whose grazing could so easily have de-
stroyed the undergrowth and root systems that held mountainsides
in place. And so, when the rains fell and the snow melted, the
woodland could still perform its great historic role, holding the
billions of tons of regolith in place, and permitting the humans
down on their valley floors to get on with their eternal business of
working, fighting, loving, fearing, birthing, and dying, unaware of
the catastrophe that would befall them should the forests ever fail at
their task.

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Chapter Three

Timber Depletion during

the Early Modern Predation,
1570-1670

The early modern predation was essentially the ancient predation

writ large. Once again a ruling elite launched a vast construction
boom that produced great monuments and cities. This time, how-
ever, the elite spanned the realm and in pursuit of its objectives had
power enough to exploit human and natural resources throughout
Japan. Within a century its enthusiasm for building had stripped
the archipelago of nearly all its high forest.
The documentation on this surge of forest exploitation, while su-
perior to that of earlier centuries, is still spotty and yields no satisfy-
ing series of general statistics. Cumulatively, however, the scattered
records of elite timber consumption are considerable. They reveal
how the archipelago lost its high forest during the seventeenth cen-
tury and suggest how that process led to the creation of a "negative
regimen," or pervasive attempts to regulate timber and forest use as
a way to preserve and rejuvenate wood supplies. They also show
that these processes of nationwide deforestation and consequent
resource control were foreshadowed by actions of daimyo warring
for survival and supremacy during the latter half of the sixteenth
century.
The surge in elite timber consumption was accompanied by a
tremendous expansion in villagers' use of woodland, primarily be-
cause of rapid population growth. Much forest was converted to
tillage, and much that remained uncultivated was exploited inten-

5°
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Timber Depletion, 1570—1670 51

sively for fertilizer, fuel, fodder, and domestic construction needs.

By the late seventeenth century the combined demand of ruler and
ruled had consumed most of the accessible biomass reserves and ex-
ceeded current woodland production. That situation precipitated
more conflicts over use rights and fostered attempts to resolve prob-
lems of overexploitation and scarcity. Many villages attacked the
problems by expanding their control over woodland use, essentially
extending the forest closure practices that first emerged during the
fifteenth century.
Forest closure by villages collided with closure by higher au-
thority when the latter revived during the late sixteenth century. In
a sense this collision of rulers and ruled over woodland use threw
Japan into a long, drawn-out social struggle for control of uplands,
a struggle that in various forms continued to the mid-twentieth cen-
tury. We must qualify this bipolar ruler-versus-ruled perspective,
however, because intra- and intervillage conflicts over woodland use
were probably much more common and central to the problem of
resource scarcity and its social ramifications. Nor will it do to assert
that quarrels arose among villagers because rulers deprived them of
access to woodland. The rulers did so, certainly, but even if vil-
lagers had enjoyed unrestricted use of everything available, they
would in due course have consumed it all, at which point they
would have faced the problem of scarcity anyway.
Reconstruction of the broader story of environmental despolia-
tion is difficult because records of commoner forest use in general,
and of fuel use in particular, are few. Such records of fuel use as do
exist mostly relate to the rulers, although total commoner consump-
tion surely was greater. Figures on fodder and fertilizer use are
almost nil even though the considerable record of village disputes
over land-use rights suggests that these needs were one of the most
common causes of village conflict. Moreover, while much woodland
was converted to arable, a clear picture of what land was converted
and how that process affected remaining forest has yet to emerge.
Finally, the story of ecological deterioration—erosion, flooding,
and denuding of hillsides—that stemmed from these several forms
of exploitation is recorded only sporadically in legislation and in
writings of contemporary observers. Consequently, the scale, dynam-
ics, and social ramifications of environmental decay are poorly artic-
ulated and await further study.

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52 A Millennium of Exploitation Forestry

Forest Use by the Rulers

The disaster that befell Japan's forests in the century after 1570
began almost surreptitiously in the scattered activities of warring
daimyo. Deforestation accelerated sharply after 1590 when an
almighty Toyotomi Hideyoshi, having pacified the turbulent
realm, commenced monumental construction projects that required
high-grade lumber from throughout Japan. After Hideyoshi's death
in 1598, Tokugawa leyasu defeated rivals, established a shogunate
(bakufu) in Edo, and launched an even greater series of projects. His
ventures ultimately consumed more lumber than Hideyoshi's, even
if many were less demanding of fine wood or giant timbers. After
leyasu's death in 1616, the rate of monumental construction slack-
ened but continued, and urban growth and maintenance sustained
the pressure on woodland. In the rest of Japan, meanwhile, leaders
of daimyo domains (han) pursued their own construction projects:
castles, mansions, temples, shrines, and towns.1 By 1670 the cumula-
tive effect of this nationwide surge in building was massive defores-
tation from Kyushu to northern Honshu.

A Foreshadowing

The rulers who consumed Japan's high forest during the seven-
teenth century had to gain power before they could exercise it.
They did so during the latter half of the sixteenth century, with the
most successful daimyo bargaining and bludgeoning neighbors and
subordinates into alliance and submission until a stable political
hierarchy emerged under Hideyoshi and his Tokugawa successors.
Whether warring daimyo more often built to destroy or des-
troyed to build is an open question, but both their constructive and
destructive undertakings were burdensome to woodland. Before
the 15708, daimyo fortresses, whether headquarters or perimeter
forts, were modest affairs, often little more than stockades built
of sapling- and pole-sized trees, bamboo, or crudely split logs of
larger size, depending on what was available. Defense works were
many, however, because brawling lords ceaselessly erected, tore
down, and torched forts and barricades as battle lines advanced and
retreated.

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Timber Depletion, 1570-1670 53

During the last decades of the century, castles became more

elaborate. Lords added immense moats and stone walled foun-
dations, but wood remained the basic building material. More
elaborate gates, towers, parapets, barracks, residences, and stor-
age facilities required both larger-sized timbers and greater quan-
tities of wood for framing and paneling. A dramatic instance
occurred in 1576 when Oda Nobunaga, the master of central
Japan, erected a towering 138-foot tall, seven-story wooden keep
(tenshukaku) within his great castle at Azuchi on the shore of Lake
Biwa.2
To protect bastions against incendiary attack, builders concealed
much woodwork under layers of plaster and tile roofs. That prac-
tice enabled them to continue using wood indiscriminately; they
put better pieces where they were visible, inferior pieces elsewhere.3
Cracked and twisted sticks; scraps and remnants; matsu, sawara, and
hinoki', and even hardwoods could be used: indeed, keyaki was prized
for load-bearing beams and pillars. This architectural style in-
creased the efficiency of timber use, but it also meant that fellers
need not be choosy and thereby encouraged clear-cutting, which
could more easily lead to erosion and environmental damage than
the more selective logging of earlier centuries.
During the 15705 and 15805 lords built a number of large castles,
most notably Kitanosho, Kameyama, Himeji, Okayama, and Hiro-
shima. Around these and lesser bastions were fostered the growth
of towns, which served as centers of domains in which the rulers
encouraged road and bridge building and economic development.
Those activities consumed vast quantities of lumber; their scale
can be inferred from the figures below, which reveal the surge in
late sixteenth-century urban development.4

No. of
Period Towns Established Rate per Decade
To A.D. 1 192 7 O.I
1
"92-1333 (I4 years) 2 O.I
1334-1466 (132 years) 19 1.4
H6?-^?1 (104 years) III 10.6
1572-1590 (18 years) 90 50.0

Another way that daimyo consumed lumber was by building and

restoring temples. leyasu, for example, as an ambitious young lord
in the Mikawa-T5t5mi area, repeatedly cultivated the goodwill of
local Buddhist leaders by assuring them control of their temple
lands and encouraging them to restore their buildings and attend to
peaceable religious affairs.5 In the 15805 the lord of Sendai built
a large temple (the Zuiganji) at Matsushima. To do so in properly
elegant fashion, he obtained his lumber from the Kumano water-
shed in Kii.6
In other ways as well daimyo consumed the forest. Most notably,
their armies required fodder for cavalry mounts, fuelwood for cook-
ing and heating, charcoal for iron mongering, construction timber
for fortifications, and bamboo for arrows, spears, temporary defense
palisades, and other field engineering projects. Warring lords also
consumed the forest by fire, both accidental and incendiary. Omi
province, whose woodland was particularly vulnerable due to cen-
turies of overuse, was the scene of much fighting. Conflagrations
touched off by armies in the field repeatedly ravaged it, exacerbat-
ing erosion and desolation and making later repair of Omi all the
more imperative and difficult. 7
The timber needs of daimyo kept growing, and deforestation of
accessible areas forced them to seize more woodland and strengthen
control of the timber and bamboo stands they already held. They
valued bamboo not only for its products but also for its cover. The
density and toughness of bamboo groves made them excellent de-
fensive barriers against attacking armies. They could stymie cavalry
and slow foot soldiers to a tortuous walk, during which they were
vulnerable to archers and musketeers and hindered in their re-
sponse. Standing timber was less valuable for defense but more
generally useful for construction. And wood was indispensable for
fuel.
During the last decades of the sixteenth century many daimyo
strengthened their control of woodland. Some measures were de-
signed merely to extract income, but others sought to protect scarce
resources or cope with environmental damage. Some lords assigned
officials the title of forest warden (sanrin bugyo, yama bugyo, or
yamamori) and ordered them to assure that timber and bamboo
groves were properly maintained. Some enacted regulations to con-

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Timber Depletion, 1570-1670 55

trol forest use. Date Masamune of Sendai, whose domain was not
richly forested, required vassals to obtain official permission before
cutting bamboo, even on land assigned to them. Sendai farmers
were forbidden to cut trees, even around their homesteads, save
with official permission. Masamune's predecessor had tried to pre-
serve forests by delineating boundaries and forbidding the opening
of more woodland to tillage; his success is unclear.8
The Hqjo at Odawara were particularly active in managing
their forest land. Lumbering had been pursued on Izu peninsula
from 1208 to build the shogunal headquarters at Kamakura, across
Sagami bay, and within decades the easily extracted timber was
gone. Nevertheless, exploitation continued during succeeding cen-
turies, and when the Hojo gained control of Izu, they inherited
well-used woodland. During the 15505 Hqjo forbade unauthorized
cutting of designated bamboo groves. He also appointed a timber
magistrate (hinoki bugyo), whose task was to assure that fellers paid
all required taxes and did not abuse the forest. In addition, the
magistrate had to report the number of trees felled annually. In 1564
Hqjo placed Mount Amagi, the heart of Izu's forests, under direct
administrative control, forbidding all but authorized cutting of sugi
and hinoki. To prevent abuse by authorized loggers, moreover, he
required all lumber felled on government order to be properly
marked by a supervising official.9
Other lords also attempted to control forest use. During the
15605 and 15705 Takeda Shingen and his successor, the dominant
lords in mountainous Kai province in central Honshu, forbade tree
cutting on temple and shrine lands and in areas of tall timber that
he designated "lord's forest" (ohayashi) .10 Not far away, in Shinano,
the daimyo of Takato han surveyed his domain in 1590, designated
six areas of high-quality timber as reserved stands (otateyama), and
closed them to entry. In following decades the number of Takato's
forest reserves expanded.11 Elsewhere, the Imagawa of Suruga and
Totomi, the Rokkaku in Omi, the Mori in Bingo and Bitchu farther
west, and the Chosokabe of Tosa on Shikoku all took measures to
preserve bamboo and timber supplies.12
Daimyo fostered protection forests as well as timber stands, seek-
ing thereby to prevent erosion and riverine damage. They discour-
aged slash-and-burn cultivation, ordered trees planted, constructed

dikes, and forbade cutting on levees and riverbanks. At least one

enterprising lord ordered shrines built atop important dikes to
encourage people to frequent the areas, thereby keeping the soil
packed down, while assuring that newly planted trees would not be
neglected or treated irreverently.13 The lord of Sendai han, seeking to
stabilize shorelines and safeguard productive land, ordered black
pine (kuromatsu) and other trees planted along coasts endangered by
tidal erosion.14
In sum, by 1590 many daimyo were already adopting policies of
woodland management that presaged the negative regimen. What-
ever their purposes, and they normally were pragmatic and im-
mediate, they were setting precedents that would later gain na-
tionwide application as first steps in a long-term effort to rebuild a
squandered forest inheritance.

Hideyoshi and the Onset of National

Forest Exploitation

Toyotomi Hideyoshi was the first person in Japanese history able to

demand and receive massive contributions of timber from all parts
of the country. Following the murder of his lord, Oda Nobunaga, in
1582, Hideyoshi seized the Oda domain in central Japan and
shortly turned to subjugating rival forces. By decade's end he held
suzerain power west of the Hakone mountain barrier, and by 1592
he dominated the entire realm.
Hideyoshi's interest in monumental construction grew with his
spreading dominion. His first great project was Osaka castle, which
he erected during 1582-83. From the late eighties until his death in
1598 he promoted a vast array of other works. To cite some famous
instances, he built two armadas of troop transports for the conquest
of Korea and China and a castle in western Kyushu to serve as
headquarters for the venture. He erected an immense bastion at
Fushimi just south of Kyoto. He promoted reconstruction of Kyoto
itself, building there the Jurakutei, a mansion of unparalleled opu-
lence, and a huge temple, the H5kqji, whose Buddha hall (daibutsu-
deri) was to house a giant i6o-foot Buddha image. The hall mea-
sured some 270 by 168 feet in area and 200 feet in height, exceeding
the Todaiji in Nara. He supported reconstruction of the Tendai

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Timber Depletion, 1570-1670 57

temple community on Mount Hiei and the Shingon temple com-

plex at Mount Koya south of Nara. And he lavished wealth on
numerous other temples and shrines to help them rebuild.15
These projects required immense quantities of wood. Moreover,
much was luxury construction, for which Hideyoshi demanded the
highest grades of timber. As a practical matter, that meant loggers
must cut new stands in previously untouched forests. They could
clear-cut, however, because there was plenty of demand for any
leftover lumber.
Hideyoshi obtained the material he wanted by requisitioning it
from all parts of the realm. He commandeered what he could from
surviving nearby forests, most notably those of Yoshino, but they
offered nothing compared to what he needed, so he despatched
officials elsewhere to find more.16 Timber poured into the Kinai re-
gion from throughout Japan, most notably from Kumano in Kii;
from Hida, Mino, and Suruga to the east; from the provinces west
of Kyoto; from deep in the mountains of Tosa; from Hyuga in
Kyushu; and from Akita in the far north.17
The daimyo who furnished timber in response to Hideyoshi's
direct demands also contributed special pieces as gifts, sometimes at
tremendous expense. For example, in 1586, when Hideyoshi com-
menced work on the Hokoji, Tokugawa leyasu, then daimyo of the
Tokai area, undertook to provide the ridgepole, one of the largest
and most esteemed timbers in a temple. His loggers finally found a
tree of sufficient size and quality growing at the foot of Mount Fuji.
They felled it, cut it to form a timber exceeding eighty feet in
length, and carefully worked it downriver to Suruga bay, from
where crewmen hauled it by ship around to Osaka and up the Yodo
river to Kyoto. The project required three months of effort, fifty
thousand man-days of corvee labor, and 1,000 ryo'm gold. An earth-
quake destroyed the temple before completion, and when Hide-
yoshi's heir started rebuilding it in 1608, he hunted three years
before finding an acceptable ridgepole in south Kyushu, for which
he paid 90 kan of silver, or about 1,440 ryo.18
Because Hideyoshi was highly selective, his levies on daimyo
varied with the resources and accessibility of an area. Thus, the fine
stands of Mount Shiraga in Tosa yielded masts for his China fleet
and hinoki pillars and hiwada roofing for the Hokoji. Noneyama

near the southeast tip of Tosa provided material for thin ceiling
sheets (usuita).19
He accepted smaller pieces from the Tenryu river valley. For
years the valley had yielded wood for local temple and shrine con-
struction, 20 but it still held exceptionally fine stands of untouched
timber, particularly sawara, a species considered excellent for
roofing because of its resistance to rot. The river itself was so badly
cluttered with boulders, lodged tree trunks, and sandbars, however,
that it could float only small pieces of wood. Consequently, despite
the size and quality of Tenryu timber, when Hideyoshi ordered his
daimyo there to bring lumber to Fushimi during the 15905, he
instructed them to reduce it to small pieces for use as shingles
(kawaragi), planking (itago), and roofing or cooperage material
(kureki). These were floated down to Kakezuka, loaded on ships,
and sent round to Osaka and upriver to Fushimi.21
From Akita Sanesue, his vassal at Kubota castle in northeast
Japan, Hideyoshi requisitioned sugi, the region's best timber, for
use in Fushimi castle and in the boats handling shipping on the
Yodo river. Good stands of sugi still lined branches of the Yoneshiro
river, which was more passable than the Tenryu, so Hideyoshi re-
quired substantially larger pieces. He could not afford to ship much
waste, however, because the lumber had to be brought to Kyoto via
the Sea of Japan, overland from Tsuruga to Lake Biwa, by boat the
length of the lake, and then as rafts down the Seta-Uji river to the
city—a trip that was long and required much labor. Accordingly,
he instructed Akita to provide high-grade sugi cut to specified di-
mensions. After the pieces reached Kyoto, his carpenters could cut
them with a minimum of waste to make ships' planking of standard
measure and castle floor, wall, and roof planking that was both dur-
able and attractive.22
Nationwide forest exploitation could not be achieved by whim
alone, and Hideyoshi brought to the task the attentiveness that
characterized his rule as a whole. His levies on Akita Sanesue, given
below, reveal the gradual systematization of his timber-gathering
policy.23 At first he called for arbitrary and imprecise amounts of
wood. After four years, however, he began requiring Akita to fur-
nish fixed quantities of timber proportional to the assessed valuation
(kokudaka) of his domain, the wood being regarded as one form of a
vassal's regular military obligation (gun'yaku).

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Timber Depletion, 1570-1670 59

Year Quantity (sugi) Purpose Dimensions

1593 One boatload China fleet Unclear
J594 Thirty boatloads Yodo river boats Unclear
1595 820 ken (linear) Fushimi castle Pieces 6| to 1 7
long
1596 225 ken (cubic) Fushimi castle Pieces 23 x 4 ,
full width
1597 350 ken (cubic) Fushimi castle Pieces 1 4 x 5 ,
full width
1598 350 ken (cubic) Fushimi castle Pieces 14 x 5",
full width
1599 350 ken (cubic) Fushimi castle Pieces 14 x 5",
full width

The crude requirements of the first two years gave way in 1595 to
an imprecise linear measure, in which one ken was to mean one
piece of lumber at least six and a half feet (six shaku six sun) long. In
filling that order, Akita provided 750 pieces of timber, of which
some 70 were over sixteen feet long, so that he double-counted
them, thus reaching his 820 ken total. Most pieces were about seven
to nine feet long, eighteen to twenty-one inches wide, and five
inches thick. Certainly he had not tried to shortchange his lord
and customer.
A year later Hideyoshi refined his measure, employing a primi-
tive form of cubic ken that revealed his appreciation of the difficulties
inherent in the logger's art. Woodsmen were to cut pieces to a des-
ignated length and thickness (twenty-three feet by four inches) and
a "full width," which probably meant whatever the tree would
yield. "Full width" pieces were to average eighteen inches (one
shaku six sun) wide, so that four of them laid side by side would yield
a total width of over six feet.24 This six-foot width by the specified
length and thickness constituted one ken. In his first use of that new
measure, Hideyoshi called for very long pieces, but in his last three
annual orders he specified a greater number of shorter, thicker
pieces.
As his systematizing suggests, Hideyoshi, like other lords, rec-
ognized the importance of timber for his plans. Although he com-

mandeered most of his wood from daimyo, he also brought major

forests under direct control. In 1586, when commencing work on
the Hokoji, he took charge of the Yoshino region south of Nara, or-
dering mountain villages there to make regular tax payments (unjo)
in lumber. Nine years later, when erecting Fushimi castle, he des-
patched an intendant (daikari) to survey Yoshino, supervise logging,
and assure that his timber levies were fulfilled. It appears that he
tightened control that year because the construction boom had in-
duced merchant lumbermen to buy and ship to the public market
in Osaka sugi and hinoki timber that he wanted for his own projects.25
A richer prize than Yoshino was the upper reaches of the Kiso
river in Shinano and the mountain rim of eastern Mino. In its de-
scent through Shinano the Kiso follows a narrow valley containing
almost no sedimentary plains or agricultural land. In 1590 the
valley contained twenty-eight small villages that survived through
upland dry field and forest production. That year Hideyoshi
claimed the area, despatched a trusted vassal to supervise it, and
abolished river toll stations at which previous lords had taxed
village timber production. In their place he instructed the villages
to produce for his use 4,350 horse loads of dot (short pieces of wood
for shingles) and 268,000 pieces of kureki (larger split pieces).26 On
the nearby Nagara river he retained existing toll stations but cut
the tax from as much as one piece in three to a flat rate of one in
sixteen. He offset the reduction by ordering an increase in total
output. 27
To recapitulate, during his brief span as national hegemon,
Hideyoshi launched a series of construction projects that consumed
immense amounts of wood. He established precedents for collecting
timber from all over Japan and improved the administration of
such provisioning. He brought under direct control some of the
most valuable and famous forests in Japan, including those of
Yoshino and Kiso, and he placed minor lords loyal to himself in
other valuable forest areas, notably the Tenryu river valley and
Akita. His successors would not disregard these precedents.

Ieya.su's National Forest Exploitation

Tokugawa leyasu was less an innovator than an implementer. His
approach to forest control and exploitation was similar to Hide-

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Timber Depletion, 1570-1670 61

yoshi's. Like his predecessor, he built energetically, called on daimyo

to furnish large quantities of wood and other resources, and
brought valuable forests under direct control to assure himself en-
during sources of high-quality construction timber.
In one important way, however, leyasu went beyond Hideyoshi.
He strove to improve transportation, the single most costly element
in lumbering. Loggers found sufficient accessible timber to meet
Hideyoshi's demands, but by leyasu's day they evidently were cut-
ting far enough into the mountains so that improving transporta-
tion seemed worth the effort.
Some timber went out on horseback. The sticks were small, how-
ever, mostly board stock (itago) or split pieces for use as roofing and
cooperage (kawaragi, doi, kureki). For projects in Edo, leyasu had
daimyo in northern Shinano bring pieces overland via the Naka-
sendo to Takasaki, from where they were rafted down the Tone
river to the city. The overland route from Kiso to Lake Biwa was
more important historically. First used during the ancient preda-
tion and extensively thereafter, it was still employed in Hideyoshi's
day because many considered the sea route around Kii peninsula
too treacherous.28
Such land transport required vast amounts of corvee labor and
horsepower, and in any case, it could not accommodate large
timbers because intercity wheeled vehicles were prohibited. Heavy
pieces had to go by river or sea, and during leyasu's years major
improvements in water transport facilitated timber shipping. The
official merchant (goyo sfionin) Suminokura Ryoi and his son Yoichi
were key agents in leyasu's river-improvement efforts. They cleared
the Oi in Tanba and the Fuji and Tenryu rivers in the T5kai re-
gion, making them passable for log rafts and other craft. Yoichi
played a prominent role in leyasu's logging on the Kiso and there
too may have pursued riparian repair.29 Villagers, when they bene-
fited enough from lumber marketing to undertake the work, also
carried out local river-improvement projects.30
leyasu also gave attention to other segments of the transport
system. With his encouragement Suminokura and other lumber-
men built ships that coasted the length of Japan, safely navigating
such dangerous headlands as those of the Kii and Boso peninsulas.
In consequence, whereas Hideyoshi brought lumber from Akita to
Tsuruga and then overland to Biwa and the Kinai, from leyasu's

time the route looped westward by sea, reaching the Kinai via
Shimonoseki strait. And while Kiso lumber had been hauled over-
land by Hideyoshi, in leyasu's day it began circling the Kii pen-
insula.31 At the point of destination, also, leyasu made significant
improvements. Most notably, in 1611 he had Suminokura dig a
new river, the twelve-kilometer Takase, on the east side of Kyoto to
facilitate construction of a new imperial palace.32
leyasu made lavish use of the wood he received. His three
greatest monuments were the castles at Edo, Sunpu, and Nagoya,
but he has also been credited with castles at Hikone and Zeze in
Omi, Sasayama and Kameyama in Tanba, Nijo in Kyoto, and
Takada in Echigo.33 Of his many nonmilitary monuments, the most
noteworthy perhaps were situated in Kyoto, where he restored
some of the imperial court's ancient splendor by erecting a new
palace and mansions for the nobility, including the architecturally
distinguished Katsura Detached Palace (Katsura rikyu). He also
fostered the construction of many temples, shrines, and other build-
ings. In Edo he built a family temple, the great Zojoji, which sur-
vived until 1944. Near his castle at Sunpu, he built two notable but
short-lived residences.34
leyasu's monumental construction, like Hideyoshi's, consumed
vast quantities of high-quality lumber. Tokoro Mitsuo has calcu-
lated that Nagoya castle contained about two hundred thousand
koku of lumber (yozai) and Chiyoda castle in Edo over five hundred
thousand koku.35 Sunpu castle probably required at least as much
as Nagoya because a few months after it was built, it burned and
was promptly reconstructed. Assuming that the three consumed
about one million koku, or 280,000 cubic meters, of lumber, which
would require about 1,100,000 cubic meters of stumpage (tachiki),
and assuming that well-stocked conifer stands averaged 400 cubic
meters of stumpage per hectare of forest, these three castles alone
would have consumed about 2,750 hectares (6,800 acres) of prime
forest or many times that area of natural woodland.
Much of this lumber came from han forests. In 1606, for example,
leyasu requisitioned shingling wood (kawaragi) from lords in
Shinano. Between spring and year's end seven daimyo produced
43,000 pieces and sent them overland by horse. The task required
490 people working a total of 144,550 days for pay totaling 722,750
fuchimai (130,095 liters of rice).36 The following year the lord of

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Timber Depletion, I$jo-i6jo 63

Tosa sent ten thousand logs to Sunpu, and in 1608, when the fire-
wasted castle was rebuilt, he provided another twelve hundred.37
Like Hideyoshi, moreover, leyasu brought valuable fbrestland
under direct control. Within weeks of his military victory in 1600,
he took over Hideyoshi's lands in Yoshino and the Kiso valley.
Shortly thereafter he added most of the Tenryu watershed, which
was nearer Edo and still largely uncut. He secured that area by
evicting all but two of the daimyo whom Hideyoshi had installed
there a decade earlier. One survivor remained at lida, where his han
consisted almost entirely of valley bottom. The other, at Takato,
was situated on a branch of the upper Tenryu in one of the least
accessible parts of the watershed.38 The most desirable portions of
Tenryu woodland thus came into leyasu's hands. Between 1604
and 1613, intendants supervising the area removed some 3,060,000
split pieces (kureki), 48,600 pieces of board stock (itago), and 270
heavier timbers one ken (seven feet) long, mostly for use in Edo and
Sunpu. During leyasu's final years he was obtaining the equivalent
of about one million split pieces of sawara from the Tenryu valley
annually, a scale of provisioning made possible by Suminokura's
riparian work.39
During those years, the Kiso valley was generating even more
government timber (goyoki). Tokoro has estimated that its produc-
tion fluctuated between one million and two million koku annually.40
Assuming that this figure is for genboku, or timber prepared for raft-
ing, it indicates logging at a rate equivalent to clear-cutting 1,500
to 3,000 hectares of well-stocked conifer forest each year, or har-
vesting less intensively a much larger area of natural woodland.41
In sum, following the precedents of Hideyoshi's day, leyasu
accelerated the consumption of Japan's forests. Daimyo continued
to be key providers of lumber, but leyasu also took over large areas
of high-quality timber and improved access thereto, evidently to
assure his regime sources of wood sufficient to maintain the mon-
uments he was building.

Forest Use by Other Rulers After 1590

During the decades when Hideyoshi and leyasu were making in-
roads on woodland, daimyo were doing their share to consume
nature's largesse. Deforestation of their domains sprang in part

from the daimyo's entanglement in the schemes of central power

holders. That entanglement became routinized in the sankin kotai
("alternate attendance") system of hostages, which required each
daimyo to maintain his wife and heir in a properly elegant mansion
adjacent to Chiyoda castle. Lords tended to fulfill the requirement
lavishly in arrant displays of glory, and by the late 16308 they all
had homes of appropriate splendor in Edo, commonly maintaining
two or three residences there, as well as warehouses.42
In addition, all han consumed immense amounts of wood domes-
tically. In the early 15905, for example, lords built large bastions at
Kanazawa on the Sea of Japan and Aizu-Wakamatsu in the moun-
tains north of Edo. In the late 15905 and i6oos, lords in Sendai,
Kumamoto, and Hagi all erected great castles.43 Scores of others
built smaller bastions or enlarged major ones already standing at
such locations as K5chi, Hiroshima, and Kagoshima. Daimyo also
celebrated their glory in other ways, building castle towns and con-
structing temples, shrines, mansions, and other monumental works.
The lord of Tsugaru built Hirosaki castle in 1610, and that enter-
prise, together with construction of the adjoining town, stripped the
nearby mountains Ishikawa and Kuratate. 44
Records of Matsumoto han illustrate local timber consumption
more fully. 45 Little of the han's timber flowed into national markets
despite its location midway between Kyoto and Edo. As the crow
flies, the castle was only 245 kilometers from Kyoto and 170 from
Edo, but crows rarely carry timber. Matsumoto is encircled by
mountains and situated on the Shinano river, which flows north-
ward, almost directly away from Kyoto, traveling some 285 kilome-
ters before emptying into the Sea of Japan at Niigata. Furthermore,
in crossing a geological fault on the Shinano-Echigo border, the
river thunders down falls and rapids of such harshness that pieces of
wood survive the passage very poorly. In consequence, the Shinano
watershed was effectively closed to the national timber market, and
save for small goods carried overland, not much Matsumoto lumber
entered it. Because of that geographical constraint, deforestation in
Matsumoto can be attributed primarily to local consumption.
The Shinano river valley had been settled for hundreds of years
before the late sixteenth century, and much lowland was already in
tillage. Major temples such as Zenkqji at Nagano long antedated
the Edo period, and their construction may well have consumed the

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Timber Depletion, i^o-i6~jo 65

best stands of building timber. Sustained pressure on high forest,

however, dates from castle-building efforts that began in the 15705
and dotted the valley with small bastions by 1600. By then the hills
nearest Matsumoto, those immediately to the east, already lacked
timber suitable for castle construction, so the daimyo obtained most
of his timber from stands to the west, bringing pieces down the
Azusa and Takase rivers to the Shinano and then hauling them up-
stream to the construction site.
Tokoro Mitsuo reports that construction of the relatively small
central keep of Matsumoto castle in the 15905 required 2,514 koku
of processed lumber (yozai), which would have necessitated some
10,000 koku of stumpage (tachiki). Adding an estimate of lumber to
build other parts of the castle—parapets, gate houses, barracks,
and other buildings—he derives a total lumber volume that would
have required 30,000 koku of stumpage. Further, he calculates that
construction of some twelve hundred dwellings in the town of Ma-
tsumoto consumed another 72,000 koku ofyozai by 1600. Figuring in
requirements for other buildings and bridges, as well as scaffolding
and other timber needs of the construction process itself, he con-
cludes that at least 200,000 koku of semiprocessed timber (or 400,000
koku of stumpage) were required to build the castle and town. And
that amount was enough, he observes, to denude the surrounding
mountains. 46
Daimyo thus consumed great quantities of construction timber in
establishing their regimes. After the towns, cities, and monuments
were built, moreover, reconstruction following fire repeatedly took
great amounts of lumber. Furthermore, lords sold wood to generate
government income. Records from Tosa illustrate that practice.
The fine wood of Tosa drew praise from aristocrats at court as
early as the thirteenth century. Later both Hideyoshi and leyasu
requisitioned timber from Tosa, and the daimyo, Yamanouchi,
marketed wood for income. In 1601 he instructed a merchant then
serving him as quartermaster (goyo shonin) to forward timber, bam-
boo, rice, and other bulk goods to his storage and garrison facilities
in Osaka and Fushimi. By 1609 Yamanouchi was logging Mount
Kuroson in the far southwest corner of his domain and selling the
timber to a Kyoto merchant. After 1615 Tosa enlarged its pro-
cessing facilities at Osaka and dredged a canal to bring timber-
laden vessels directly to its warehouse and timber storage. Some

lumber was stored for han use; some was marketed. In 1621 the han
faced a financial crisis and arranged to substitute timber for its
customary money gifts to the bakufu (shogunate). It also raised emer-
gency income that year by marketing accumulated supplies of
lumber. Yamanouchi ordered his officials to sell the wood or turn it
over to a moneylender, explaining that he planned no construction
work for the next year or two and the lumber would deteriorate and
lose value if not sold soon. Pieces earmarked for the bakufu, how-
ever, were not to be released.47
Still strapped for funds a year later, Yamanouchi negotiated a
three-year debt moratorium and despatched officials to Mount
Shiraga to get out more good lumber for sale. He kept his logging
costs down by ordering a unit of 100 foot soldiers (teppo ashigaru) to
provide the labor. The five- to six-foot logs that they cut and floated
down the Yoshino river went by ship to the han lumberyard at
Shiragacho in Osaka. There Yamanouchi sold them for enough
money to pay off the han debt and put cash in his treasury.48
In 1624 Yamanouchi ordered a canal dug at Kochi, his castle
town, to aid in the anchoring, unloading, regulating, and taxing of
vessels carrying lumber, bamboo, and firewood. Three years of
work by K5chi residents completed the task, and then Yamanouchi
allocated lots along the canal to local merchants. He issued regula-
tions for the new merchant area, and it became known as Zaimoku-
ch5, or "Lumber Neighborhood," a name given to lumberyard
areas in many towns and cities.49 In following decades Tosa vigor-
ously harvested lumber for use in K5chi, for presentation to the
bakufu, and for sale by the han. Paper and lacquer also became
major market products,50 gaining importance as logging changed
forest composition, enlarging the acreage of paper mulberry (kozo)
and lacquer (urushi) trees. The great forests of Tosa were thus a
valuable asset to the han during the seventeenth century, helping
to sustain a treasury that, like all daimyo treasuries, faced chronic
shortages of income.
After leyasu's death monumental construction slowed sharply.
But it did not stop. Daimyo continued to build, mostly replacing
structures that had rotted or been destroyed. At the center, leyasu's
successors, Hidetada and his son, lemitsu, kept on building. They
expanded Chiyoda castle and rebuilt Osaka castle after its destruc-
tion by fire and fighting in 1615. Their most famous creation was

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Timber Depletion, 7570-7670 67

the T5shogu, a shrine complex at Nikko in the mountains north of

Edo that they built to honor the Tokugawa founder. Numerous
smaller shrines in leyasu's honor were erected elsewhere. Even
modest projects such as those consumed substantial quantities of
high-grade lumber. Thus in 1634, when lemitsu returned to Edo
from a grand progress to Kyoto, he ordered that a shrine, the
Asamajm/a, be erected at Sunpu, the site of leyasu's childhood, re-
tirement and death. To build it, workmen logged the Oi river on
the TStomi-Suruga border. They rafted some sixty thousand pieces
of kino ki, tsuki, kashiwa, and miscellaneous other kinds of wood down
to the sea, eastward along the coast to the town of Shimizu and then
upriver to the construction site at Sunpu.51
Shipbuilding also consumed timber. Hideyoshi built his large
oceangoing fleets for the conquest of China, and after he died leyasu
promoted foreign trade. At his behest shipwrights built seaworthy
junks (measuring 120 feet stem to stern and 45 feet at the beam)
capable of carrying nearly four hundred people.52 Hidetada and
lemitsu restricted and finally halted foreign trade in Japanese bot-
toms, but the coasting trade flourished, requiring constant produc-
tion of smaller vessels. At the port of Shimoda alone, which furnished
ships for use in Nagoya-to-Edo trade, fifty wrights built and repaired
vessels during the 16208, and as many as sixty-three worked there in
later years.53
After leyasu's death, however, the greatest demand for building
timber derived from neither shipwrights nor creators of monu-
ments. Rather, it came from a diverse urban public whose houses,
mansions, and places of business were repeatedly destroyed by fire.
To note the case of Edo briefly, "the flowers of Edo," as people
called the terrifyingly beautiful urban conflagrations, repeatedly
ravaged the city, sustaining almost ceaseless reconstruction. By one
calculation major fires, meaning fires laying waste to at least ten
blocks, occurred ninety-three times between 1601 and 1866, aver-
aging one every two years and nine months. Uncountable others
destroyed smaller areas.54 The first of these major fires erupted near
year's end in 1601, when Edo was still a modest castle town of five
thousand houses. Driven by brisk winds and fed by the thatch roofs
of densely packed buildings, it swept through the entire town,
within hours undoing a decade of work. If we assume that most of
the five thousand houses burned, then at 60 koku of lumber per

house (the figure Tokoro used for Matsumoto), the loss was 300,000
koku of yozai or some 1,200,000 koku (333,600 cubic meters) of
stumpage.
leyasu's officials promptly set people to work rebuilding the
town. Thatch roofs were forbidden and wood shingles (itabuki] re-
quired in their stead.56 A year later, in early 1603, leyasu took the
title of shogun and began transforming his small castle town into
a proper headquarters for a hegemonial regime. In subsequent
decades the town grew into a vast, intensely crowded, extremely
fire-prone city.
Of Edo's many conflagrations the two worst occurred in 1657
and 1772, each consuming over half the city. The Meireki fire of
1657 was especially notorious. Starting in a temple in the Hong5
district north of Surugadai shortly after New Year's, it rapidly spread
in all directions. Before dying down three days later, it had consumed
the major buildings of Chiyoda castle, 500 daimyo mansions—
meaning almost all of them—779 residences of lesser shogunal re-
tainers (hatamoto], 350 temples and shrines, and 400 blocks in the
concentrated plebian sections of town. It killed about 100,000
people, nearly as many as the earthquake of 1923 and the great
firebomb raid of I945.58 And it dealt a severe blow to the forests of
Japan. Assuming that before the fire Edo had a population of
150,000 commoners living in thirty thousand small houses that
averaged twenty-four by thirty feet, the reconstruction of half their
houses alone would have required some 3,600,000 koku (1,000,800
cubic meters) of stumpage, which might have constituted twenty-five
hundred hectares of prime forest. The rest of the city—commercial
establishments, bridges, wharves, temples and shrines, barracks and
domiciles of minor samurai, mansions and warehouses of the lordly,
and the great castle itself—would have consumed several times as
much lumber. And since few prime forests were still extant in the
16508, the reconstruction of Edo meant in fact that trees were con-
sumed from hundreds of thousands of hectares all over Japan.

Evidences of Exhaustion: The End of an Era

Japan did not run out of fine timber the way a rocket runs out of
fuel, suddenly and completely. The forests gave out piecemeal,
stand by stand, tree by tree. Dense conifer stands might be clear-

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Timber Depletion, 7570-7670 69

cut, but for most areas of mixed forest loggers would, stereotypi-
cally, initially take the best of desired species, whether sugi, hinoki,
sawara, kusunoki, or keyaki. Later they would rework the area, taking
individual trees or groves they had bypassed earlier. Later yet they
would cut again, taking younger and poorer trees and trees of less
desired species. This bit by bit despoliation occurred in some forests
or some sections of forest long before it did in others and elicited
responses accordingly. Thus we find the Hojo of Odawara, whose
woodland had been subject to harvesting ever since the Kamakura
period, taking protective measures as early as the 15508, whereas
some han did little for another century or more.
Nevertheless, by the time the early modern predation ran its
course in the i66os, a nationwide lumber marketing industry was
obtaining supplies from wherever they could be found.57 In doing
so, it erased most geographical variations in the timing of forest de-
pletion. By then human demand had outraced nature's capacity to
restock forests throughout the islands south of Ezo (Hokkaido), and
thereafter responses to forest exhaustion were everywhere similar in
timing and character.

The Geography of Forest Exploitation

Identifying with any degree of precision what woodland was logged
at what date is currently impossible because records are spotty or
yet to be studied. Nevertheless, in some areas benchmarks in the
progress of deforestation can be identified. In Akita, for example,
most of Hideyoshi's sugi came from slopes overlooking southern
branches of the middle Yoneshiro river and selected branches of the
lower and middle Omono.58 The main valleys of the two streams
had been cut previously; deeper forks upstream were logged in sub-
sequent decades. In the Tenryu valley, which we examine at more
length below, loggers were still working rich stands in northern
Totomi during Hideyoshi's day. By leyasu's time T5t5mi was ex-
hausted, and cutting had moved northward into southern Shinano,
the advance expedited by Suminokura's riparian work. The great
stands of TSyama valley went down, along with timber in the
Tenryu valley proper and other forks as far north as the Achi,
which loops northwestward around lida.59 In following decades
lumbermen pushed into the Tenryu's remaining branches. To the

west, along the Kiso, Hideyoshi's lumber had come from forests on
the Mino-Shinano border near Nakatsu. By the 16203 loggers had
ascended the Kiso to its most richly endowed branch, the Otaki,
which drains 3,o63-meter-high Mount Ontake. By the i66os they
had consumed all accessible stands in the Kiso watershed.80
In other bakufu lands, and in daimyo domains as well, logging
was pursued relentlessly. By the late seventeenth century harvesting
of natural stands had consumed nearly all the valuable timber on
Japan's three main islands and was reaching into Ezo, prompting
Kumazawa Banzan, the noted Confucian scholar, to lament that
"eight out often mountains of the realm have been denuded." 61

Forest Depletion in Matsumoto

The seventeenth-century experience of Matsumoto han illustrates
some of the ways in which timber scarcity manifested itself.62 As
noted earlier, Matsumoto provided some roofing material for
leyasu but consumed most lumber in its own castle and town con-
struction. The daimyo initially obtained some timber as tax pay-
ments, specifying in tax levies on forested villages the quantities of
wood to be provided. As timber became scarce and more costly to
extract, however, villages substituted rice, soybeans, coins, silver, or
other goods, which they evidently could obtain more easily than
lumber. To offset those losses, the han resorted to logging with
corvee labor, supporting the work crews with per diem payments
(fuchimai}. The paid corvee system posed difficulties, however, be-
cause laborers had to be fed and paid as they worked, whereas in-
come from marketed lumber did not materialize until months later.
Lacking funds to capitalize logging projects, the han tried farming
its woodland, inviting merchants to log and sell the yield in return
for a specified contract fee (unjo).
Local merchants began contract logging in about 1617, and dur-
ing the i6aos large-scale lumber merchants from Edo and Osaka
also commenced participating. For about twenty years both local
and city merchants logged, but during the 16405 the latter dropped
out. They withdrew, it appears, because forests had become so de-
pleted that the increased cost of producing inferior lumber made
the work unprofitable. The last city merchant to participate was an
Edo man identified by his shop name as Norimonoya. He was still

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Timber Depletion, 7570-7670 71

involved, presumably, because, as his name indicates, he was buy-

ing long sapling and small pole stock of the type used in palanquins
(norimono), and these were still available even though large lumber-
producing trees were not.
The rapidly deteriorating state of Matsumoto's forests is sug-
gested not only by the changing pattern of logging but also by the
evolution of han forest management. As early as 1595, while castle
work was still in progress, the daimyo began designating exception-
ally fine individual trees as goyoki ("lord's tree"), which were not to
be touched except with government approval. A half century later,
in 1642, the han established forest preserves (ohayashi and tomeyama),
trying to conserve what timber remained by closing several moun-
tains around the city that previously had been open to public har-
vesting. In following decades Matsumoto set aside more and more
areas as preserves, imposed more elaborate restrictions, and estab-
lished patrols to assure that forests were not illegally entered.

Forest Depletion in the Tenryu Valley

Evidence of timber depletion shows up clearly in records of the
Tenryu river valley. Logging operations moved upstream, as men-
tioned earlier. At the same time, lumbermen substituted inferior
species as preferred stock became scarce. Sawara was the species of
choice for kureki, or split pieces, the major product of Tenryu wood-
land, and Tenryu kureki originally had been pure sawara. However,
by 1700 it included hinoki, kurobe, and karamatsu.63
The size of timber also changed. During leyasu's day the Tenryu
valley in southern Shinano had boasted many sawara six to seven
feet in circumference, and loggers found it easy to get out kureki
pieces six feet long by one foot in "three side" (sanbo) face measure.
A century later trees of that size were rarities found only in inac-
cessible canyons.64 As Tenryu woodland shrank and the size of
kureki declined, it became necessary to establish minimal dimen-
sions. The bakufu issued standards in 1649, but perhaps because
fellers continued to produce substandard pieces, it established a
second, smaller size of kureki in 1678. Matters continued to worsen,
and from about 1688 the bakufu began accepting kureki from trees
standing dead on the stump and from smaller trees that loggers split
into halves or quarters rather than the traditional "mikanwari"

sixths and eighths.65 In 1718 Edo reduced yet again the minimal
measurements for kureki to make smaller pieces acceptable.66 That
change helped extend the valley's productive life, no doubt, but
only by a few years, as is suggested by the statistics below for
lumber sent downstream between 1671 and I782. 67

Pieces Shipped Raft Loads

Period (annual ave.) (annual ave.) Sticks per Raft
1671-1688 l6
5»57 2 4,653 35-6
1688-1715 334.640 2,823 118.5
I7I6-I735 23^989 !>3°5 177.8
1736-1763 42,061 426 98.7
1768-1782 8,954 128 69-9

The greater number of sticks per raft during 1716—35 reflects the
declining size of timber. The decreased amounts thereafter may in-
dicate a decision to use smaller rafts, perhaps to preserve employ-
ment for raftsmen who had fewer sticks to transport or perhaps
because raft runs were starting farther upstream.68
Other evidence from the Tenryu valley reveals the same trends.
In 1591 villagers in Ina district of south Shinano paid their taxes to
Hideyoshi's vassals in pieces of kureki, but by 1645 on^Y 29 of 203
villages had sawara of sufficient size to produce the wood. Hillsides in
most of the others had been reduced to grass, brush, and scattered
weed trees.69 The bakufu, which had to keep roofs over the heads of
its thousands of vassal families, tried to sustain kureki production
by arranging tax obligations in its Tenryu mountain villages to
encourage lumbering. In essence it defined the obligation so that
villagers could log for pay and use kureki to write off tax burdens
formally denominated in rice. By the eighteenth century, however,
difficulty in finding acceptable timber made the labor cost of those
arrangements punitive to villagers. For several years they peti-
tioned to use substitutes for the wood requirement, and finally in
1735 the bakufu allowed them to replace kureki with money. A few
years later Edo attempted to revive lumber payments, but villagers
resisted, and eventually the bakufu abandoned its effort. 70
As the seventeenth century advanced, timber scarcity in Ina
evolved into a more general scarcity of woodland. Early in the cen-

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Timber Depletion, 7570-7670 73

tury villagers had exploited forest freely, using it primarily for fuel,
fodder, and fertilizer. As logging converted hillsides from high
forest to brushland, villagers opened more acres to cultivation, with
the enlarged areas of brushwood providing sufficient fertilizer and
fodder material to sustain the expanded agricultural operations. By
the i66os, however, enough acreage had been opened to tillage so
that brushland was largely restricted to the more acute mountain
slopes. Moreover, villages were increasingly preserving their own
supplies of brush by restricting the use rights of outsiders. By then,
also, government was restricting access to much mountain wood-
land in an effort to protect seedling timber growth. The press of
arable from below and political restraints from above created a
scarcity of fertilizer-providing brushland, which led to a slowing
and eventual cessation of land opening by the end of the century,
despite sporadic government efforts at further reclamation.71
The story is similar in Takato han, the one daimyo domain that
leyasu left in possession of substantial Tenryu valley forest. There
the woods gave out between 1690 and 1730, and despite the substi-
tution of inferior species, a reduction in size requirements, and
adjustments in the arrangements for land use and control, by mid-
century the han was unable to exploit its woodland.72
A final, indirect expression of the growing scarcity of lumber in
the Tenryu valley was revealed in attempts to reduce the loss of
lumber en route from mountain to mansion, most notably by the
adoption of rafting techniques.73 Initially, when timber was plenti-
ful, laborers dropped pieces individually into the river, letting them
float down to a landing to be snared by an arresting cable or hooked
by men standing in the water. Such free floating was the least labor-
intensive way to move wood down the river, and Hideyoshi and
leyasu both used it. On the Tenryu, loggers originally dropped
pieces ofbakufu kureki into the river one at a time as rapidly as fellers
got them out, and the pieces floated to a government storage site in
Totomi. Losses were extensive, however, because wood got stranded,
stolen en route, and washed out to sea during freshets. In the last
month of 1608, for example, some 12,500 of 101,000 pieces were lost
on the river.74
After a few years the bakufu abandoned the free float in favor of
periodic, carefully supervised floats. In that method the yield from
about three years worth of cutting accumulated at upriver sites,

and during the winter, when streamflow was low and farmers were
not using water for irrigation, workmen tossed all the sticks in
together, and they drifted downstream en masse. Villagers manning
riverbanks under the watchful eyes of local officials kept them mov-
ing along to the storage site. There workmen snared and stacked
them pending distribution orders from Edo. These periodic mass
floats reduced river losses and complications, but holding pieces up-
river and then in storage for several years resulted in severe losses
from rot. Consequently, the bakufu later discontinued periodic mass
floats, replacing them with rafts. Because kureki pieces were small,
rafts were fragile and their construction a complex, laborious task.
Given the scarcity of lumber, however, Edo evidently found the
costs acceptable, and rafts prevailed on the Tenryu for the rest of
the Edo period.75

Other Evidence of Overcutting

Records from Matsumoto and the Tenryu valley thus yield evi-
dence of declining timber stands in central Japan. Throughout the
country the same general pattern appeared. In the far north,
scarcity of timber prompted lumbermen in 1678 to make their first
forays into Ezo.76 By the i66os Akita leaders were wrestling with
the problems of timber and fuelwood scarcity.77 Tsugaru han faced
similar issues by century's end.78 At the other end of Japan, when
the Hosokawa family took over Higo han in 1633, the domain held
rich stands of timber that the daimyo promptly began felling and
selling for income. Production gradually declined, however, and
in the 17505 the han forbade all export of Higo wood. The prohi-
bition, though never fully effective, remained in force until the
18508, when forest revival again permitted selective sale to other
domains.79
On Shikoku, loggers similarly decimated the timber stands of
Tosa.80 As noted above, Hideyoshi began stripping the region's
great old-growth forests, and Yamanouchi subsequently logged
vigorously for income. By mid-century, timber was becoming
scarce, and the han began relying on other types of woodland
usufruct. Following the Meireki fire of 1657, which laid waste to
much of Edo, the bakufu appealed widely for wood to rebuild the
city. Yamanouchi's answer was: "The mountains of our domain are

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Timber Depletion, 7570-7670 75

exhausted; we have neither sugi nor hinoki. We are unable to pro-

vide good lumber as requested by the shogun."81
Doubtless, he was being less than candid, and Tosa did provide
Edo with considerable serviceable, if inelegant, lumber. A half cen-
tury later, however, in 1704, when the bakufu asked for six thousand
pieces of tsuga and five thousand of momi, Tosa was unable to meet
even that request. It had difficulty simply locating pieces of sugi wide
enough to make one thousand of the thin sheets used in rain doors
amado). A Tosa official responded to the bakufu request in writing:
"We no longer have any large trees, so there are no wide boards
available of the sort we have provided in the past. Henceforth,
please submit requests that take this situation into account."82
Figures on Tosa lumber contributions to Osaka also reveal that
deliveries dropped off sharply around 1670, thereafter staying at
roughly one-tenth of earlier levels.
In central Japan during the early decades of the seventeenth cen-
tury Owari han allowed private cutting of Kiso timber. Indeed, to
encourage lumbering, it permitted both Kiso villagers and the offi-
cial in charge of the valley to market specified quantities of tax-free
wood (shiraki) privately. By the i66os, however, the han found the
size of timber declining. During the 16705, with quality and sale
value continuing to drop, Owari started tightening control of pro-
duction. Finally, in 1708, in an attempt to rebuild hinoki stands and
preserve them for government use, the han prohibited all unofficial
cutting of that species. A year later the special tax-free cutting al-
lotment of villagers was halved, and the government substituted
money payments for the discontinued half. Thirty years later the
entire allotment of the official in charge was converted from lumber
to rice.83 The relative values of lumber, rice, and money evidently
had changed appreciably between 1600 and 1740.
One of the best indicators of forest exhaustion would be evidence
of escalating costs of lumber and fuel. Unfortunately, helpful statis-
tics are scarce, even though cost figures are numerous. One problem
is that given the unstable, regionally variable, trimetallic monetary
system, money values are difficult to correlate. Moreover, the great
variety of lumber types makes piece comparison nearly impossible.
Another reason for scarcity of usable figures is that over the cen-
turies fires destroyed many lumber merchant records, and others
disappeared because lumbering was such a risky enterprise that

lumbermen came and went with great rapidity and failed to preserve
their records. And finally, because lumbering was partly market
based and partly government controlled, the real costs of produc-
tion are not fully reflected in recorded market prices, and hence the
significance of existing statistics is difficult to establish.
To elaborate this last point, in the early seventeenth century
most logging was done on behalf of lords and was performed by
corvee labor or as a tax service. When someone hired villagers to
get out lumber for market, the cost of such lumber was four to six
times as high as that produced as tax goods.84 This situation en-
abled lords to market wood at great profit, or to depress the market
by undercutting entrepreneurial prices, should they wish to do so.
Later on, when timber became more difficult and costly to obtain
and governments found lumbering prohibitive to finance, mer-
chants handled more of the work and villagers could sell wood
directly to them. Under these changed circumstances, those govern-
ments that did continue to log often had to pay wages to villagers
who worked for them, whether employed as corvee or hired labor.
That reduced the cost differential, but even then government influ-
ence on lumber prices persisted because some governments paid
their village loggers by simply writing off specified village tax obli-
gations against the yield, a practice that constituted subsidized log-
ging and kept the final market price below real cost. Governments
also used their political power or timber supplies as weapons to
manipulate lumber prices. When bakufu and han marketed lumber,
then, as they did in substantial amounts when not pursuing mon-
umental construction, they were commonly selling undervalued
goods, making a tidy profit perhaps, but also serving to hold down
the retail price of merchant lumber.
Despite the absence of general statistical series, it is clear from a
great range and variety of evidence that the decades of monumental
construction, city building, and land opening had transformed a
plenitude of timber into a scarcity. To cite one last idiosyncratic
piece of evidence, the deterioration of Tenryu valley forest accounts
for one mystery in Tokugawa political history: the bakufus arbi-
trary seizure in 1692 of the mountainous domain of a daimyo named
Kanamori, who had rendered valuable service to the regime. Dur-
ing the i66os, after the Meireki fire brought the problem of timber
scarcity into sharp focus, officials at Edo wrestled with the problem

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Timber Depletion, 1570-1670 77

of their failing Tenryu reserves. They discussed reclaiming the Kiso

valley, which leyasu had attached to the Owari domain of one of
his younger sons in 1615. Owari, however, had developed into one
of the most powerful and prestigious branches of the Tokugawa
family, and Edo administrators were unwilling to antagonize such
an influential political force. In any case, the Kiso was no longer a
richly wooded valley. So they looked elsewhere. The inner moun-
tains of Hida province were still well forested and accessible, but
they had been Kanamori's fief since the days of Hideyoshi. The
bakufu had no legal justification for ousting him, so no action was
taken. When Kanamori became a confidante of bakufu leaders a few
years later, he was able to protect his interests. After he retired from
office in 1690, however, by which time the scarcity of timber was
that much more acute, bakufu leaders evidently found a pretext to
transfer him to another domain in the northeast. Thus, they ob-
tained Hida, the last remaining area of substantial virgin timber
south of Ezo. Once they had it, however, it took them only thirty
years to strip it of timber.85
As woodland deteriorated, officials and scholars raised their
voices in alarm and admonition, lamenting the decay and asserting
the importance of preserving and reviving forests. Scholars such as
Yamaga Soko argued that forests should be managed for the com-
monweal in such a way as to perpetuate production.86 During the
i66os, Nobumasa, the fourth daimyo of Tsugaru han, identified the
significance of forests in this very Confucian way when explaining
the three fundamental tasks of lordship:

One must take care for the family line and for one's heir. One's third
consideration is the mountains. To elaborate, man is sustained by the five
elements [gogyo: wood, fire, water, earth, and metal]. In our world today
neither high nor low can survive for a moment if any one of the five is
missing. Among the five, water and fire [heat] are most important. Of the
two, fire is more crucial. However, fire cannot sustain itself; it requires
wood. Hence, wood is central to a person's hearth and home [kama]. And
wood comes from the mountains. Wood is fundamental to the hearth; the
hearth is central to the person. Whether one be high or low, when one
lacks wood, one lacks fire and cannot exist. One must take care that wood
be abundant. To assure that wood not become scarce, one cherishes the
mountains. And thus, because they are the foundation of the hearth, which
nurtures the lives of all people, the mountains are to be treasured. 87

Such high-minded rhetoric notwithstanding, when rulers did

take steps to protect forests, they generally did so from a much nar-
rower concern for government finances. Their measures were many
and varied, but in essence they entailed delineation of borders, re-
striction of entry to or use of woodland, control of transport and con-
sumption of forest products, creation of organs to enforce the pleth-
ora of rules and regulations, and lastly, promotion of afforestation.
Predictably, these measures were accompanied by severe tension.
Disputes pitted rulers against one another and against villagers and
even more commonly pitted villagers against each other. Attempts
to resolve disputes entailed continual adjudication and constant
tinkering with relevant regulations. This strategy kept most of the
tension at a tolerable level, but it never solved the basic problem,
which was grounded in exhaustion of the archipelago's forests. That
had been caused in the first instance by overcutting that was under-
taken primarily to gratify rulers and maintain the great cities and
towns surrounding their castles. Subsequently, overexploitation
was perpetuated by the need to maintain that urban establishment
while sustaining the much larger total human populace created by
rapid population growth during the seventeenth century.

Recapitulation
Japan's first era of monumental construction stripped only the
woodlands of the Kinai basin even though it lasted more than two
centuries. By contrast, improvements in technology and a vast ex-
pansion of state power enabled early modern builders to comman-
deer timber throughout the realm. Despite this huge increase in the
area exploited, the construction boom ran its course in less than
a century, ending so quickly because the rate of felling consumed
forests far faster than the mountains could regenerate them.
Noting the powerful impact of construction activity on the
human-forest relationship may prompt us to wonder why the
mighty built such large and lavish secular and religious buildings.
Mindful that such construction is common practice among political
and religious leaders, it may suffice to suggest that these Japanese
monument builders, like their counterparts in other societies, were
well aware that awe-inspiring edifices help sustain the prestige
and well-being of one's cause by promoting a sense of awe, envy,

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Timber Depletion, i$jo-i6'jo 79

and even inferiority in those one is seeking to influence. That such

construction may gratify both the builder's ego and his sense of
virtue surely are entangled factors.
A somewhat more perplexing point in this story, and perhaps the
easiest to overlook, is that the Japanese established a tradition of
architecture that was exceptionally dependent on wood. Despite
the variety and abundance of stone on the islands, it did not become
a major component of either monumental or daily-use structures.
At no point did Japanese rulers celebrate their triumphs by build-
ing great stone and masonry edifices in the manner of Roman,
Mogul, and medieval European barons and prelates. At no time
did brick and mortar form the carapace of Japanese civilization.
Doubtless, occupants of the archipelago initially built with wood
(and thatch) rather than stone, clay, or pounded mud because the
wood was available: by its nature it could be used more easily than
the alternative materials, and it provided more agreeable dwell-
ings. Clay and mud were used eventually, primarily in the form of
tile roofs and plaster walls. Even when timber became scarce, how-
ever, rock was used only for the foundations of buildings, never be-
coming an ingredient of masonry construction.
The frequency and severity of earthquakes may explain the ab-
sence of stone construction. Conceivably, some disastrous experience
with stone structures discouraged their use, but if so, there appears
to be no record of it. And it is not immediately evident that stone
walls are more dangerous than tile roofs in a severe quake.88
A partial explanation for the absence of stone construction may
lie in the geological character of the islands.89 Rock was abundant
and varied, but little was easily accessible to preindustrial builders.
The alluvial plains and diluvial terrace deposits on which most
communities stood were essentially rock-free and lacking in the
limestone used in mortaring compounds. Streambeds held plenty of
rounded stones, but in the absence of cement they were of little
architectural value, and builders used them only as rock facing for
earthen mounds, as in castle construction. Finally, the tectonic ac-
tivity that threw up Japan's mountains left the archipelago with
almost no horizontally layered sandstone or limestone for workmen
to chisel into building blocks. In consequence, forest products,
primarily coniferous wood, remained the most accessible building
material.

The absence of suitable substitutes meant that with sufficient

population growth Japanese society became an exceptionally heavy
user of wood products and hence exceptionally dependent on the
vitality of its forests. The implications of this situation first mani-
fested themselves in the Kinai basin during the ancient predation.
They became apparent throughout the country a millenium later.
In both their military and peaceful pursuits early modern rulers
were profligate in their use of lumber. Toyotomi Hideyoshi and
Tokugawa leyasu tower above others as the greatest of big builders,
but they only epitomized the new leadership. Construction and pres-
ervation of castles, palaces, mansions, temples, and shrines ate
deeply into woodland, and creation and maintenance of castle
towns consumed yet more timber. The problem was compounded,
of course, by population growth, which added tremendously to the
demand for fuel, fertilizer, and basic construction timber, as well as
foodstuffs produced on land hitherto available to grow trees.
To sustain construction activity and urban life, seventeenth-
century rulers improved access to forests, strengthened lumber
transport, and arranged land taxes and forest employment in ways
that induced villagers to get timber out. The measures bore fruit,
and from one end of Japan to the other forests fell to the chopper's
axe.
Rulers recognized the value of woodland and from early on
began taking ad hoc measures to prevent unauthorized logging or
other use and abuse. The heart of the deforestation problem, how-
ever, lay in authorized, not unauthorized, logging. The protective
measures were being taken by the principal forest predators as
means of assuring their own access to forest yield, not as ways of
preserving forest per se. In consequence, felling continued and
woodland became ever more desolate, even as the early modern
epoch of monumental construction was terminated by its own
excesses.
Before the seventeenth century's end the great stands of virgin
timber were gone, disputes over forest use were endemic, damage to
lowland was a cause for alarm, lumber quality had declined, and
scarcities had become pervasive. These multiple problems gradu-
ally prodded rulers at all levels to devise new policies of forest man-
agement and use and led to basic changes in woodland utilization
and control. In toto, these changes propelled Japan from the long
era of exploitation forestry into a new era of regenerative forestry.

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Part Two

The Emergence of Regenerative

Forestry in Early Modern Japan

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Chapter Four

The Negative Regimen:

Forest Regulation

The earliest historical evidence of woodland management in Japan

dates from the ancient predation. After a couple of centuries such
management appears to have fallen into desuetude, however, not
reviving until the 14005 and 15005, when villagers and subsequently
daimyo initiated a new era of forest regulation.
During the seventeenth century, forest management acquired
urgency as widespread land clearance and overcutting precipitated
both erosion with its downstream ramifications and wood scarcity
with its socioeconomic consequences. As decades passed, govern-
ments and villages all over the realm adopted and elaborated mea-
sures to counter the malign effects of excess, attempting most im-
mediately to resolve disputes arising from conflicts over forest-use
rights. By century's end the Japanese had constructed an elaborate
system for managing woodland and its yield.

Regulation: An Overall View

Early modern forest regulation throughout Japan encompassed
similar spheres: the woodland, the transportation route linking
forest to town, and the town itself, that is, the spheres of production,
distribution, and consumption. Policies and organs directly regulat-
ing woodland use—specifying who could do what, where, when,
how, how much, and at what price and how all that was to be en-
forced and what punishments would follow infractions—were the

core of the negative regimen. Regulations pertaining to transport

and consumption of forest products were also of enough significance
to merit brief comment.

Woodland Management

In essence, early modern forest management consisted of adminis-

trative rules and arrangements for enforcing them. The rules and
arrangements mostly developed as ad hoc responses to immediate
problems, being produced and later maintained and modified by
interaction among the bakufu, the han governments, and the thou-
sands of villages dotting the realm. Because of their tangled prove-
nance, woodland regulations and procedures were tremendously
diverse in particulars. Nevertheless, two factors gave them a high
degree of functional consistency. As indicated in chapter 3, the basic
problems that produced the negative regimen were essentially the
same nationwide, and the range of possible solutions varied little
from place to place. In addition, the practices that emerged were
patterned on administrative forms and techniques of the creating
agents—governments and villages—and these were quite similar
throughout the land.
Because woodland management was precipitated by forest
overuse, it had two basic objectives: protection and production.
"Protection forests" sheltered homesteads, villages, fields, roads,
streams, or shores from damage by flood, wind, or other natural
forces. "Production forests" yielded timber, fuel, or other desired
products. In general, interest in protection forests emerged first,
becoming widespread by the mid-seventeenth century. The rulers,
whose regimes depended on rural production and whose positions
forced them to deal with downstream consequences of upstream
abuse, gave particular attention to protection forestry. Concern for
production developed somewhat later, becoming pervasive by cen-
tury's end. On many sites, needless to say, policy sought to attain
both objectives.
The predominant agent of government forest policy was the
Tokugawa bakufu, the elaborate shogunal regime headquartered in
the city of Edo. It administered directly about a fourth of the realm,
mostly in central Japan. 1 Subordinate to the bakufu were the gov-

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The Negative Regimen 85

ernments of the 25O-odd regional barons, or daimyo, each head-

quartered in its own castle town and in charge of a semiautonomous
domain (han). In the aggregate these han governments controlled
the remaining three-fourths of the country.
Hereditary vassals, the samurai, who exercised administrative,
police, and military authority on behalf of their lords, staffed the
bureaucracies of both the bakufu and han. Heads of more dis-
tinguished vassal families held higher offices; minor families, lower
posts. Most samurai, high and low, lived in their lords' castle towns,
along with a large populace of merchants, artisans, manual la-
borers, and various other people. The bulk of the population, some
85 percent of the eighteenth century's approximately thirty mil-
lion, lived in the countryside in villages usually governed by coun-
cils of elders chosen from well-to-do and influential community
members.2 These elders administered local affairs, settled disputes,
and collected taxes on behalf of their lord in accord with reg-
ulations issued by that lord, whether shogun or daimyo. District
administrators, usually samurai serving as regional representatives
of their lord, communicated the regulations to villages and, in
theory at least, assured that they were obeyed.
Forest organization reflected these larger arrangements. Shogun
and daimyo administered most woodland within their respective
jurisdictions, placing it under the authority of their finance min-
istries. Subordinate officials, who often were foresters versed in their
work, oversaw logging and reforestation projects and handled the
actual inspection of woodland. The assigning of forest management
to finance ministries sprang from the primacy of economics in gov-
ernment thinking about woodland. The ruler's most notable inter-
ests were forest products: lumber in particular, but also fuelwood,
charcoal, lacquer, and diverse other items. They also sought to pre-
vent erosion and flood damage to downstream agricultural lands,
which constituted their tax base.
Much woodland around villages was managed locally, either
communally by villagers or individually by householders. Village
officials oversaw the use and maintenance of communal forest,
enforcing village regulations and implementing (or resisting) such
instructions as came down from higher authority. The interest of
villagers in woodland, like that of rulers, was essentially economic,
but it was not identical: although villagers had some lumber needs,

their primary requirements were fuelwood, fertilizer, fodder, and

emergency foodstuffs.
The difference in government and village priorities was a key
factor shaping forest policy. Villagers generally wanted access to
nearby areas of mixed broadleaf trees and tropical grasses (the
bamboos), whereas rulers generally would cede land so stocked
while claiming hillsides endowed with construction timber.3 As
forest cover became more impoverished, however, local brush gath-
ering and wood cutting drew villagers ever deeper into the moun-
tains, pitting them against government loggers and foresters and
leading to encounters with other villagers approaching from
different directions.
Especially between the 16405 and 16905 the bakufu attempted to
deal with disputes of this sort by clearly delineating domain and
village boundaries.4 Rulers also used their surveyors to locate val-
uable timberland and establish control over it, particularly after
the Meireki fire of 1657 revealed the general inadequacy of govern-
ment timber supplies. By 1700 surveyors from Tsugaru to Tsushima
had designated selected woodland as ohayashi, or "lord's forest,"
which they mapped and distinguished from adjacent parcels offi-
cially recognized as subject to some form of local jurisdiction.
Despite these jurisdictional distinctions, however, and despite the
assiduous surveying, the functional differences between govern-
ment and local woodlands were rarely clear. Forests of rulers and
ruled operated under diverse but sometimes very similar arrange-
ments. In many localities regulations deriving from either regime or
village applied to both categories of nearby forest. For example,
government prohibitions against cutting certain species of trees
(tomeki, or "reserved trees") usually applied to all specimens of size,
wherever they might be growing. And village regulations on who
might gather how much fertilizer material and when could be ap-
plied to nearby ohayashi as well as village forest. Moreover, the reg-
ulations themselves continually changed as society struggled with
the intractable problems stemming from forest overuse. Finally,
through various legal devices woodland shifted between village and
government jurisdictions, and the proper designation of many par-
cels was a matter of ongoing disagreement.
Villages reproduced in miniature the larger pattern of obfus-
cated dualism. Throughout Japan village woodland nominally ex-

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The Negative Regimen 87

isted as parcels held by separate households (hyakusho yama) or as

communally controlled land (iriaichi). In reality, however, that dis-
tinction was thoroughly compromised, with villages exercising
some degree of control over use of household forest and various
forms of individual privilege existing vis-a-vis common land. More-
over, parcels constantly shifted from one jurisdiction to another or
existed in some intermediate status, which further obscured the
distinction.
All this confusion notwithstanding, by the late seventeenth cen-
tury lord's forest was the greater part of the archipelago's wood-
land. It included, however, high ridges and peaks bearing scant
natural growth as well as lower hillsides and valleys rich with con-
ifers and mixed vegetation. Near villages, where community and
household forests predominated, slopes often were less acute and
valleys broader. The original soil commonly was more fertile, nat-
ural growth more dense, and biomass production greater. These
qualities made such woodland particularly valuable and hence sub-
ject to more intense exploitation. One consequence was that it de-
teriorated sooner and more severely than did the originally less
valuable interior land. Another consequence was that it became the
subject of dispute and object of regulation more quickly and com-
monly than did hinterlands. The disputes might pit village against
government, village against village, or members of a village against
one another, but government sooner or later found itself involved in
resolving many of the conflicts.
Villagers generally retained great interest in nearby lord's forest
because it included terrain they had utilized in the past or assumed
they could use in the future if necessary.5 As population and arable
increased and the quality of nearby woodland deteriorated, future
need became present necessity, and more and more villagers agi-
tated to ease restrictions on the use of such forests. In consequence,
after boundary delineation removed the possibility of villagers
satisfying their needs by expanding exploitable woodland acreage,
petitions and lawsuits regarding use ofohqyashi became endemic.
Because woodland regulation grew out of these local attempts to
satisfy immediately conflicting demands, the forms of restraint on
access and utilization became remarkably diverse. They included
restrictions on areas open to harvest, goods to be removed, sequence
of access to an area, number of days or workers or size and type of

tools permitted on the job, number or size of loads of produce, or

number or type of pack animals for carrying the yield. To enforce
the rules, villages and governments deployed guards and inspec-
tors and elaborated punishments for varying types and degrees of
violations.6
As these forms of restraint suggest, woodland management fun-
damentally entailed the defining and enforcing of use rights rather
than of land ownership. No one "owned" the land; the concept did
not exist in Tokugawa Japan.7 Use rights, by contrast, were univer-
sally recognized and central to all discussions of land. These rights
had four cardinal characteristics:
1. They were specific: they identified the particular rights of par-
ticular people on particular sites.
2. They were transferable: the rights of a person or of a legal entity
such as a village could, through sanctioned means, be consigned
to others, in whole or in part, and for varying lengths of time.
3. They were legitimate: although disputes over specific rights in
specific instances were endemic, no one disputed the principle of
use rights itself.
4. They were justiciable when subject to dispute: reasonably orderly
judicial mechanisms for resolving disputes over use rights existed,
and because rights were legitimate, those mechanisms were rou-
tinely used to resolve the innumerable disputes that arose.
As noted at greater length in chapter 6, use rights were so ar-
ranged as to produce a system of regulated, multiple-use forestry.
Nearly all parcels of woodland were subject to multiple use in two
senses of the term: they were to yield diverse goods, and they were
to yield them to more than one recipient. These arrangements re-
flected the piecemeal process of rule making that formed the system.
They also reflected the intricate balance of power among rulers and
villagers and the particular requirements all parties brought to the
transactions that produced the system.

The Transport and Consumption of Forest Products

Officialdom, armed with a substantial body of forest legislation,
sought to control the transport and marketing of forest output.
Transit controls helped regulate forest use; for example, guards and

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The Negative Regimen 89

The regulators anchored this rationing system in broader social

norms by linking it to the social hierarchy, permitting higher-
ranking families to use more of a scarce commodity than lower-
ranking ones. In 1642, in an early instance, the bakufu had issued a
short list of sumptuary restrictions and had admonished people not
to build houses inappropriate to their status. The last clause be-
trayed the source of Edo's concern: it urged its vassals in charge of
land (jito and daikari) to establish forests by promoting tree plant-
ing. A half century later, in 1699, the bakufu was more precise,
specifying the dimensions of timber to be used by vassals (hatamoto)
building new houses. It forbade those with fiefs ranked at less than
one thousand koku of putative yield (kokudaka) to use beams over
2 ken (about twelve feet) in length, and those of one thousand to
three thousand koku rank to use any over 2.5 ken.12
More precise formulations appeared. Kokura han allowed vil-
lagers to obtain enough construction lumber from government
woodland to erect houses of a size deemed appropriate to their
status:13
Status House Size
ojoya (headman of several villages) 2 x 1 5 ken
ojoya heir 2 x 9 ken
kojoya (village headman) 2 x 6 ken
kumigashira (neighborhood chief) 2 x 4 ken
takamochi hyakusho (taxable peasant) 2 x 3 ken
other tillers, merchants, fishermen 2 x 2 ken

In Aizu a similar but more complex practice prevailed. The

government designated the length of timbers a builder might
use for beams and the numbers of such beams, the figures being
based on the putative yield of a builder's landed holding. Thus,
villagers rated at one to five koku could use beams of 2 to 2.5 ken
length, totaling 6 ken, while at the upper extreme, those of twenty
or more koku could use beams measuring 2.5 to 3 ken for a total
of 20 ken.1* This strategy of linking consumption scale to status,
which obviously served the interests of rationers, presumably im-
proved the likelihood that edicts on rationing would generally be
obeyed.15

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The Negative Regimen 91

Government Administration of Forests

In retrospect, the rationing system that governments applied to the

general populace may be the most visible part of forest regulation.
At the time, however, intervention at the production site was a
more structured and probably more effective part of policy. Like
rationing, site management was largely responsive rather than ini-
tiatory. Because forest depletion developed gradually, managerial
arrangements arose gradually, and because they usually were ad
hoc and incremental attempts to resolve specific conflicts of interest,
they were inconsistent and subject to frequent change. So every
generalization is flawed, and applicability in particular instances
tends to vary inversely with a statement's specificity. Nevertheless,
some general comments may suggest the system as a whole.16
Officials of each han administered government forest within their
domain's boundaries. Subordinate to the highest domanial officials
(karo) and usually assigned to the finance office (kanjosho) were the
senior forest officials, commonly called forest or mountain magis-
trates (hqyashi bugyo orjiama bugyo). Their administrative staffs ranged
from a few people to an office full of personnel who surveyed wood-
land, kept records, investigated problems, and supervised larger
logging projects. Magistrates might implement policy through dis-
trict administrators (intendants: daikan, gundai, or kori bugyo), or
they might despatch staff members to the field instead, bypassing
the intendants, whose overriding interest in maximizing agri-
cultural tax income frequently made them poor protectors of forest
interests. Whether magistrates worked through intendants or staff,
however, policy implementation depended on regional or local
foresters (yamamori). These foresters, of either samurai or villager
status, normally were local residents appointed to enforce policy in
nearby woods. They usually had some assistants and were empow-
ered as necessary to call upon village officials for help. Commonly
the performance of these various forest officials was subject to
scrutiny by comptrollers (gimmiyaku).
The woodland that government foresters oversaw, which schol-
ars refer to generically as ohayashi, or "lord's forest," actually
bore a variety of names in addition to ohayashi (including oyama,
ojikiyama, otateyama, ohqyashiyama, omotoyama, shikakurayama, akiyama,
and okuyama), depending on the customs and particulars of the

site.17 However labeled, lord's forest was highly fragmented, much

consisting of small parcels scattered among plots of locally con-
trolled land. Some parcels, usually freshly logged ones, would be
closed to entry long enough for a new tree crop to establish itself.
Areas identified as protection forests also might be closed to cutting
or other utilization. Like lord's forest in general, closed parcels,
now identified by scholars as tomeyama, were known at the time by a
variety of names. Also, governments assigned much lord's forest
(parcels designated azukariyama, ukeyama, unjoyama, and so on) to
others for administration and use, often on a fee basis. As a result of
this practice, villages, temples, shrines, and local samurai and en-
trepreneurs exercised varying degrees of control over many parcels
ofohqyashi.
The policy of reserved trees (generically called tomeki) forbade a
person to fell, trim, or otherwise endanger the trees so designated
except with official permission. Governments usually applied tomeki
rules only to trees exceeding a certain basal circumference, but
would do so wherever the desired specimens happened to be found,
whether in ohayashi, other woodland, or even a villager's front yard.
Rulers usually reserved trees because of their economic value, with
timber trees, notably sugi and hinoki, being selected most commonly.
Subsequently, authorities added nontimber trees, such as lacquer,
chestnut, paper, and various fruit trees, to their lists of tomeki.
Tomeyama and tomeki policies were the core of government forest
administration, but a vast array of other regulations addressed par-
ticular problems.18 Prevention of wildfire was a major concern, and
regulations prescribed the establishment and maintenance of fire-
breaks, set up fire patrols, and spelled out community fire-fighting
obligations. A plethora of rules restricted use of fire for swidden cul-
ture, forest clearing, and annual grass burning and specified pun-
ishments for wrongdoing and negligence. Other regulations sought
to control practices harmful to desired trees or soil stability, notably
timber theft, grubbing out of roots, and unauthorized land clear-
ance, brush cutting, or grazing. Still others clarified procedures for
logging to assure that only authorized trees or areas would be har-
vested. In toto, the negative regimen tried to impose political con-
trol on almost all forms of human intervention in woodland affairs.
Its basic objective was to sustain the production of goods desired by

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The Negative Regimen 93

its authors. A major by-product of that intent, insofar as it attained

its objective, was the preservation of woodland verdure.
For a closer look at government forest management, bakufu
policy during the seventeenth century warrants attention. It shaped
affairs in the quarter of Japan directly administered by the regime
and served as precedent for much daimyo legislation. This was par-
ticularly so for protection forests, less so for production stands.19

Bakufu Policy on Protection Forests

Protection forestry, known by the Chinese term chisan chisui,
"management of mountains and waters," was of particular concern
during the middle decades of the seventeenth century. By then
Japan was encountering the environmental effects of a half century
of rampant lumbering and land clearing. The bakufu was especially
active in promoting chisan chisui because its domain included some
of the country's most seriously eroded landscapes, notably the
Kinai basin. Moreover, only bakufu authority embraced the larger
watersheds of central Honshu, enabling it to enforce at upstream
sites policies necessary for downstream well-being. That was par-
ticularly so not only in the long-worn Kinai but also in the Kanto
and Nobi plains, where erosion exacerbated stream-control prob-
lems as the Edo period advanced. The size of its domain and the
scope of its authority made the bakufu atypical of Edo-period gov-
ernments, but those characteristics also meant that bakufu policy on
protection forests foreshadowed and illustrated, in exaggerated
form, much government policy of the day.
Thanks to Tokugawa leyasu's policy of seizing woodland, most
famously the Kiso and Tenryu river valleys, the bakufu had ample
timber during its first decades.20 Insofar as leaders in Edo worried
about woodland, they did so in terms of protection forests. The
oldest surviving bakufu order relating to forest protection dates from
1609. That year two senior officials instructed subordinates in
charge of a recently acquired section of Hoki province to make cer-
tain that careless cutting of trees and bamboo was prevented. Two
years later, in guidelines clearly aimed at terrain preservation, a
general order instructed villagers not to pasture animals on dikes
and river banks and not to stray carelessly from roadways or injure

seedlings and shoots. In 1613 an order from three senior officials

asserted that felling had long been forbidden in the ohayashi at
Edozaki in Hitachi but that someone was nevertheless cutting trees
there. The guilty must be apprehended, identified, and firmly pun-
ished, regardless of where they came from. In that instance—the
oldest surviving evidence that Edo claimed woodland as ohayashi
and was prepared to enforce a tomeyama-type policy—woodland
was being protected because it sheltered the castle of a son of
leyasu.21
By the late 16305 much new and more marginal land was opened
to tillage, and much woodland was denuded, leaving nearby valleys
more exposed to climatic vagaries. During those years, weather pat-
terns in northeastern Asia appear to have deteriorated, and Japan
experienced widespread crop failure and the resulting Kan'ei fam-
ine.22 The hardship precipitated numerous bakufu injunctions to
preserve resources, and a common theme was advice to plant
trees.23 Two notices called for tree planting in 1642. One, which in-
structed vassals and intendants to plant trees and establish wood-
lands here and there beginning in the next spring, was included in
the short list of sumptuary restrictions noted previously. The other,
included in a general set of injunctions, was a more pro forma call
to plant seedlings in appropriate places. The following year, in an
enumeration of criminal punishments, Edo ordered any villager
convicted of a minor crime on bakufu land to plant trees on sites
needing cover, such as dikes or river banks. Two contemporaneous
sets of regulations instructed intendants to assist villages by en-
couraging tree planting that would shelter dwelling sites or reforest
appropriate uplands. One notice observed that such measures
would lead to village recovery and thus improve the tax base.
In a long set of hortatory injunctions issued in 1649, Edo urged
villagers to plant bamboo and trees around their houses because
then they would "be able to use the undergrowth and could cease
buying fuelwood." 24 By that time the famine was past, and the re-
gime could couch its advice in terms of avoiding another. Problems
of site deterioration persisted, however, and injunctions continued
to advise tillers on improving arable and maintaining production.
The concern to preserve the watershed clearly derived from its im-
portance to riparian works and lowland agriculture. Thus, general
instructions that Edo sent to intendants in 1652 ordered them,

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The Negative Regimen 95

among other things, to have villagers care properly for stored rice,
repair river dikes during the low-water months of winter, improve
irrigation arrangements, and convert rough and poor terrain to
forest by setting out tree seedlings.25
Admonitions alone failed to halt the devastation of woodland.
Early in 1666 the bakufu's senior councillors (roju) issued a set of
regulations on woodland and river management.
Recently, upland vegetation has been torn out by the roots. As a
consequence, during rain storms soil and gravel wash into streams
and obstruct the flow of water. Henceforth, such uprooting of
vegetation is to be prohibited.
Item: Beginning this spring, seedlings are to be planted to halt
erosion on denuded sites above streams.
Item: Paddy land and dry fields are not to be formed on the edges
and floodplains of rivers; and areas of bamboo, trees, miscanthus,
or other reeds are not to press in upon streambeds.
These clauses are to be enforced. This notice is being sent to
intendants who, starting this spring, must despatch investigators
to ensure that its clauses are not violated.
1666/2/2 [signed by senior councillors
Kuse, Inaba, Abe, and Sakai]26
Still, legislation did not solve the problem. Downstream silting
continued. By the i68os it was so bad that city magistrates (machi
bugyo) in Osaka, at the mouth of the Yodo river, ordered that dikes
not be allowed carelessly to deteriorate. Moreover, work crews
were to improve streamflow by removing bamboo, trees, and grassy
growth from the streambed and its islands.27
Leaders at Edo addressed the problem again in the spring of
1684. They revamped the 1666 edict, focusing it on the Kinai basin
and rephrasing it specifically to include daimyo domains.
In Yamashiro, Yamato, Settsu, Kawachi, and Omi provinces, in moun-
tains under both bakufu and other jurisdictions, the roots of trees and brush
are constantly being dug up so that during rain storms soil and gravel wash
into streams and obstruct the flow of water. Henceforth, such digging out
of tree and brush roots is strictly forbidden.
Starting this coming spring, on mountainous sites adjacent to water
courses where there are no standing trees and where soil and gravel wash
off, seedlings and turf are to be planted to stop erosion into the streams.
Tree seedlings, bamboo, reeds, miscanthus rushes, and grass are to be

planted wherever there is serious washing of soil and gravel into streams.
This applies not only to long-established hill fields situated along the sides
of streams and on flood plains but also to newly opened paddy land and
dry fields. It also applies to paddy land and dry fields that have been regis-
tered for a long time. Absolutely no new fields are to be established on
stream margins or floodplains.
Note: No swidden is to be opened in the mountains.
These clauses are to be firmly obeyed in both bakufu and other lands.
Starting in the coming spring, tree seedlings and turf are to be planted an-
nually to prevent silting of rivers. Officials are to inspect problem streams,
and if they find anyone disobeying these rules, emergency situations will be
dealt with as well as investigated.28
Some daimyo may have pointed out the complexity of riparian
management, because later in the year the bakufu despatched the
following order to eleven fief holders with lands lying along the
Yodo and Yamato rivers.
In the hills above streams that empty into the Yodo and Yamato rivers,
open fields and swidden are forbidden. All are henceforth to be reforested.
In your own lands, as well as in adjoining areas under bakufu or other juris-
diction, you are to send vassals to investigate two or three times a year and
establish forests with all due care. Inquire of finance officers about those
officials handling forest duties.29
The silting of the Yodo river eventually led Edo to establish the
Office of Erosion Control (Dosha Kata Yakusho) expressly to regu-
late woodcutting and supervise erosion control in the Kinai basin.30
During the eighteenth century, bakufu notices on stream protec-
tion continued to appear.31 Little accessible land remained untilled,
but governments, and probably many peasants, kept trying to open
more land to cultivation.32 Because workable land was scarce, how-
ever, the rate of opening dropped sharply. Nevertheless, erosion
persisted due to excesses and abuses on tillage and woodland alike.
In 1742 bakufu leaders notified heads of the finance office (kanjosho)
of reports that ohayashi and household woodland along rivers were
being cleared for cultivation. That was forbidden, they observed,
and workmen should reforest such lands. In addition, where trees
on streamside ohayashi were too crowded, workers were to thin and
trim them (to improve their vitality and avoid stream clogging).
Upland ohayashi, however, if free of large trees, could be cleared
upon a cultivator's request, unless soil and gravel from the area

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The Negative Regimen 97

were washing into rivers. In the latter case, weed trees (zoki) were
to be planted and periodically cut back to form coppice (whose root
systems would expand and control erosion).33
Pressures from both government and village to open more land
and grow more crops thus constantly compromised protection for-
estry. In an analysis of Yodo flooding, an informed observer of the
period wrote during the summer of 1743 that villagers living along
the river in Yamashiro, Settsu, and Kawachi provinces periodically
petitioned for construction projects to contain the river. But, he
noted, they pursued projects to protect themselves without concern
for the impact on other villages. Each year silt raised the riverbed,
and no matter how much it was dredged, matters worsened from
year to year. Moreover, he wrote, officials had failed to handle their
tasks properly and matters had become very bad. The basic task
was to stop the movement of soil and gravel. But as things stood,
when it poured, muddy water rushed out of the mountains and the
debris formed sandbars and raised the riverbed, which exacerbated
flooding. Hence, the mountains that had been cut off should be
reforested. However much villagers dredged and diked, he con-
cluded, it was to no avail if officials failed to remedy the source of
the problem.34
The tension between the conflicting impulses to destroy forests
for agricultural production and to maintain them for protection
emerged during the seventeenth century. During the eighteenth the
picture was complicated by intensifying concern over scarcity of
forest products, notably timber and fuelwood, which led forestry
officials to shift their attention to wood production. The change in
priorities was evident in bakufu regulations, which dwelt increas-
ingly on managing the production of timber and fuel.

Bakufu Administration of Production Forests

Rhetoric alone did even less to preserve timber stands than it did to
stop erosion because the rhetoricians were the chief lumber con-
sumers. Nevertheless, the bakufu, along with han governments, grad-
ually developed administrative organs that enabled it to maximize
control of whatever timber the forests did yield.
The bakufu's interest in timber production derived from its
control of, and responsibility for, the realm's greatest cities (Edo,

Kyoto, Osaka) and monuments (castles, mansions, palaces, shrines,

temples). In its early decades, with Tenryu and Kiso watersheds
producing nicely and city growth at an early stage, the regime at
Edo evidently saw little need to coordinate forest policy or worry
about output. It simply appointed timber magistrates (zaimoku bugyo)
to oversee the provisioning of construction projects.35 But in 1644,
as the Kan'ei famine waned, leaders tried to determine how their
Kinai and Kanto territories had fared. They ordered intendants
to investigate affairs, conduct a census, and make a stem count of
bamboo and tree species. That seems to have been the first of what
developed into a regularized system of forest registers (ohayashi
daicho) designed to keep Edo informed of its timber resources.36
For some years the regime continued to rely on intendants for
implementing edicts on woodland affairs, but by the i68os bakufu
leaders felt a need to coordinate forest policy more effectively. In
1685 they designated four officials as forest magistrates (ohayashi
bugyo), attached them to the finance office, and assigned them eight
assistants (tedai). The original duty of these magistrates evidently
was to explore woodland for good timber. Later their tasks grew
more elaborate: according to a notice of 1754, ohayashi bugyo exam-
ined forest registers to discern gains and losses in timber supplies,
solicited explanations from intendants on why matters were as re-
ported, and assured that registers were updated and logging plans
developed in accordance with available information. By then there
were only two magistrates, but they were assisted by officials known
as ohayashifcata, a sort of forest overseer. A document of uncertain
date describes the forest magistrate's duty as supervising forest preser-
vation, tree planting, logging, and timber transport and surveillance.37
Forest magistrates thus oversaw bakufu woodland as a whole. In
some areas they seem to have exercised their authority through
the overseers, but mostly they worked through intendants, whose
assistants (tedai, tetsuki) dealt with village officials (kumigashira,
hyakushodai, shoya) in implementing policy. For special investiga-
tions or patrols, the magistrates might send to the area in question
subordinates temporarily titled forest ranger (yamaban,yamamori, or
yamamawari),38 At Edo this hierarchy culminated in the superinten-
dents of finance (kanjo bugyo), who in turn were directly subordinate
to the regime's highest officials, the senior councillors (roju).

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The Negative Regimen 99

During the seventeenth century, even when erosion problems

were more pressing than timber shortages, it often was unclear from
the phrasing of official admonitions and instructions whether they
were addressing problems of protection or production.39 Even at
century's end formulations sometimes left ambiguous whether the
issue at stake was deterioration of site, insufficiency of yield, or
both. Thus, on the steep and easily eroded slopes of Mount Fuji, the
bakufu maintained ohayashi for both protection and production, and
in 1702 the forest magistrate sent the intendant in charge of Fuji the
following edict for public posting:
1. We hear that, recently, trees on the ohayashi of Fuji have been chopped
down and burned to make charcoal. Such charcoal making, as well
as field clearing by fire, is forbidden. This charcoal making and field
burning must be resolutely prohibited.
2. As in the past, felling trees and cutting them up is forbidden.
3. As in the past, unless villagers who gather firewood and so on on Fuji
have prior permits, they are forbidden to cut with hatchets.
These clauses are to be strictly enforced and violators prosecuted.40
The prohibitions on Mount Fuji may have aimed more at sus-
taining a healthy surface cover than preserving timber growth.
More and more, however, instructions concentrated on wood pro-
duction. In 1678, in an early expression of this focus, the forest mag-
istrate's office sent the following notice to an intendant in Totomi
for posting in the mountains of Tot5mi and Suruga provinces:
1. In [specified] tomeyama under the jurisdiction of the [named] intendant
in Tot5mi, standing trees, and even branches, are not to be cut.
2. In the mountains, as well as in nearby hills, the use of fire is rigorously
prohibited, and travelers and their horses may not stray carelessly from
the road.
3. In the mountains, bark is not to be stripped from any trees.
These clauses are to be strictly enforced on bakufu, han, temple, and
shrine lands, and violators are to be investigated and punished. If there is
any secret felling, informants will be rewarded from the goods recovered.41
Unauthorized felling constituted timber theft or removal of exces-
sively immature trees. Fire, trampling, foraging, and stripping of
bark destroyed seedling growth and ruined potential timber trees.

These injunctions, which addressed major problems in production

forestry, reappeared in subsequent decades as standard items in in-
struction to intendants.
The concern with construction material was more explicit in an
injunction that superintendents of finance sent to sixteen intendants
in 1707. It pointed out that bamboo and trees were essential to cul-
tivators for riparian construction. If adequate supplies were un-
available in nearby ohqyashi, intendants were to obtain enough for
current needs. Furthermore, they were to establish groves to meet
future needs.42
A bakufu directive of 1713 had timber production in mind when
it called for greater care in maintaining ohqyashi. It specified that
in revitalizing forests, attention should be given to available wood
volume, site accessibility, and transport facilities. In another gen-
eral set of instructions to villagers on bakufu land, one clause admon-
ished intendants to make sure that villagers did not unnecessarily
cut down large trees for local construction projects. The authors
added, in a specially highlighted comment, that in logged areas tree
seedlings should be set out, even if the work was not done according
to existing regulations. Two clauses in a general notice to inten-
dants in 1733 instructed them to inspect both ohqyashi and house-
hold woodland before allowing the extraction of construction wood
and required them to look for desirable timber beaching areas when
considering sites for possible afforestation. As these last two in-
stances suggest, by the mid-eighteenth century, the regime was
moving beyond negative regulations to advocacy of afforestation as
a solution to its timber shortage.43
A key function of the magistrate's office was maintaining the for-
est registers (ohqyashi daicho) that kept officials apprised of timber
actually available. Subsequent to the tree counts of the 16403, regis-
ters were updated during the i66os, in the wake of the massive con-
sumption of timber that followed the Meireki fire.44 Edo updated
its registers again in the :68os, after establishing the magistrate's
office, and periodic updates occurred thereafter. The registers vary
in format and content; some of the best surviving examples date
from 1762. The following portion of a comparatively detailed (and
subsequently updated) report was sent to the magistrate's office
in Edo by the intendant in Mino province. It informed Edo of the
holdings of ohqyashi in two villages in the spring of that year.

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The Negative Regimen ioi

One Parcel q/Bakufu Forest

Responsible Villages:
Miwa village
Miyagami village
At Miwayama (local name):
an area of steep mountains
Area
114 ken in length; 79 ken in width;
3 cho 6 ho in area [y| acres]
Tree Count
433 trees, of which
3 trees are being culled
282 are knotty or crooked
Note
Distances:
From the site to the landing on the Mugi river: roadway, 6 cho
From the landing to the harbor of Kuwana in Ise: waterway, 20 ri
From Kuwana harbor to Edo: seaway, approximately 152 ri
From Kuwana harbor to Osaka: seaway, 116 ri
From the site to Edo: by land, 102 ri
Breakdown of tree count
A. Pine trees
300 trees (stem: 1-2 ken in length; 8 sun to i shaku 6 sun in circumference
at eye level), of which
3 trees are being culled
200 trees are knotty or crooked, of which
115 were delivered last year for the construction of an enclosed,
unhulled-rice warehouse at this office (removed from the register
on 1764/9/4)
11 trees, standing dead, were cleared away (removed from the regis-
ter on 1763/2/24)
2 trees, wind damaged in 1753 and cleared away (removed from the
register in the fourth month of 1755)
B. Pine trees
56 trees (stem: 2-3^ ken long; i shaku 6 sun to 2 shaku 5 sun circumference
at eye level), of which
34 trees are knotty or crooked, of which
34 trees, standing dead, were cleared away (removed from the
register on 1765/4/14)
7 trees, standing dead, were cleared away (removed from the register
on 1763/2/24)

C. Pine trees
24 trees (stem: 2—3 ken long; i shaku 3 sun to 2 shaku 5 .rwz circumference
at eye level), of which
18 trees were delivered last year for the construction of an enclosed,
unhulled-rice warehouse at this office (removed from the register on
1
764/9/4)
[section omitted]
D. Other trees
86 trees (saplings and seedlings), of which
24 are being culled, being small or troublesome to measure
[The record continues, reporting in similar fashion on another parcel 3 cho
in size with 299 trees, of which 245 were knotty or crooked. Pine of 8 sun to
i shaku 8 sun circumference number 230, and 210 of these were knotty or
crooked. Of those, 35 were standing dead and were removed, and 58 were
taken out for the warehouse construction. Also, there were 25 trees too
small to measure.]45

The register entry reveals that this accessible parcel of woodland

(seven hundred yards to the Mugi river streamside) in the foothills
north of Gifu was severely understocked and contained few good
trees (no living trees over fifteen inches diameter at breast height
[dbh] and fewer than 400 of three to fourteen inches dbh on ~]\
acres of land). 48 Apart from unreported underbrush, which prob-
ably was the site's major cover, it consisted essentially of "pine,"
meaning akamatsu, or Japanese red pine.47 Since akamatsu commonly
takes over deteriorated, infertile sites, the location and stand com-
position suggest that Miwayama was a naturally restocked area
that had been subjected to much previous exploitation. The sparse
pine growth had yielded its characteristic stand of wolf trees, knotty
and crooked, with most of the older specimens (41 of the 56 trees
greater than six inches dbh) dead on the stump. The other, slightly
smaller parcel had only 299 trees, mostly crooked and knotty pine,
and most under seven inches dbh. In both cases, the stand seemed
capable of providing little timber beyond what the intendant re-
quired to maintain his own administrative establishment.
The intendant accompanied his statistical report with a narra-
tive in which he explained that the parcels had been assigned to a
certain person for management (as azukaridokoro) in 1736. Subse-
quently, they had been reassigned to one intendancy in 1748 and
shifted to another in 1753. He went on to say that some lumber

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The Negative Regimen 103

and fuelwood from the area went to Edo and Osaka, but much had
been plundered, and little timber of value was visible. He observed
that periodically timber had to be taken out (for intendancy use,
presumably) and such needs would continue. The number of trees
being extremely small, he recommended planting trees and de-
veloping the two areas into fully stocked plantations. In closing, he
noted that the parcels were on steep hillsides and could not be
brought into cultivation.48
Bakufu forest registers reveal tremendous variation in the size of
ohqyashi parcels. In addition, they commonly reveal poor quality
timber stands consisting mostly of pine and miscellaneous weed
trees (zoki], with good conifers a decided rarety. In 1715 officials
surveyed ohqyashi in the eight Kinai provinces and identified 131
parcels ranging in area from 0.2 to 781.5 cho (0.5 acre to 1,915
acres). Tree counts were reported for thirteen areas that consisted
of 32 parcels (table i). 4 9

TABLE i. Ohayashi Parcels in Eight Kinai Provinces, 1715

Tree Count
No. of Area
Parcels i'in cho) Matsu Zoki Other

2 — 27 20

21.8 a
3 73 243

6 2-9 1,983 2,387

i b
1.2 — —

3 8l.8 10,092 —

i c
7-5 -- —
d
4 '•7 - '47
5 i5i-3 57,347 1 11
i 0.4 382 3
i 5-7 2,i93 22

i 6.0 4,005 26

3 40.4 812 642

1 84.0 400 -

a c
218 sugi, 263 kuri, 6 tsuki 26,000 bamboo
b d
724 matsu, kuri, and enoki bamboo

The impoverished quality of Kinai woodland is not surprising,

and not all bakufu woodland was that badly run down. But even in
Shinano, where one might have expected richer stands, registers re-
veal a very light timber cover. A register of 1773 recorded the fol-
lowing figures on one large parcel ofohayashi near Karuizawa:
Area
780 cho [1,911 acres]
Trees
4,114, of which 573 are poor (crooked or knotty)
Breakdown
78 conifers (4—6 ken stems; 6—7 shaku circumference), 12 of them poor
293 conifers (i — \\ken stems; 4—5 shaku circumference), 40 of them poor
1,474 conifers (1-3 ken stems; 1-3 shaku circumference), 130 of them
poor
255 conifers (1—3 ken stems; 1—3 shaku circumference), to be harvested
in 1778
120 ridgeline conifers (2^-3 ken stems; 3-4 shaku circumference), 16 of
them poor
320 ridgeline conifers (2—4 ken stems; 7 sun—\ shaku circumference), 79 of
them poor
15 ridgeline conifers (2-4 ken stems; 7 sun-i shaku circumference), to be
harvested in 1778
448 oak (nara) (2-4 ken stems; 3—5 shaku 5 sun circumference), 36 of
them poor

100 seedlings and small trees50

The 1,911 acres thus contained 66 good, large conifers of about

two feet dbh or more, another 253 of some one to two feet dbh, ap-
proximately i ,600 under one foot dbh, about 450 good oak of one
to two feet dbh and other less valued species of unspecified sizes.
Some parts of the area doubtless constituted respectable natural
forest, but an average of two good-sized trees per acre is hardly a
lumberman's dream, or even an environmentalist's.
In 1754 the magistrate's office reviewed the registers submitted
by intendants and concluded that ohqyashi still supporting stands of
good timber could be found on only one mountain in Musashi, one
in Izu, two in Sagami, two in Totomi, and six in Shinano province.
The reviewer noted that one of the mountains in Totomi and one in
Shinano were in the process of being logged. He pointedly observed

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The Negative Regimen 105

that the actual state of affairs was difficult to ascertain from the
registers. And he recommended that the several appropriate au-
thorities—ohayashi bugyo, fushin yaku, daikan, and their assistants—
go and supervise tree counts and boundary surveys to assure their
reliability.51 On bakufu lands, at least, although a century of the
negative regimen may have sustained a minimal level of forest
stability and lumber production, it certainly had not re-created a
verdant, timber-rich hinterland.
The condition of bakufu woodland during the eighteenth century
can be glimpsed from two cases that also suggest why there was
a negative regimen and what it achieved. The first is the one
mountain in Izu that was deemed good forest in 1754. The second
is bakufu ohayashi in Hida, which did not even appear on that
year's list, although it had been excellent forest only a few decades
earlier.

Bakufu ohayashi in IZ.H

The one mountain in Izu province reputed to have good woodland
in 1754 was Mount Amagi, at i ,406 meters the highest peak on the
peninsula.52 The ohayashi, which initially covered 41,767 cho and
later expanded to about 47,000 cho (approximately 115,000 acres),
sprawled across Amagi and adjoining peaks amongst a patchwork
of samurai fief lands. Because of its size and accessibility by sea, it
was a major source of fuel, particularly charcoal, for the city of
Edo, but its yield also was crucial to the people in villages surround-
ing the mountain.
Amagi had been subject to extensive felling from the Kamakura
period onward, and during the sixteenth century, as noted in chap-
ter 3, the Hojo daimyo family established control over its produc-
tion. By the time the Tokugawa took over Amagi, its forests were a
well-used resource. Nevertheless, for most of the seventeenth cen-
tury bakufu leaders scarcely intervened there, allowing villagers to
extract fuel, fodder, fertilizer material, and scrap wood. The vil-
lagers used some fuel themselves, but they sold a great deal, char-
coal in particular, to buyers from Edo. City-bound fuel left Izu via
three ports where the purveyors paid the bakufu a 10 percent tax
(yamateyaku or yamayaku) on their goods. Amagi thus provided the
regime not only fuel for its capital city but a bit of income as well.

As long as sufficient timber came from other sources, Edo had little
reason to restrict peasant utilization of Amagi's ohayashi.
The one protection measure that Edo applied to Amagi during
the seventeenth century was tomeki policy. Initially, it had little rel-
evance because Edo valued the mountain primarily for fuelwood
production while the five species first designated tomeki on Amagi
all were timber producers: hinoki, matsu, sawara, sugi, and tsuki. As
timber grew scarce, however, Edo evidently assigned Amagi more
value as a potential source of lumber, and restrictions became more
inclusive: kusunoki was added to the list in 1656 and kashi in 1683.
Two years later the bakufu announced that while large tsuga and
momi could still be felled, smaller ones could not.53 In 1757, by
which time large tsuga and momi must have been rareties, all speci-
mens of the two species were reserved.
This slender record of legislation suggests that tomeki policy alone
was failing to raise Amagi's timber production to a satisfactory
level. Indeed, of the species protected, only kashi, an evergreen oak,
flourished, and it was not particularly sought by the rulers. Its suc-
cess may simply reveal its capacity for taking over areas opened
up by destruction of conifer growth. However, since kashi, unlike
reserved conifers, was especially useful to villagers as a source of
fertilizer, fuel, construction wood, and mast, its proliferation may
indicate that tomeki policy succeeded best when it coincided with
village priorities.
Villagers could enforce their priorities comparatively easily on
Amagi because centuries of exploitation had converted much of the
mountain to broadleaf coppice, which primarily yielded charcoal
and green fertilizer. Once that forest condition was attained, it be-
came self-perpetuating: while cutting coppice growth for charring
and home use, woodsmen could easily destroy any tomeki seedlings
they encountered, thereby keeping the area free of unwelcome
growth.
Doubtless, the ineffectiveness of tomeki policy deprived Edo of
potential lumber, but it surely helped sustain the city's fuel supply
by leaving woodland in coppice. Even without significant conver-
sion of land to conifer stands, however, by the late seventeenth cen-
tury demand for fuel and other coppice production was exceeding
Amagi's output, and competition among villagers was generating
disputes. Late in 1685 woodsmen (soma) and officials of three villages

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The Negative Regimen io7

near Yugashima petitioned to have more trees protected against

felling, evidently hoping to obtain a government order prohibiting
the residents of other villages from using nearby woodland. Their
petition was unsuccessful, however, and cutting and quarreling
continued.
Before century's end the bakufu concluded it must do more to
control exploitation on Amagi and resolve village disputes. In 1698
it moved beyond tomeki policy by ordering the 54 villages abutting
the ohayashi to select from among their members four forest over-
seers (ohayashi mamori} to patrol the woodland. The four were also
to supervise barrier points on principal streams draining the moun-
tain, maintaining at those points signboards that displayed Amagi's
forest regulations. The order promptly elicited objections from
people of other villages because it prevented them from harvesting
undergrowth, which many had customarily done. During subse-
quent decades they repeatedly initiated lawsuits, and Edo gradu-
ally modified its policy, primarily by incorporating more and more
village woodland into the ohayashi, which eventually allowed people
from 120 villages to utilize the expanded area.
Overseers continued to be appointed despite the disputes. The
appointees generally were village officials who took the work as a
supplemental duty. In return, they were each permitted to wear a
sword and use their family name in public (myoji taito). They re-
ceived small stipends that totaled fourteen koku per year for the
group of four. Their duties were sufficiently onerous, however, that
by 1759 the number of overseers had grown to seven and their
wages were garnished to defray travel expenses. During the nine-
teenth century, as afforestation and harvesting intensified, their
duties and pay expanded further.
The overseers alternated at fifteen day intervals. During a man's
tour of duty he hiked through a portion of the forest to check
boundary markers; watch for evidence of theft or damage; inspect
felling, charring, brush-cutting, and other forest production; and
stamp legally produced goods. He also supervised the replacement
of rotten boundary markers and attempted to settle disputes. At his
office he kept records of output and prepared reports for the inten-
dant. After tree planting began on Amagi in the late eighteenth
century, he also supervised that.
Prevention of wildfire was a major concern of overseers because

the coppice that covered Amagi was highly flammable, and a bad
burn could prove as ruinous to the villages below as to the wood-
land itself. The overseers had to report all fires, appending a count
of the trees lost. Every autumn corvee laborers from adjoining
villages carefully burned the summer's growth in firebreaks sur-
rounding the parcels of ohayashi, and they removed all brush from
adjacent strips thirty feet wide. Regulations called for special care
in patrolling forests during the dry months of winter and spring,
and anyone caught burning fields then was to be severely punished.
Not only intentional burning was punished: if negligence allowed
fire from a village to penetrate ohayashi, both village officials and the
overseer were subject to reprimand or worse.54
By the mid-eighteenth century, when Edo could find only six
ohayashi that qualified as good forests, it was ready to try new mea-
sures on Mount Amagi. In 1757, as noted above, all specimens of
tsuga and momi were reserved. Five years later Edo designated its
Amagi woodland tomeyama. That radical move threatened to de-
prive nearby villagers of essential goods, and they protested with
sufficient energy to get the order rescinded. Four years later, as a
feeble substitute, the bakufu applied tomeki restrictions even to those
specimens of the nine reserved trees that were windthrown or dead
on the stump.55
These mid-century attempts to legislate improvement in Amagi's
timber stock had little if any impact on stand composition. Never-
theless, the coppice growth was unable to generate charcoal enough
to satisfy demand. In 1798 the bakufu, which hitherto had allowed
charcoal makers to consume only small coppice growth, authorized
the charring of larger trees, including several non-tomeki trees and
even kashi up to one shaku five sun in circumference (approximately
six inches dbh). In 1807, apparently in hopes of increasing charcoal
production, Edo raised its size limit again, allowing the charring of
trees up to two shaku five sun in circumference (approximately nine
inches dbh).
As forest produce became scarcer and dearer, competition for it
intensified. Overseers found themselves subject to bribery attempts,
which some doubtless failed to resist with all possible vigor. To pre-
vent abuse among the overseers, the bakufu despatched inspectors
from both the intendancy and Edo to enforce regulations and in-
vestigate irregularities.

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The Negative Regimen 109

The forest magistrate in Edo delegated direct authority over

Amagi to the intendant stationed at Mishima (later at Nirayama).
The magistrate's office retained the authority, however, to specify
when the intendancy was to make forest inspections, when and how
it was to prepare and update registers, and what matters it was to
report. Further restricting the intendant was a requirement that he
obtain approval from the finance office before letting contracts for
charring or felling. And the construction agency in Edo (fushin
bugyosho) had to approve any trees selected for government timber
(gqyoki). Finally, when afforestation was undertaken in later de-
cades, inspectors from Edo traveled to Izu to oversee all new
projects.
An overseer thus found himself under the surveillance of an
intendant who, in turn, was subject to scrutiny from a number of
higher officials. At the same time, the overseer had to deal with
fellow villagers and the residents of other villages, most of whom
claimed one or another customary right to ohqyashi usufruct. For
many of these people, life was precarious and forest yield a precious
boon. The overseer's task was to reconcile as best he could the con-
flicts of interest among officials above and villagers below that
swirled around the finite resources of Amagi. In theory, he did so by
enforcing forest regulations; in practice, it appears, he did so by a
politically attuned blend of enforcement and accommodation that
sometimes got him into trouble.
The forest law that overseers were supposed to enforce was de-
signed to preserve woodland growth not because its preservation was
deemed a good thing in itself but because it yielded products valued
by consumers, whether rulers or villagers. The instrumental char-
acter of regulations, and the conditional way in which overseers
applied them, was evident in an incident of 1857. By then the
Amagi ohayashi had experienced several decades of sporadic affores-
tation, mostly achieved by punitive or "gratitude" (myoga) plant-
ings, and scattered stands of plantation conifers were developing.56
In an incident that appears to have affected one such area, two
overseers, both respected leaders in their villages, were charged
with having allowed the illegal harvesting of 797 trees during the
preceding autumn. For that crime they were jailed.
An investigation revealed that in the autumn of 1856, a typhoon
had damaged many tomeki, including 467 hinoki, 122 sugi, 188 matsu,

and a few momi and tsuki, totaling an estimated 632 shakujime (ap-
proximately 7,450 cubic feet) of stumpage. The overseers informed
the investigators that after examining the area they had permitted
the timber's harvesting. They had found some local people already
cutting out windthrown trees for sale, and because the downed trees
had no value as timber, they had allowed them to continue, requir-
ing only that part of the proceeds be used to start a new planting in
the affected area. The storm left other trees standing dead or dam-
aged, and because these too lacked timber value, the overseers
allowed them to be fed into charcoal kilns, charging a fee to pay for
replacement planting. Insofar as the overseers' report was correct,
the policies taken seem reasoned and appropriate. However, no
harvesting had been authorized, the procedure adopted by the
overseers had yielded the bakufu no tax income, and from long
experience with forest disputes, Edo had ample reason to suspect
bribery and misrepresentation. So the investigators jailed the two
overseers and the seven villagers most directly involved. They pun-
ished fourteen other village officials, the five other overseers, and
seven other villagers with varying grades of fines, house arrest, and
formal censure. Had forest resources been sufficient, the incident
probably would not have occurred.
On Amagi, then, Edo introduced and elaborated forest reg-
ulations in a long, drawn-out attempt to manipulate stand composi-
tion and expand timber and charcoal production for government
use. Villagers countered to protect their own interests and success-
fully limited the scope of bakufu policy. All the maneuvering not-
withstanding, however, it appears that the regulatory regimen had
little effect in either shaping or expanding Amagi's output.

Bakufu ohayashi in Hida

Being near the coast and comparatively accessible, Mount Amagi
was already well cut over when Tokugawa leaders inherited it. The
woodland of Hida, by contrast, may well have been the best in
Japan when the regime seized it in 1692, a century after it acquired
Amagi.57 Encompassing 415 villages in 1805, the Hida domain
sprawled across two watersheds, the northern one draining via the
Jinzu and Sho rivers into the Sea of Japan at Toyama bay and that

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The Negative Regimen 111

to the south emptying via the Hida and Nagara rivers into the
Pacific Ocean at Ise bay.
During the seventeenth century, as noted in chapter 3, the Hida
uplands were held in fief by the Kanamori family headquartered
at Takayama. Kanamori derived some income from logging the
accessible south slope and appreciably less from the north slope,
whose lower reaches mostly supplied timber to castle towns facing
the Sea of Japan. From the i66os, as bakufu leaders encountered
worsening timber scarcity, they began eyeing Hida, but not until
1692 did they find opportunity to transfer Kanamori elsewhere and
place the area under direct shogunal jurisdiction. When the inten-
dant occupied Takayama, he inherited a substantial collection of
timber that Kanamori had felled but not yet used or sent to market.
He also inherited much of Kanamori's governing apparatus, retain-
ing eighty-four of his vassals as district officials, forest supervisors,
and timber inspectors.
When the bakufu seized Hida, it took nominal control of all for-
ested areas claimed by Kanamori, leaving other woodland under
village control as in the past.88 Three years later, however, the in-
tendant consolidated his control by closing all Hida woodland to
"unauthorized" logging. That appears to have meant local logging
operations in which villagers sold their yield, as in Kanamori's day,
to lumber merchants from towns such as Takayama, Gifu, and
Nagoya.
With resources assured, Edo lumbermen soon arrived to take
over the timber marketing. They concentrated on the south slope
because it only cost eight ryo to ship one hundred koku of timber to
Edo via Ise bay, whereas it cost twenty-five ryo from the north slope
via the Sea of Japan. Even for shipping to Osaka, the difference in
cost, and hence in profit margin, was dramatic. Consequently, fell-
ing on the south slope progressed rapidly, and by 1702, of Hida's
499 surveyed woodland areas 40 had been logged and closed to use
(tomeyama), 22 were in the process of being cut off, and 155 were set
aside for future government use. Two years later local woodsmen,
perhaps finding their livelihoods jeopardized by the encroachment
of government lumbermen, protested the usurpation of their cus-
tomary right to market wood. The bakufu resolved the immediate
conflict by assigning the disputants fixed market quantities, but

that solution failed to address the underlying issue of long-term

depletion.
The rate of logging remained excessive, and by 1724 it had so
denuded the south slope that the intendent launched a careful three-
year survey of all Hida woodland, both north and south, to deter-
mine its physical condition and current use arrangements. The
survey brought under government supervision many upland areas
that villagers had previously used for slash-and-burn cultivation
and other purposes, and as the survey proceeded, much resistance
developed. Nevertheless, whereas the 1702 survey listed only 499
sites, the new survey, when completed in 1727, identified 4,625 par-
cels of woodland in terms of their vegetation. The survey recorded
605 as containing valuable timber trees (such as tsuga, todomatsu,
and kurobi}. Another 469 were registered as zoki forest, 881 as areas
of small trees, and 2,670 as brush- and grassland. About 1,000 of the
parcels, including the 605 well-timbered areas, were designated
tomeyama and closed to entry as otomebayashi or z.oki ohayashi.
A year earlier, while the survey was still in progress, the inten-
dant had imposed a three-year ban on logging on the south slope.
The ban threatened to deprive local people of work, however, so
the following year the bakufu responded to their complaints by
establishing a "workfare" program. Residents were paid rice and
money valued at 7,500 ryo per year in return for providing specified
quantities of government wood (goyoki). In 1735, as the intendant
tightened control over logging and land use on the north slope, he
applied the same kind of program there at the rate of 1,590 ryo
per year. On both the north and south slopes, as upland villagers
worked deteriorating woodland, the policy became permanent,
with payments amounting to some 10,000 ryo per year later in the
century.
During the 17705 and 17905 the bakufu twice tried to stop all fell-
ing, but both times it encountered local protests and returned to the
workfare program with its regulated harvest. The policy may well
have coped with the social consequences of resource depletion,
but it must have generated a very expensive timber yield, and in
the end it failed to restore forest verdure. By 1797 Hida was pro-
ducing little more than pole timber, thin boards, and small roofing
shingles. These, moreover, were not primarily hinoki or sugi, but
mixed species, mostly kurobi, hiba, tsuga, momi, kuri, and himekomatsu.M

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The Negative Regimen 113

The surviving kinoki was not to be cut at all except by special order.
In short, loggers had decimated even the good forests of Hida within
a few decades, and bakufu policies of restriction had failed to restore
satisfactory timber stands.

Recapitulation
The widespread deforestation of the early modern predation ended
once and for all that long era during which the people of Japan
managed their woodland loosely and exploited it freely. In the
transformation that rulers and villagers achieved by the mid-
eighteenth century, forests were carefully delineated and use rights
clarified. The rule makers specified forms and limits of exploitation
in great detail. And they enforced them—to dubious effect—by
elaborate administrative arrangements, legal sanctions, and ethical
imperatives that were firmly linked to the interests of the enforcers,
whether local or national. The resulting negative regimen reached
from mountain to mansion, touching the production, transportation,
and consumption of a vast array of forest products.
Tokoro Mitsuo pinpoints the Kanbun era (1661-72) as the criti-
cal period when scattered admonitions and measures of forest pro-
tection and control evolved into a nationwide attempt to control
forest usage, and he considers han financial difficulty the basic factor
forcing a policy shift.60 The immediately precipitating event seems
to have been the Meireki fire of 1657, which ravaged Edo. The
city's reconstruction exposed the extent of timber scarcity through-
out the islands even as it imposed huge expenses on the bakufu and
most daimyo governments.61 Had the forests of Japan in the i66os
still held rich stands of timber, they could have been harvested to
han advantage without major policy changes, as they had been a
half century earlier. It was because timber had become scarce and
because governments were competing with villagers and merchants
for a more costly harvest that the rulers used their political power to
establish fuller control over woodland and its yield.
At first, government policy focused on protection forests because
of the seventeenth-century surge in land clearance. Ecological dam-
age caused by intensive logging and opening of fragile areas led to
prohibitions and limitations on the use of many small sites, par-
ticularly along rivers and streams. During the early eighteenth cen-

tury, land opening fell off sharply, but not because of government
protection policy. Quite the contrary, in hopes of enhancing tax
income, many governments continued to promote reclamation of
even severely marginal areas. Nevertheless, reclamation work slack-
ened, primarily because the remaining unfilled land was too steep
or swampy for use, given the technology available to tillers, and be-
cause the acreage already under cultivation had expanded so much
that it more than balanced the area of "wasteland" whose natural
vegetation was available to fertilize the arable. Under these con-
ditions tillers lost the incentive to open more land, which reduced
the need for governments to promote protection forestry.
By then, moreover, shortages in forest yields were generating
widespread interest in preserving production woodland. At the
village level attention centered on fertilizer material, fuelwood, and
fodder, and a plethora of local regulations developed to govern
their extraction from household woodland, iriaichi, and nearby
ohayashi. At the government level concern that focused on timber
and fuel supplies led to the creation of bureaucratic organs and
mechanisms of forest regulation. These organs and mechanisms
became the core elements in Japan's early modern system of gov-
ernment forest management.
Assessing the effectiveness of the negative regimen is difficult.
Clearly, it failed to restore woodland to earlier levels of timber pro-
duction. Insofar as a revival of forest output occurred, it did so late
in the Edo period, as we note in subsequent chapters, and it did so
as a result of afforestation efforts that were not an essential part of
this regulatory regime. Indeed, the negative regimen did not even
succeed in maintaining output at a level adequate to ongoing de-
mand, and instead society labored under continual stress produced
by competition for timber, fuel, fertilizer material, and fodder.
Had there been no system of forest regulation, however, early
modern Japan might have found no peaceable way to resolve the
struggle over scarce goods. Without regulation, moreover, such
ecological protective measures as were applied might not have been
possible. That situation could have made erosion problems worse,
converting that much more upland to hageyama, or "bald mountains,"
the ultimate state of biological degradation toward which the
overexploitation of woodland seemed to be propelling the archi-
pelago during the decades of the early modern predation. The neg-

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The Negative Regimen 115

ative regimen may have been, then, an essential piece of a larger

policy of forest rehabilitation necessitated by the environmental
effects of human behavior in early modern Japan. It "bought
time," so to say, enabling the Japanese to devise other, ultimately
more effective, pieces of that larger policy, most notably techniques
of plantation silviculture.

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Chapter Five

Silviculture:
Its Principles and Practice

The timber scarcity that emerged in seventeenth-century Japan gave

rise to a negative regimen whose primary function was to keep for-
ests producing wood for the ruling elite's cities, monuments, and
treasuries. Difficulties in provisioning persisted, however, which fos-
tered silviculture: the purposeful growing of trees through application
of arboreal knowledge and insight.

The Intellectual Context of Silviculture

Most early modern silvicultural writing was imbedded in a broader
agronomic literature because the shortfall in woodland output was
only one aspect of a more basic problem. Tokugawa society was
encountering irregular but intensifying scarcity in most types of
biosystem yield, including food. Consequently, the search for ways to
increase forest output occurred together with a quest for solutions to
other insufficiencies of rural production. The overall problem was
addressed in a wide-ranging literature known as jikatasho or nosho,
"agricultural treatises" or "farm manuals," written by itinerant
scholars, village headmen, practicing farmers, minor officials, and
others.1
Generally, the manuals attempted to be comprehensive in their
treatment of rural affairs. The more elaborate ones assumed that
habits of work and thought, human relationships, and patterns of
village organization, as well as technology, agricultural practices,

116

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Silviculture 117

and environmental context, all influenced the process of production

and hence the attainment of general well-being. In their comprehen-
siveness and their view that production was influenced by all pertinent
factors, the writings were, at least in a primitive sense, ecological in
character. More precisely, because their ultimate concern was the
well-being of the human community rather than the entire ecosys-
tem, one can describe them as homocentric autecological works. The
authors directed some attention to woodland because they clearly
saw its use as integral to rural life and production, which they viewed,
in turn, as fundamental to the vitality of society as a whole.
During the seventeenth century, well before these farm manuals
appeared, a number of political leaders and official advisers ad-
vocated tree planting and the maintenance of forest stability and
productivity.2 Around 1650, for example, Matsudaira Sadatsuna,
daimyo of Kuwana domain, urged woodsmen to "plant a thousand
seedlings for every tree" they cut. A decade later Yamaga Soko, a
political commentator and adviser, admonished woodsmen to log
only in the proper season, not to overcut, and to replant harvested
areas. In the early eighteenth century advice became more precise,
with Kaibara Atsunobu, adviser to a minor daimyo, recommending
in 1709 that if woodsmen "divide mountain forests into several tens of
sections and cut off one section per year, the whole forest will flourish
and lumber increase."
Such official advocacy of rotation cutting, as well as the promotion
of other silvicultural principles, reflected the appearance of these
ideas in agricultural treatises. Thus, in 1668 the author of Jikata
kikigaki, one of the earliest manuals, wrote how to produce pine
firewood:
Plant an area two cho square [approximately five acres] each year for ten
years. During the eleventh year clear-cut the area planted the first year and
set out pine seedlings in the clearing. [Repeating that practice annually],
firewood will never disappear. If you plant seedlings at three-foot intervals,
you will grow 57,600 trees per two cho. In thirteen years they will yield 3 to 4
bundles of faggots per tree, for an annual yield of 170,000 bundles.3

Although the advice was not without flaw, it was indicative of the
practical attention to detail and performance that informed jikatasho
in general.
The major seminal work in the genre was Miyazaki Antei's Nogyo

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118 The Emergence of Regenerative Forestry

zensho, completed in 1697.* Cognizant of the importance of woodlots

in rural life, Antei devoted the last two of his ten fascicles to trees and
forests and touched on them at several other places.5 Kano Kyoji finds
four basic themes present in Antei's discussion of woodland:
1. Forests are valuable for both farmers and the realm: they should be
nurtured in the manner of field crops, with valuable trees being planted
and useless ones controlled. Trees planted in forests are of value for
construction, fuel, and food and thus contribute to warmer houses and
better health. When planted around one's homestead, they reduce winter
wind, discourage burglars, prevent extramural fires from reaching build-
ings, yield firewood and fertilizer materials, and through thinning pro-
vide useful lumber.
2. Sound forestry requires planning: for best results both planting and
harvesting should be undertaken at proper season.
3. Optimal forest planting is related to properties of the soil: if soil quality is
not maintained, trees will not flourish no matter how hard one works.
4. The value of forests is relative to the value of other upland exploitation:
for example, because birds consume seed sown and produced in upland
fields, such fields are of little use to farmers, so the land is better employed
in growing the "four trees," that is, mulberry, paper mulberry, lacquer,
and tea.

In these themes and in numerous particulars Antei foreshadowed

many later jikatasho, in part because writers familiar with his work
borrowed from it directly and in part because his advice gave shape
and direction to so much of the discourse on silvicultural matters that
it became incorporated in farm manuals unwittingly. In particular,
although Antei wrote at length about the attributes of various trees,
he identified sugi and hinoki as best for timber and sugi as the species of
greatest consequence. He characterized it as growing rapidly and
easily, being strong, thriving in dense stands, reaching great height,
and living long. Moreover, sugi timber was not heavy, which made it
easy to transport, and the wood was easy to work. Finally, it was
versatile, being excellent for such diverse products as boats, bridges,
buckets, coffins, and wooden walls. Accordingly, he urged its propa-
gation by both slip and seedling wherever possible, such as around
buildings and in the mountains. 8
During the eighteenth century silvicultural writing proliferated,
and in the nineteenth the encyclopedic scholar Sato Shin'en orga-

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Silviculture 119

nized much of the existing corpus into eight agronomic works that he
produced between 1809 and 1844.' Sato is best known outside Japan
for his provocative essays on politics and the state, but he was basic-
ally a student of agricultural economics whose major concern was
increasing production to meet the needs of society. In 1827 he wrote
that the principle of kaibutsu, which he considered of central im-
portance, "means to survey the realm carefully; consider well the
climate; evaluate the qualities of soil; develop mountain valleys,
ponds, and swamps; open plains and moors to cultivation; produce
various goods; and enhance the excellence of their quality."8 Sato's
silvicultural writings were thus part of a broader treatment of rural
production. In them he discussed the relative advantages of different
species; the particular virtues of sugi and hinoki; the merits, mechanics,
and economics of nursery work; the techniques of both seedling and
slip cultures; aftercare practices; the various uses of wood; the causes
of wood scarcity; methods of increasing fuelwood output; and the
economics of charcoal and firewood production.9
Miyazaki Antei and Sato Shin'en are two of the most well-known
authors of silvicultural treatises, but their works represent only a
small portion of a vast outpouring of commentary and advice. The
essential content of that corpus can be indicated most concisely by
examining it as a whole and identifying the most widely accepted
themes and specifics. Because the Tokugawa era spanned two and a
half centuries and because the 25O-odd baronial units of the state
sustained a great deal of regional diversity, the silvicultural literature
contained in its specifics many variations—and even contradictions.
Consequently, while a concise summary may properly be seen as
normative, it is far from being a complete statement of early modern
views on any facet of the forester's art.

Major Topics in the Silvicultural

Literature
Both gymnosperms and angiosperms commonly reproduce by seed,
and seedling culture was a major topic in Tokugawa silvicultural
writing. Trees also can propagate without seeds, however, because
many species clone, reproducing the whole from a part by sending out
roots from living branches and stems, or stems and branches from
living roots and stumps. Some broadleafs, such as beech and oak,

easily start new growth from stumps and even roots, and these species
provided much fuelwood and charcoal. Woodsmen exploited this
arboreal talent for vegetative reproduction by coppicing: harvesting
stands and then nurturing the new sprout growth. In the Yamaguni
district north of Kyoto producers of timber similarly coppiced sugi
plantations because new growth developed more rapidly from stumps
than seed and because this form of site management disturbed the
sharply mountainous surface less than seedling culture.10
In their writings silviculturists gave some attention to coppicing,
but the technique of vegetative reproduction they discussed most
extensively was the use of cuttings (or slips), which are sections of
needle-bearing stems that are induced to put out roots. Planters
might start slips by layering, that is, by keeping a strip of a low-
hanging tree branch in stationary contact with moist soil for several
months until it rooted, later severing the rooted piece from its parent
tree and replanting it in the desired location. Layering was not useful
for large-scale propagation, however, and only a few records discuss
it. Much more common was the direct use of cuttings: clipping off tips
of branches and inserting them butt-first in moist soil, where, if all
went well, they would root without further assistance. Slip culture
was a widely usable technique, and silviculturists discussed it at
length.
All these forms of tree culture required aftercare to assure that the
young growth not only survived but developed into valuable stands,
and writers addressed the topic in some detail. Accordingly, the
major concerns of the silvicultural literature, as well as other official
and unofficial guidelines on forestry, can be examined in terms of
three topics: seedling culture, slip culture, and aftercare.11

Seedling Culture

Propagating from seed included both cultivating naturally seeded

growth (with or without transplanting) and nurturing and transplant-
ing of seedlings sprouted in specially prepared beds.12 The first step in
seedbed culture was selecting the seed. Silviculturists discussed the
relative merits of mother trees, old versus young, well-shaped versus
ill-formed, in the process revealing the conviction that in some way
the quality of the parent shaped that of the offspring. They carefully

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Silviculture iai

instructed the cultivator on how to gather seed, dry it, extract it from
the cone or husk, store it, and prepare it for spreading on the seedbed.
Even more extensive advice guided the cultivator in preparing his
bed. The site was important: proximity to the area to be forested,
proper sunlight, adequate moisture, and a friable, fertile soil were all
desirable. The seedbed area was to consist of as many rectangular
beds 3 feet wide by 30 to 100 feet long as the project required. The
beds were to be laid beside one another with some 2 feet of work space
between. Starting in the fall, workmen were to lay them out, spade
them, and clean out all roots. They were to fertilize them well,
thoroughly working the fertilizer into the soil. Later in the winter they
should apply additional fertilizer—night soil, manure, or urine
preferably—and carefully pulverize the soil. In early spring they
should thoroughly stir the bed again, remove debris, and smooth the
surface to receive seed.
To improve sprouting, writers advised the planter to soak his seed,
especially that of sugi, hinoki, and matsu, for a few days prior to sowing.
Then, with the seed softened and the bed properly smoothed, he was
ready to begin. He planted large seeds, such as oak or chestnut, three
to four inches apart and small seeds, such as those of conifers,
either broadcast or in rows. He might then settle the seed by sprin-
kling it with a bamboo watering can before covering it with a fine
layer of soil.
Writers also told the cultivator how to protect the seed against sun,
rain, and wind by spreading straw (or other suitable material) over
the seedbed and holding it in place with thin bamboo poles. He was to
water, weed, and fertilize his bed carefully, and ideally the seed would
sprout in ten to twelve days. He should then remove the straw cover
and erect a sunshade to protect the new sprouts. During the summer,
he must keep his seedbed moist and in the autumn convert the
sunshade into a frost covering (or a snow screen in snowy areas). The
frost covering was to prevent winter winds from freezing the seedlings
and reduce frost heaving that could kill them by lifting and drying out
their roots. In all these matters writers offered careful guidance on
how to execute the task at hand.
When spring came, the cultivator carefully removed the frost
cover, sprinkled soil on any areas that had heaved, tamped it down
lightly, and sprinkled it with water to resettle the roots. Writers
advised him to thin his bed and remove broken and misshapen

seedlings at that time. He should transplant excess healthy ones to

another bed, taking care to keep their roots intact. Then he was to
reerect the sunshade and tend to the summer watering, weeding, and
fertilizing. Authors recommended various strategies to discourage
pests such as moles, rabbits, and insects.
To assure his seedlings sufficient growing space, at some point
during the next year or two the cultivator had to transplant them
again, carefully protecting their roots. The seedlings would be ready
for permanent relocating three or four years after their initial sprout-
ing. Their size at that time varied by species, of course, and also with
the particulars of the bed, but authors regarded a stem length of one
to three feet as normal.
The silviculture literature then proceeded to describe with equal
care the optimal season for transplanting, procedures for digging up
and preparing seedlings for shipment to the forest, techniques of
trimming roots, methods of heeling in for temporary storage, and
procedures for preparing areas to be planted and for digging holes to
receive the seedlings. Writers gave much attention to selecting sites
for reforestation, with weather, soil, topography, exposure to sun and
wind, and accessibility to markets or users all being considered. They
described sugi as very sensitive to wind and recommended it for
sheltered sites and suggested pine and various hardwoods for exposed
locations.
Writers usually advised planting the seedlings in rows or grids
but varied substantially their recommendations on spacing. Some
advocated dense planting and subsequent thinning; others, sparse
planting and less thinning. Their advice reflected geographical, bi-
ological, and economic considerations, such as the need for replace-
ment trees or the availability of a market for the thinnings. Often
writers called for three to four seedlings per tsubo (approximately
thirty-six square feet), but a few recommended up to ten or so per
tsubo.
The scale of planting varied greatly; some projects yielded only
several hundred seedlings, and others produced tens or hundreds of
thousands. Writers were keenly aware of the factors affecting seedling
survival rates and gave much attention to assuring the highest rate.
They made various estimates of how much seed would ultimately
cover how much acreage and stressed that careful preparation and
handling were crucial to success.

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Silviculture 123

Slip Culture

Seedling culture came to be practiced throughout Japan; slip culture,

less widely. Whereas growers used seed to propagate many species,
they employed cuttings primarily for sugi. In the silvicultural litera-
ture much of the advice that pertained to seedlings—regarding
seedbed preparation, after-sowing procedures, field site selection, and
transplanting techniques—also applied to slips. In addition, authors
dwelt on the choice of the mother tree, timing of the work, and
methods of slip preparation and insertion.13
Generally, authors recommended that slips be taken from young
trees or from trees producing few or no seeds. Winter, before new
growth started, was the preferred time, but a few authors advised
performing the task in spring, even into the rainy season. Authors
agreed that cuttings must be prepared carefully. They commonly
recommended slips ten to twenty inches long, shorter ones for place-
ment in beds, longer ones for the wild. Each slip was to consist of the
head, which included the prior year's growth and a few two-year-old
lateral shoots, and enough stem below the head to include two or
three more lateral twigs. The workman was to remove any lower
twigs, leaving for insertion in the soil a clear stem measuring four
inches to about a foot, depending on the site conditions. It was
especially important to cut slips cleanly and not tear any bark loose,
and writers generally recommended cutting them at an angle, in a
"horse's ear" or "horse's hoof" shape. After the workman prepared
his slips, he had to keep them moist until placed and, if possible, soak
them before insertion.
Whether the planter rooted his slips in a bed (tokozashi) or set them
out directly at the growing site (jikizashi), writers firmly advised him
not to injure them in the process. To avoid injury, they recommended
that he thrust a stick (suai) into the soil to the proper depth (six inches
or so in a bed; six to twenty inches for field planting) and carefully
slide the cutting into the resulting hole. Then he must firmly pack the
soil about the stem to assure complete slip-soil contact. A number of
sources recommended balling the slip (tamazashi): packing a ball of
heavy soil or clay about the cutting and then placing the ball in the
ground. Particularly on hillsides with poor, rocky soil that technique
reduced injury and assured slips an immediate environment of desir-
able soil. Writers dwelt at some length but with little consistency on

the preferred type of soil, the variations in advice reflecting the

diversity of soil materials in Japan. For example, authors might
recommend "red" or "black" soil that was moist but not sticky or
"yellow" soil well mixed with sand.
In the beds workers were to set the cuttings one to four inches
apart, the advice varying with the author; in the field advice com-
monly called for three-foot intervals. After the workman had set
cuttings in a bed, he was to give them the same careful treatment as
seedlings. Once they rooted, they were, for all practical purposes,
regarded as seedlings. Authors advised the planter to assure that slips
placed in the wild received both sufficient shade and adequate expo-
sure to sunlight. One foresighted writer recommended inserting three
field cuttings where two were to stay permanently, thereby providing
handy transplants a year or two later when it was clear which slips
had withered.

Plantation Aftercare

Silviculturists were well aware that much work stood between the
initial creation of a timber plantation and its eventual harvesting a
half century later. Mikami Gennosuke, a forester from Tsugaru han,
noted:
The art of forestry is different from that of paddy or dry field. Though one
may be spared flood, drought, frost, or snow, he still must give general care to
the area for about ten years before withdrawing human effort. If this is done,
the forest will be as though filled with a treasure whose virtue is so immense it
will reach to one's children and grandchildren. Truly, one's prosperity will
be eternal.14

Aftercare (teiri, or literally, "putting one's hand in") was identified

by a wonderfully rich terminology. The richness notwithstanding, it
may be examined in terms of three main aspects: replacement plant-
ing to establish a fully stocked stand; protection against competing
vegetation; and nurturing to develop high-grade stock.15
All silvicultural writers considered replacement planting essential
because of seedling losses caused by climatic stress or human error.
They might recommend annual replacement work for up to four
years or so. Thus in bakufu ohayashi in Hida, where heavy snowfall was
customary, guidelines of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

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Silviculture 125

instructed growers to inspect new plantations in the spring following

their establishment. They were to replace—very carefully, it was
stressed—all bent, broken, or withered stems. And they were to keep
records of their work and file reports on stand conditions. In succeed-
ing years as well, failed seedlings were to be replaced and the re-
sults of spring inspections reported. Where woodsmen used cuttings
extensively, instructions similarly called for replacement work. In
Kumamoto they specified that seedlings rather than cuttings should
be utilized, perhaps to minimize lost growing time. On naturally
seeded plantation sites also, seedlings were sometimes set out to fill
gaps in the stand.
Once the stand was established and on its way, writers pointed out,
growers must protect seedlings from competing growth that could
shade, break, or strangle them to death. Grasses, annual weeds,
brush, and vines all threatened to overrun new sprouts, and writers
firmly advised woodsmen to weed annually, some even calling for two
or three weedings per year for the first five years or so and less fre-
quent ones thereafter. Authors often identified fall and spring as the
best times for that task.
After a few years plantation stock could usually suppress or out-
grow grasses and flowering annuals. But vines and fast-growing weed
trees remained a problem. Especially in the late Edo period, when
plantation culture was most widely practiced, writers warned against
the danger of creepers and undesirable trees. Viney growth, parti-
cularlyfuji (wisteria), tsuzurafuji (arrowroot), ortsuta (Japaneseivy),
was singled out as especially bothersome. Writing in 1849, Okino
Takao of Kurobane han advised growers to promote sugi and hinoki by
cutting back any underbrush in the late spring after leaves were out.
He instructed them to girdle unwanted large trees twice to assure that
they died. Their roots would decay, branches rot and fall, and trunks
gradually collapse, after which the area would become open to
planted growth. Suckers might start, but they would pose no serious
problem. Chestnut, however, had to be cut down and the roots dug
out because large limbs and roots were slow to decay and the hulks
would be enduring nuisances in the plantation.
Replacement planting and the suppression of competing growth
gave the grower a promising young stand. To transform such a stand
into a mature plantation of top quality—meaning one containing the
largest possible volume of the highest-grade timber—required other

measures. Silviculturists discussed two of them, thinning and limbing,

at length.
Writers recognized that optimizing space allotments was crucial to
maximum stem development: too much space produced wolf trees;
too little, spindly growth. Thinning, which they identified by many
terms, was widely recommended. The recommendations on the spac-
ing between trees and the timing of the work varied from commen-
tator to commentator, but almost everyone agreed on the need to
thin. Thus, a village in Musashi province, which started a pine
plantation during the 17905, drew up guidelines stating that when the
pine were five years old, workmen were to examine them, remove
poor ones, and thin healthy ones to give each remaining tree about 36
square feet of space. When the plantation was ten years old, with the
pine about twenty feet tall, workers should thin a second time to allow
the trees about 70 square feet, and subsequently, when appropriate,
thin again to about 100 square feet.
A century earlier Miyazaki Antei had advised that sugi should
grow densely until they reached "small pillar" size (probably about
three to four inches dbh) and then be thinned to intervals of three to
four feet. Especially in richly soiled coastal valleys and where trans-
portation was convenient, planting should be dense, he argued, to
yield valuable poles at thinning time. Later writers embraced much
of Antei's opinion, although they varied in some details.
Thinning was a vexatious matter, influenced, as in Antei's advice,
by both biological and economic considerations. Dense planting
minimized replacement work and produced faster stem growth,
which yielded poles for thinning, all of which was profitable. But,
writers also recognized the dangers in overcrowding. In 1712 a
commentator in Tsugaru warned that densely planted pine would
not produce sturdy logs and consequently that stands must be prop-
erly thinned. A bakufu notice of the 17405 warned villagers in the
Kanto region that by the time conifers measured eighteen inches in
circumference at eye level their branches would be badly entangled,
fresh air would not circulate, and dry rot might set in. Accordingly,
they should clear out dead and dying branches and misshapen trees.
Where a stand was too thick, they should thin it, but thinning should
be done in two stages because surviving trees would be vulnerable to
windthrow if too many were removed at once. In 1725, by way of
contrast, another writer advised against thinning pine, arguing that it

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Silviculture 127

increased wind damage. If thinning was not done, he argued, weak

trees would die and rot naturally, leaving the strongest to flourish,
which was desirable. Whatever its merits, his view did not prevail.
The sale value of poles sometimes was the decisive consideration
in thinning policy. On occasion hard-pressed plantation holders
thinned for income rather than stand improvement, increasing the
risk of wind damage to survivors and reducing the size and value of
the final yield. Governments, wanting large-sized timber, tried to
control this activity, and in the process they gradually formulated
more precise rules on thinning. The rules varied greatly from place to
place, but generally they specified the proper age for or the frequency
of thinning and the proper interval between trees. In Kurobane han,
Okino Takao recommended "the Yoshino method": plant sugi at
three-foot intervals; remove every other stem when they attain two to
three inches in butt diameter, and five years later remove every other
tree again, selling the poles profitably. The remaining trees, growing
at twelve-foot intervals, would then mature to produce high-grade
board stock.
Whereas commentators regarded thinning as a key factor in stem
size, they believed that limbing, or the trimming of branches, had a
major impact on quality. Throughout the Edo period some advised
against it or at least against the removal of live branches. In 1816 a
writer asserted that limbing killed trees by causing resin to flow,
which permitted the tree's "essence" (seiki) to escape. In 1849 Okino
Takao advised, "Do not cut living branches from sugi and hinoki. Even
though lower branches are a nuisance when one is trimming under-
brush, leave them attached. If branches are cut off, no matter how
large the trees grow, when you saw them into boards and cure them,
the knots will fall out, leaving low-quality lumber." 16
One practice that prompted writers to advise against limbing was
its frequent use as a way to obtain fuelwood rather than as a tech-
nique of stand improvement. That motivation led to careless and
excessive limbing that in fact did injure trees, and governments
repeatedly but not very effectively warned against the abuse.
That problem notwithstanding (or perhaps as a way of managing
it), the view that came to predominate favored limbing. Recom-
mended from early in the Edo period, branch trimming became
widely practiced, and writers grew ever more systematic in their
advice. By the nineteenth century advice was elaborate, but it varied

greatly in particulars: one should limb initially when a tree is five, six,
or seven inches in diameter; five, eight, or more years old; and
thereafter every three, five, or ten years. Limb during the fall, or
winter, or during dormancy. Limb enough but not too much: remove
the two bottom whorls of branches every five years, or three whorls
every three years, or all but the top three, five, or seven whorls,
depending on a tree's size. Remove limbs up to head height, or two-
thirds of a tree's height, or up to the large branches. Remove branches
under a certain length or thickness. Within this plethora of detail,
what emerged by the nineteenth century was general agreement that
lower limbs should be removed during dormancy, a few whorls at a
time, leaving a clear stem that would bark over to make a smooth
surface and straight-grained wood.
As to how limbing should be done, one writer advised using a saw
on large limbs, an ax on smaller ones; another called for a heavy
knife for small branches and a hand ax for larger ones. Regarding the
place to cut, in 1688 a writer advised that pine limbs be cut flush to the
bark, taking care not to wound the stem. Sugi, however, should be cut
so as to leave an inch of stub, which would form an attractive knot as it
was grown over, making more interesting wood. Later commentators
reiterated that policy until some nineteenth-century writers began
recommending that sugi, too, be limbed flush with the bark to elimi-
nate loose knots and form clean lumber.

This survey of the main lines of advice in a vast and varied litera-
ture suggests the detailed attention that Tokugawa silviculturists
gave to all facets of their art. Attention to detail is also evident in the
treatment of other aspects of plantation culture, such as protecting
against fire, theft, and damage by snow, wind, or animals. Writers
also addressed the process of harvesting: identifying trees for cutting;
assessing the relative merits of clear-cutting and selective felling;
determining when, where, and how to fell; how to select seed trees to
be left standing; how to cut up trees for maximum use; how to remove
logs from the forest; and how to transport, saw into lumber, store,
market, and utilize them. The technology of charcoal making and
other forest-related industries were also topics of analysis and
instruction.
This silvicultural literature spread throughout Japan, becoming
ever more widely available as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

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Silviculture 129

advanced. It also became increasingly detailed as writers refined and

improved their advice.17 The literature's very existence is evidence of
the widespread interest that rulers and ruled alike had in the main-
tenance of productive forests. And its proliferation and improvement
show that it was considered effective by those engaged in forestry: had
it not been valued, it would have been ignored and forgotten. By
increasing the prospects of success in afforestation projects and by
improving the effectiveness of forest use, silviculture facilitated the
development of a plantation forestry that enabled early modern
Japanese to offset in part the consequences of the earlier overuse of
their woodland.18

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Chapter Six

Plantation Forestry:
Economic Aspects of Its
Emergence

Plantation silviculture became widespread in Japan during the latter

half of the eighteenth century. 1 Following the early modern preda-
tion, demand for forest yield continued to exceed supply, and affores-
tation and eventually plantation silviculture developed to meet that
demand by increasing the desired forest output. A sharp rise in the
quality and quantity of available silvicultural knowledge showed
woodland holders how to pursue plantation culture successfully, and
changes in economic relationships enabled rural producers to pene-
trate and profit from urban markets. 2 These developments made
entrepreneurial forestry a comparatively attractive investment for
the woodland operator.
Plantation culture thus became possible in eighteenth-century
Japan, but not equally so throughout the islands. In some places
plantations rose and flourished; in others they no doubt were tried
and failed; in most places they never appeared. Within broad ecolog-
ical limits this spatial distribution was determined by the general
economics of lumbering and the particular economics of afforestation
techniques. The nurturing of forests entailed substantial costs, but it
also brought economic dividends to its practitioners, and where the
cost-benefit ratio was sufficiently favorable, plantation forestry devel-
oped.3 Elsewhere woodland continued to be managed less intensively,
much by rudimentary methods, and some in the classic manner of
exploitation.

130

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Plantation Forestry 131

Those economic determinants operated for both entrepreneurial

and governmental afforestation. The logic of the former may be self-
evident; that of the latter requires explication. By and large han
officials regarded woodland as a source of government income. They
fostered timber production to lower maintenance costs and generate
revenue. Well-wooded domains, such as Tsugaru, Akita, Owari,
Tosa, Obi, and Hitoyoshi, to name some of the most notable, pur-
sued vigorous forest policies with economic objectives uppermost in
mind, and they adopted silvicultural techniques accordingly. In
consequence, explaining the spatial character of plantation forestry
requires an examination of its costs and benefits.
Such an examination does not yield statistically satisfying results
because the forest industry consisted of numerous small enterprises
whose terminology and accounting methods were highly idiosyn-
cratic and whose surviving records are spotty and inconsistent.
Moreover, the business was only partially monetized, and no stable
institutions preserved records encompassing all its activities. As a
result, assembling complete and integrated figures appears impos-
sible. Scattered data do abound, however, and they yield figures that
illustrate the costs and advantages of plantation forestry and suggest
its underlying logic.

The Costs of Plantation Silviculture

Plantation techniques were costly. Afforestation required a heavy
initial investment of labor, and stand maintenance entailed periodic
expenditures for decades thereafter. Moreover, the lumber pro-
ducer—whether village, villager, urban entrepreneur, government
(bakufu or han), or combination thereof—had to absorb much of the
harvesting and marketing costs before he could finally recover his
investment.
Even under the best of conditions plantation forestry thus involved
long-term, incremental capital outlays. And conditions often were
not ideal. Indeed, lumbering was a risky business. In a hundred ways
vagaries of weather could ruin a lumberman's enterprise at any
moment between the first planting and the final sale a half century
later. Disease might ruin a stand; neglect could hurt as badly. Theft
and vandalism were chronic problems, particularly where land scar-
city was acute. Wildfire was a perennial danger, especially from the

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132 The Emergence of Regenerative Forestry

burning done by villagers to prepare land for tillage or a new year of

pasturage. And finally, the market value of a stand could fluctuate
sharply: city conflagrations opened new markets for lumbermen, but
their occurrence was notoriously irregular.
Even favorable conditions did not assure the rise of timber planta-
tions. Given the scarcity of capital in early modern Japan, long-term
investment in forest production was hardly the most attractive oppor-
tunity an entrepreneur might envisage. And halfway measures were
possible. A woodsman could enhance a stand with minimal invest-
ment by merely assisting a forest's natural recovery after logging.
However, that strategy of rudimentary nurturing tended to minimize
the gain in yield.
Alternatively, the woodsman could maximize investment so as to
maximize return, using elaborate and expensive measures to guide his
forest from seedbed to skidway. The costs of those measures can be
examined in terms of the three aspects of silviculture discussed in
chapter 5: seedling and slip culture and aftercare. Of course, planta-
tion lumbermen also incurred logging and marketing costs, but
exploitative loggers did too, so we need not examine them here. Costs
of transport were important, but they burdened exploitative lumber-
men even more than plantation operators, and the difference con-
stituted a significant economic advantage for the latter, as noted
later on.

Rudimentary Nurturing
During the Edo period only a small percentage of Japan's woodland
was ever converted to thoroughgoing plantation culture. Much more
widespread were rudimentary practices designed to maximize the
yield from naturally seeded stands. Even in some of the greatest
logging areas, such as Tsugaru, Akita, Tosa, and the Kiso river
valley, naturally seeded forests remained basic to the lumber
industry. 4
The simplest way to assist natural growth was by closing woodland
to human entry. Governments, villages, and households commonly
closed cut-offareas under their jurisdiction, frequently enforcing such
closure by deploying forest patrols and elaborating punitive legisla-
tion for use against violators. As decades passed, woodland operators
employed more positive measures. In Kiso, for instance, hillsides were

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Plantation Forestry 133

so steep and the soil so shallow and immature that clear-cutting and
replanting were neither economically nor biologically feasible. The
forest policy that emerged there during the early eighteenth century
protected residual growth primarily by the close management of
selective felling.5
Even in Hitoyoshi han in Kyushu, where the government and
villagers established plantations of sugi and hinoki, most wooded areas
regenerated through natural reseeding or coppicing.6 In the Yama-
guni forests north of Kyoto, where entrepreneurial lumbering flour-
ished, woodland holders left less accessible hillsides to natural seeding.
The cost of hand planting being prohibitive, they generally sought
only to protect young growth, specifying in logging contracts, for
example, that trees under a certain basal circumference were not to
be felled or that all trees of certain species must remain untouched.7 In
Mito, where the han wanted more pine forest, natural stock received
greater assistance. Supervised laborers cleared weeds, such as sasa (a
dwarf bamboo), from areas of dense natural pine seedling growth.
When the seedlings were about three years old, workmen thinned
them to approximately one per each three feet square. Three years
later they weeded and thinned again, cutting out defective seedlings
and replacing them with healthy planted ones.8
Depending on the situation, then, lumbermen gave more or less aid
to naturally seeded stands. The simplest measures involved almost no
investment; more elaborate practices, as in Mito, took on the hue of
plantation silviculture, with labor costs rising commensurately.

Seedling Culture
Given the great diversity and intermixture of Japanese verdure and
the cyclical pattern of normal forest succession, logged conifer areas
usually grew back as mixed stands of pioneer and intermediate
species, only later reestablishing the climax forests that lumbermen
commonly wanted. To short-circuit these natural rhythms and
accelerate the growth of new timber crops, and to establish conifers in
areas previously occupied by other species, woodsmen resorted to
manual planting.
Initially, they gathered seedlings from wherever they happened to
sprout, a practice that spread widely and persisted throughout the
Edo period. The technique had two major drawbacks: the number of

available seedlings often proved insufficient, especially as the scale of

planting expanded, and mortality rates were discouragingly high
because of damage to the straggly root systems common to such
seedlings and because of inefficiencies inherent in their transplanting.
These problems led planters to gather smaller naturally seeded stock
and grow it in beds for a couple of years before transplanting it in the
wild. And more and more tree growers turned to raising bed stock
from seed.
Seedbed culture was a technically sophisticated, labor-intensive
art, but its difficulties notwithstanding, during the latter eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries it spread throughout Japan. More and more
tree growers began sprouting their own seeds, but because "Kami-
kata seedlings," meaning sugi and hinoki sprouts from the Kyoto-
Osaka vicinity, were believed to yield the finest timber, commercial
nurseries that developed thereabouts were able to sell their products
throughout the country. 9
The Ikeda district north of Osaka became an active Kamikata
nursery area and exemplifies the business.10 The vicinity lacked suffi-
cient water for wet rice culture but was a good location for seedbeds.
It was protected from harsh winter weather by hills to the northwest
and blessed with a cohesive loam that sprouted seeds dependably and
adhered firmly to roots during shipment. The surrounding dense
population assured operators an ample labor force, and the proximity
to transportation arteries and the Osaka warehouses of daimyo facili-
tated marketing. Finally, the area was under shogunal jurisdiction
and hence not subject to the political and economic restrictions
common to daimyo domains.
In this favored setting Ikeda nurserymen developed their busi-
nesses. They acquired seed and some cuttings from the nearby forests
of Tanba, Yamato, and Kii. They placed them in beds, gave them
proper attention, and raised them to seedlings of optimal size, about
one foot long in the case of sugi. These they sold by the tens and
hundreds of thousands to daimyo all over Japan, especially in the
southwest, where sugi was a prized exotic. Nursery workers lifted the
seedlings and packed them in woven baskets that probably held 100
to 200 seedlings apiece. Two such baskets made a pole load; four, a
horse load. Some went down to Amagasaki for shipment by sea.
Others went to Osaka or Kyoto for sale through commercial nurseries
or directly to han officials in their warehouses. By the late eighteenth

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Plantation Forestry 135

century a guild of about 135 Osaka nurserymen handled all market-

ing of seedlings in the city. They operated their markets six days per
month and moved 50 to 150 pole loads of seedlings each business day,
conceivably reaching more than 300,000 seedlings during a busy
month.11
Ikeda nurserymen were most active late in the eighteenth century,
less so during the nineteenth as seedbed culture became more widely
established. In effect, they became their own best competitors,
because han leaders, seeking to reduce the outflow of currency by
raising their own seedlings, hired experts from the Osaka area to
teach nursery techniques to local woodsmen, who then set up their
own seedbed operations.
Records of "Kamikata seedling" prices are scarce, but it appears
that during the 17905 sugi seedlings a foot or more in length cost
roughly three silver momme per hundred, about equal to the price of
two gallons of hulled rice.12 Prices fluctuated sharply from year to
year,13 and they differed with the species. Paper mulberry (kozo) prices
were comparable to sugi, for example, but paulownia (km) seedlings
ranged from fourteen to thirty-five momme per hundred. The real cost
of seedbed culture in the domains was probably close to that of the
Ikeda nurseries because, given the technical nature of the enterprise,
most cost-cutting measures would only result in a greater failure rate.
In some cases local nurserymen could realize genuine savings on
transport costs or losses incurred during shipment. But most other
"savings" were fictive, specifically those realized when the han passed
labor costs on to villagers by requiring contributions of seedlings or
labor, whether defined as taxes (unjo,yama nengu, or jama daikin) or
"gratitude for benevolent rule" (myoga). Villages similarly held down
their recorded nursery costs by operating beds as poorly paid, off-
season by-employment.
In any case, seedlings constituted only the first in a series of costs.
The next major expenses were the preparation of a planting site and
the planting itself. Most commonly, seedlings were set out on recently
logged plots, which generally ranged in size from less than an acre to
twenty-five acres or so, and work crews were proportional to the
project.
In Mito, to illustrate the procedure,14 han officials visited a site,
selected a species for planting, and estimated the seedling require-
ments and project costs. They informed local officials, and late in the

fall the latter supervised the site preparation by villagers, who used
hatchets and hoes to cut off standing brush and break up matted
roots. A few weeks later, after winter had passed and any frost was out
of the ground, planting commenced. Planters worked in five-man
crews (kumi}\ three members would be digging holes while two would
be setting out the seedlings, which often came from han-operated
seedbeds and usually were two feet or more in length. Supervisors
considered rainy days ideal for planting and advised crew members to
set the seedlings the same day they arrived from the bed. If that were
impossible, they were to store them in a shaded, water-filled hole or a
running stream. They instructed the laborers to dig holes eight or
nine inches deep at six-foot intervals and to clean out all loose leaves
lest they keep soil away from the roots. Planters were to place each
seedling carefully at the edge of its hole, crumble fine soil about the
roots, and pack the soil down. Then they were to add more soil and
when the hole was about full, give the seedling a tug. If it moved, it
needed resetting. If it split or broke, another had to be set in its place.
Han officials expected the crews to set out about 100 to 150 seedlings
(about one basket load) per member per day and advised them not to
hurry lest any carelessness result in failure. The workmen might
complete the project in a day, or they might take several days, the
crew size having been calculated, presumably, to assure that no one
be kept too long from spring farm work.
As this description suggests, most planting was done by local
people as off-season work of short duration. But it required care. That
could be assured through close supervision or by giving the planter a
vested interest in his work. Those who planted their own trees for
eventual sale had ample reason to be careful. But government proj-
ects, such as those in Mito, commonly relied on supervision. There
village leaders ordinarily supervised the planting crews (kumi), but
for large projects requiring two or more kumi, delegates from the han's
district office took charge. The han secured the cooperation of these
supervisory figures by paying them regular stipends and special
bonuses and by granting them ceremonial privileges, such as the right
to wear special clothing, bear swords, or publicly use their family
names.
Throughout Japan governments initially used corvee labor in their
tree planting. By the nineteenth century, however, much was done for
pay, whether in money or kind. Sometimes governments paid plant-
ing crews directly; at other times they provided seedlings and re-

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Plantation Forestry 137

quired nearby villages to pay wages. They justified that burden as

quid pro quo for the customary village use of undergrowth as green
fertilizer, fuel, fodder, and so on. Thus, in Hida province the bakufu
required villages to furnish seedlings, but it paid laborers three momme
for every hundred they planted.15 Various han paid planting labor at
per diem rates ranging from one hundred to two hundred man ofzeni
(copper coinage).16 Where wages were denominated in silver, they
ranged from i .2 to 2.5 momme per day. Tsugaru han continued to treat
planting as a corvee duty but reduced village taxes by a figure deemed
equivalent to the work required of its members.17 In other instances
governments compelled entrepreneurs, such as charcoal makers, to
pay for their production by replanting the areas they cut over. And
planting became a common punishment for persons convicted of
entering or harvesting forests illegally.18
Governments used these diverse methods to pay for afforestation
because all were financially pressed and no strong lobby persistently
supported such efforts in face of competing claims on the exchequer.
Moreover, in most domains forest production was a marginal and
uncertain source of income not easily advocated for its fiscal value. In
Tsu han on Ise bay, where initial plantings cost 5 or more momme per
hundred, forest operations during the early nineteenth century regu-
larly resulted in a net loss, even though the han appears to have passed
about half of its tree-planting labor cost on to villagers.19
Small-scale entrepreneurial woodsmen doubtless buried some of
their labor costs among family members or tenant farmers, but what
they saved there they might lose in higher seedling costs. In Yama-
guni one planter set out 7,185 seedlings between 1785 and 1798. His
total cost for the work was 1,397 momme (19.4 momme per hundred), of
which 627 (8.7 per hundred) was the price of his seedlings and 333
(4.6 per hundred) his labor charge.20
The implication of these scattered figures on seedling culture seems
to be that entrepreneurial planters, who could not defray their costs
through taxing power or moral suasion, might have to pay 5 to 15
momme for every hundred conifers they set out. And that initial
planting expense only started the seedlings on their way.

Slip Culture
Woodsmen used cuttings widely, wherever climate and species pref-
erence permitted. Sugi slips rooted easily in shaded, moist soil, and

sugi was by far the most commonly rooted species. But hinoki and other
conifers also started that way. Planters reportedly used pine cuttings
in Akita, for example, and larch in the Chichibu area.21 Sugi were
introduced to Kyushu in the late sixteenth century, if not earlier, and
from the seventeenth, cuttings were employed throughout the island
to multiply the new, fast-growing exotic. From the warm, moist
south, the practice spread northeastward. It was adopted in parts of
Shikoku; in Honshu it advanced from the far west up along the Sea of
Japan coast, into the mountains of the Kinai district, and eventually
as far as the northern rim of the Kanto. 22
As noted in chapter 5, there were two basic methods of slip culture.
In the simpler one,jikizashi, the planter inserted cuttings one or two
feet in length directly into the soil where he wished them to mature.
In tokozashi, he initially placed shorter cuttings in a rooting bed and
then transplanted them to the forest site after they were well rooted,
commonly two years later.
Slip culture was somewhat less complex than seedling culture, but
it was a skilled art nonetheless. Injikizashi the planter had to clear his
site sufficiently to keep competing growth from choking out the new
cuttings. But to prevent the slips from withering, he had to leave
enough cover to provide shade and retain soil moisture. In Kuma-
moto han in Kyushu planters often left clumps of sasa for shade; in
Kanazawa they inserted slips adjacent to clumps of grass, where
shade and soil moisture were greater. Where site conditions were
marginal, planters might use cuttings in the more moist areas and
seedlings in the drier sections. Woodsmen facing poor soil or inade-
quate shelter might first plant a "nurse" crop to improve site con-
ditions, adding the cuttings later. The irregular terrace land of the
Sanbu district on the Bos5 peninsula east of Edo, to cite an extreme
case, was actually too dry and exposed to plant cuttings, evidently
because of agricultural overuse. So lumbermen trying to grow sugi
there first planted an area in pine, which they let grow for several
years and then thinned. They set sugi cuttings in the resulting open-
ings, leaving the surviving stand of pine to provide optimal shade,
windscreening, and soil conditions. In later years, as the sugi became
larger, woodsmen thinned the pine again, until only a windbreak
remained surrounding a pure sugi plantation. 23
The tokozashi technique was more standardized. 24 The planter
formed cuttings seven to twelve inches in length, inserted them in

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Plantation Forestry 139

carefully prepared beds, shaded them against the afternoon sun,

watered them until well rooted, and a year or two later transferred
them to the planting site. During the eighteenth century the use of
rooting beds spread all across Japan. Entrepreneurial nurserymen in
several locations began shipping bundles of rooted slips about the
country, their products being known and promoted by their place of
origin as "Nikko sugi" "Tosa sugi" "Kumano sugi" and so on. The
best "mother trees" for cuttings were said to be sugi about ten years
old. By the latter part of the Edo period some entrepreneurs main-
tained sugi stands as "slip gardens," harvesting slips annually for a few
years, then letting the parent trees grow to maturity.
The cost of afforestation with cuttings is difficult to determine, in
part because much was done under government auspices, which
tended to conceal real costs. Additionally, once a tokozashi slip was
rooted, it had all the qualities of a seedling and was treated as such, so
that records of afforestation sometimes fail to distinguish clearly be-
tween cutting and seedling cultures. Records of Kumamoto fian,
where slip culture predominated, mention tree-planters' wages rang-
ing from under i momme to 2.5 momme per day.25 In Obi han in
southeast Kyushu the overseers of a planting project in 1824 es-
timated that 12,000 man-days were needed to set out 1,025,000 sugi
cuttings, which meant about 85 slips per planter per day, a rate well
under the 100 to 150 per day commonly estimated for planters of
seedlings.26 This rate of planting, if paid at the level prevalent over the
mountains in Kumamoto, would make the cost of afforestation with
cuttings roughly comparable to that with seedlings and perhaps even
a bit cheaper.27
As with seedbeds the figures are suggestive at best, serving merely
to place slip-culture costs in the same general range as those of
seedlings. In both cases they constituted expenses not faced by the
feller of natural stands. And whichever form of new growth the
planter selected, his initial outlay was only the first of many he must
make before recouping his investment decades later.

Plantation Aftercare

Afforestation, whether undertaken with seedlings or cuttings, was a

chancy enterprise. Mortality rates could be fearsome. They varied
widely, but frequently only half the sets seemed to survive transplant-

ing: for example, there were rates of 47 percent and 56 percent in two
bakufu projects in Izu; figures ranging from 50 percent to 87 percent in
eight plantings in Kumamoto; and 40 percent survival in a Fukuoka
planting.28
Weather was a key factor in seedling and slip survival, but equally
important was the care taken by the planter.29 Poorly supervised
workmen performing obligatory corvee duty—especially when work-
ing on a site they wanted kept clear of timber—could achieve almost
perfect failure. On some bakufu land in Izu corvee planting was done
by villagers anticipating no benefit from their work. Survival rates
for projects of the 17605 ranged from 55 to 73 percent in success-
ful instances and from 4 to 9 percent in others. Not far away in
Suruga province, villagers on other bakufu land set out cuttings and
seedlings as instructed, only to report failure a year or so later: of
150 sugi cuttings set, 150 died; of 920 sugi cuttings set, 136 rooted
but died later; of 307 sumac (hazenoki) seedlings planted, all were
killed by snow and ice. Survival rates reported in 1771 were as
follows:

No. of Cuttings Rooted or Survival

or Seedlings Set Started (%) Rate (%)
5,230 sugi cuttings 51.9 (rooted) 21.0
220 hinoki cuttings 37.3 (rooted) 14.5
700 pine seedlings 30.7 (started) 8.6
450 chestnut seedlings 26.7 (started) 9.3
303 sumac seedlings 82.5 (started) 6.6

Interest in reducing mortality rates led to refinements in planting

techniques. Silviculturists learned that with both seedlings and cut-
tings care paid off. But care meant adopting more complex tech-
niques and investing more labor. Fewer and fewer planters set cuttings
or natural seedlings directly into the wild; more and more used seed-
beds and rooting beds. Nor did care stop when the shoots were set out.
Even with the best of handling, some would die, and in anticipation of
these initial losses many planters included in their original plans re-
placement programs for the following year. During that crucial first
year, moreover, laborers aided the sets by keeping down competing
growth. Beyond these basic measures the extent of aftercare varied

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Plantation Forestry 141

greatly, as noted in chapter 5. The long-term trend, however, was

toward greater care and thus a higher investment.30
The aftercare given plantations north of Kyoto was rather typical.
There workmen set out seedlings at seven-foot intervals, some 2,200
per chobu (2.45 acres). They replaced dead ones the following year,
weeded once or twice a year for five years, and turned out to
straighten stems after heavy snowfall. When the stand was twelve to
fifteen years old, they carried out the first limbing, repeating the job
two more times at five-year intervals.31
In some areas planting was more dense, and woodsmen repeatedly
thinned their stands to achieve optimum spacing. In a pine planta-
tion in Mito workmen cut competing growth twice a year for a few
years, then annually for five more years.32 They suppressed creepers
such as wisteria (fuji) and brambles (ibara), which could smother and
break over seedlings, and maintained a circumferential firebreak,
cutting off the grass in summer and burning stubble in winter. They
limbed the stand during its eighth year, removing all but the top five
whorls of branches, and about fifteen years later performed a second
trimming. They removed dead or downed poles and thinned the
stand. By the time it was fifty years old, they had thinned it two or
three times to a density of 50 to 100 trees per chobu.
A ubiquitous feature of Edo-period regenerative forestry was the
forest patrol. Patrols served several functions, most commonly watch-
ing for fire, theft, vandalism, or storm damage. They helped with
planting, aftercare, and harvesting projects and carried out follow-up
inspections to assure that laborers had performed the work properly.
In Akita from the early nineteenth century village officials made
carefully regulated forest patrols several times monthly, watching
expressly for any signs of illegal felling.33 In bakufu land on the Izu
peninsula a government clerk (tedai) examined each new planting
and reported his findings to the finance office in Edo. Thereafter local
foresters oversaw the site, supervising the replacement of dead seed-
lings, keeping a count of growing trees, and notifying Edo of any
damage.34 Where plantations were grown for entrepreneurial pur-
poses, the grower himself or, more commonly, hired foresters (yama-
mori) looked after the trees.
Methods and levels of pay for forest patrols varied greatly. The
routine daily fire patrols that were handled as communal tasks during
winter months generally went unremunerated, but periodic and

special inspection patrols were compensated. In many places higher

officials made the periodic inspections of forests planted at govern-
ment behest. Villagers, who fed, housed, and entertained their distin-
guished visitors, might bear most costs of the inspection,35 but the
domain treasury usually paid the inspecting officials' basic stipends.
In Mito, village officials who performed forest inspections received
their salary in rice: thirty koku per year for the overseers of forests in
several villages (oyamamori) and ten koku for those who inspected only
forests in their own villages (koyamamori) ,36 In the Yoshino mountains
merchants renting land to grow trees for sale employed skilled local
people asjiamamori and paid them roughly 5 percent of sale income as
wages.37 For his salary the Y'oshinoyamamori patrolled the growing
stand and hired and supervised labor crews doing the planting,
weeding, limbing, and thinning.
As with other aspects of plantation culture, data on the cost of
aftercare are scattered and difficult to assess. They are particularly
problematic because aftercare entailed a series of small labor charges
spread over decades, which might in fact go unpaid or be paid in
informal ways at idiosyncratic rates. Beyond the first two or three
years much aftercare was off-season work, but it required enough skill
that plantation operators producing high-grade timber might hire
trained personnel for the task. In Yamaguni, for instance, woodland
holders customarily hired specialists from Yamato, housing them in
the local forest bunkhouse (koya) during their time on the job.38
In many places, however, aftercare was handled as unremu-
nerated community work. Table 2, which shows the labor require-
ments for a village afforestation project in Maebashi han, suggests the
magnitude of needed aftercare and, as a corollary, the reason for its
poor compensation.39 In 1858 the initial site preparation and plant-
ing of 11,800 seedlings required 1,940 man-days of labor. In sub-
sequent years a slowly declining annual commitment of some 300 to
450 man-days remained necessary, even after replacement planting
ceased. Final unit costs of the venture are impossible to establish in the
absence of information on the yield, but if labor is valued at two
momme per day, the total cost of this twenty-one-year project was
400.5 ryo (at sixty momme per ryo}. Aftercare alone was a continuing
cost that slowly dropped from about ten to five ryo per year for a stand
that might yield a few thousand pole timbers plus a thousand or so
mature trees half a century later. Assuredly that yield, less logging

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Plantation Forestry 143

TABLES. A Maebashi Planting Project

Man-Days of Labor

Seedlings Field
Date Planted Planters Weeders Burners

1858 1 1, 800 700 920 60

1859 i,5°o 149 73° 57
1860 800 I2O 2IO 3°
i 86 i 500 II2 300 41
1862 300 28 290 39
1863 200 19 209 55
1864 o o 287 63
1865 274 61
1866 154 60
1867 '51 59
1868 150 7°
1869 170 8?
1870 169 49
1871 170 54
1872 162 62
1873 153 53
1874 '5' 59
i875 139 49
1876 132 51
1877 141 39
1878 140 37
NOTE: In addition, nobiban (fire guards) provided 260 days of labor annually.

and shipping costs, would not have paid for the investment. But
because this was a village project, probably most of the labor was
contributed as slack-time community service.
Because of their diachronic and irregular nature, overall figures on
aftercare costs are fugitive and perhaps nonexistent, and where avail-
able, their significance is uncertain. As a consequence, since aftercare
was a major added expense in plantation culture, overall cost figures

are scarce, fragmentary, and of dubious reliability. As an example of

recorded costs, around 1840 one entrepreneur in Ome set out several
thousand (perhaps six thousand, for an estimate) sugi seedlings on
rented land.40 The stand evidently numbered about 1,200 in 1864,
and in 1880 he reported a surviving wood of 645 mature trees that, he
claimed, had cost him about fourteen ryo to grow. If our Maebashi
estimate of four hundred ryo to plant an area to 11,800 seedlings and
maintain the resulting stand for twenty years suggests the general
magnitude of actual labor requirements for a project roughly twice
that of the Ome entrepreneur, then the disparity between our esti-
mate of real labor costs and the fourteen ryo that he reported may
highlight the scale of labor inputs that could be, and perhaps had
to be, written off as noncosts. This disparity suggests the severe
economic constraints that plantation forestry faced, and it also points
up quite dramatically the limited utility of recorded expense figures.
In any case, regardless of whether the actual added expenses of
plantation forestry appeared in the lumberman's calculations or were
silently absorbed by the rural work force, most were costs that could
be avoided by those logging natural stands. Entrepreneurial planta-
tion operators could cover these additional costs and still compete
with exploitative lumbermen only if other factors offset them.

Economic Advantages of Plantation

Culture
Offsetting these added costs of plantation forestry were a number of
economic advantages. First, the practice enabled woodsmen to max-
imize market opportunities. Prices of forest products varied substan-
tially with quality and species. Whereas the exploitation lumberman
had to take whatever type and quality of timber his woodland pro-
vided, the plantation grower could plant a species of choice and adopt
measures to maximize the quality of his crop. In Kyoto the demand
for top-grade lumber yielded Yamaguni growers much greater profits
on carefully nurtured sugi than on field-grade timber: for example, a
ninety-nine zeni profit per year per unit of top-grade sugi, compared to
eighty-eight z.eni for second-grade and seventy z,eni for third-grade
sugi.*1 Price variation by species is nicely revealed by the following
sample prices for twelve-foot logs of about six-inch diameter sold at
Nagoya. 42

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Plantation Forestry 145

Wood Quality Price (momme)

hinoki top 226
medium 181
sawara top 83
medium 54
maki standard 267
poor 223
asunaro standard 115
poor 96

Insofar as areas of plantation forestry became permanently es-

tablished, moreover, growers could exploit "brand name recog-
nition" to command top prices for their goods. Certain areas became
known for their special wood products: Yoshino for its sugi barrel
staves; Obi for marine planking; Omi for shingles; Owase for
charcoal; Ome for poles.43 And these reputations might be well
founded. Shipbuilders rightfully esteemed sugi stock from Obi. Sugi
grew sparsely and rapidly in the warm, moist forests there, developing
a wide grain and many knots. Although this made it undesirable for
fine work, the rapid growth produced large-celled wood that floated
well. It was very resinous, resisted rot and waterlogging, and dried
easily. It was tough and flexible, could handle twisting, could be
shaped, and did not shatter when struck. Longitudinal cracks did not
run easily through the knotty wood, and the knots were tight. In
short, it nicely met requirements for ships' siding and planking and
was sought by shipbuilders in Osaka and elsewhere, who paid enough
to make it a profitable export for the government of Obi han.
Similarly, with development of the sake (rice wine) industry near
Osaka, coopers created a substantial demand for barrel staves and
stock for casks, fermenting vats, storage bins, and associated equip-
ment. Sugi from Yoshino acquired a nationwide reputation as the best
wood for those uses, and by the eighteenth century Yoshino lumber-
men not only supplied coopers in Osaka but annually shipped be-
tween 700,000 and 800,000 pieces of four-inch barrel staving to Edo.
By mid-century the market for staves was so attractive that Yoshino
growers were specializing in knot-free, smooth-grained poles at the
expense of both large construction timber and fuelwood.

Plantation operators also could benefit from geographical advan-

tages. Whereas exploitation lumbermen had to work where the trees
grew, plantation growers could select the most accessible, biologically
suitable sites that were available.44 By establishing stands along the
arteries leading to cities, they could beat competitors to market,
thereby profiting from the abrupt increases in lumber prices that
followed city conflagrations. And they could do so at minimal ship-
ping cost. Growers in the Ome area, for instance, were only a few days
from Edo on the Tama river. In 1806, after learning of a fire, they
shipped i ,604 raft loads of wood within twenty-three days, com-
manding top prices as city dwellers started to rebuild. 45
The plantation forester may also have enjoyed a modest compara-
tive advantage in terms of felling costs. His carefully spaced, even-
aged stand could be harvested more efficiently than trees in a natural
wood, in terms of both labor cost and waste. More important, the
capacity to locate stands at streamside was gainful because it enabled
lumbermen to minimize the most expensive portion of the timber
journey: working logs down the mountainside by hand (yamaotoshi}.
That was precisely the portion that became most burdensome for
exploitative loggers as they pushed deeper into the mountains in
search of timber.46 In Yamaguni, savings in transport costs evidently
enabled plantation stands to compete with upriver natural forests.47
In Kii, the plantation foresters of Owase could compete with ex-
ploitative loggers in interior valleys because their sugi stands grew on
mountains ringing Owase harbor, and sticks could be loaded almost
directly onto ships bound for Wakayama, Osaka, and Edo.48
The relative advantages in product quality and reputation as well
as in felling and shipping costs favored the plantation operator over
the exploitation logger. In addition, he was able to minimize some
real or potential disadvantages of his business. Governments gener-
ally did not regard plantation forestry as a form of agriculture and
imposed no new taxes on woodland converted to plantation growth.49
As a result, growers received the full benefit from the increased yield
per acre that plantation culture assured. And finally, as earlier figures
have suggested, if the planting agency was a village or government, it
could pass a significant portion of its labor costs on to the work force
by treating planting and aftercare as "voluntary" communal effort or
off-season corvee work. Even when labor was compensated, wage
rates were low because the work usually constituted by-employment

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Plantation Forestry \ 47

for mountain villagers who had few other sources of supplemental

income.
Where marketing conditions offset the added costs of plantation
culture, timber production increased. Developments in the Ki and Oi
river basins are illustrative. Between 1760 and 1790 lumber output
along the Ki river rose as plantations matured. In the late 17605
annual output averaged some four thousand cubic meters, during the
17703 it reached eight thousand, and by the late 17803 it was running
at twenty-one thousand.50 In Yamaguni, where plantations date
from the early eighteenth century, the number of timber rafts on the
Oi river rose from 200 to 300 per year in the 16705 to 500 to 600 by
about 1750-70 and to roughly 800 to 1,000 from the 17905 until the
late nineteenth century.61
The payoff from entrepreneurial forestry, and a clue to its raison
d'etre, is suggested by these cryptic entries from the diary of a village
lumberman whose stands grew at streamside in the lower Tenryu
river valley. An entry of 1760 says, "Big fire in Edo. Timber sells.
Gold and silver pour in." An entry dated February 1772 says, "Big
fire in Edo. We fell and sell all our sugi and pine. Woodland holders
make money. Many men earn good wages. People buy back [mort-
gaged] paddy fields."52

Recapitulation
Identifying economic cause and effect in the rise of plantation forestry
is difficult because satisfactory statistics are so hard to come by.
Preparatory factors were rapid population growth and extensive
urban construction during the seventeenth century, which created
wood product scarcities that eventually created market conditions
permissive of plantation culture. Then eighteenth century changes in
silvicultural knowledge and marketing arrangements enabled lum-
bermen in favored areas to exploit their opportunity and establish
forest plantations.
Even then most Japanese woodland was not converted to planta-
tion culture because of topography that made it inaccessible, too
difficult or costly to work, or too fragile for manipulation. Various
levels of rudimentary management were the extent of human inter-
vention there. Where geography and climate did place fertile,
manipulable forestland within relatively easy reach of major popula-

tion centers, full-fledged plantation culture arose. And clearly it was

the proximity to markets above all else that determined the sites of
plantation stands. Most well known were Yamaguni near Kyoto;
Yoshino near Osaka; Ome and Nishikawa near Edo; and Owase and
the lower Tenryu valley, both conveniently accessible by sea to Edo,
Nagoya, and Osaka. Geographically less favored sites, such as Obi
and Hitoyoshi in Kyushu, could develop flourishing plantation in-
dustries because the han governments used their authority to hold
down labor costs, thereby making their best forest products competi-
tive in the marketplace.
It would be nice, of course, to have complete statistical information
showing just how changes in supply and demand relationships and
resultant cost and price movements made possible the development of
regenerative forestry in Tokugawa Japan, and without such figures a
definitive analysis is impossible. What our scattered data seem to
reveal is that the several costs of plantation culture—for seedlings or
cuttings and their setting out and aftercare—varied considerably,
depending on date, site, species of tree, and extent of care. In general
terms, it appears that plantation culture entailed an initial cost for
seedling or slip planting that ranged from about five to fifteen momme
per hundred conifers set out. Aftercare costs varied greatly, depend-
ing on the degree of care given, but over the decades they might add
up to several times the original planting cost, conceivably totaling 80
percent of the prefelling cost of a plantation stand. A significant
portion of those labor costs appears to have been absorbed by the
work force, which surely was a key factor in making plantation
forestry competitive with exploitative logging. And even then the new
silviculture techniques only flourished in particularly favorable loca-
tions where entrepreneurs were able to offset their added costs by
exploiting their advantages in product quality, "brand name recog-
nition," and timely and economical access to markets.
In sum, within limits the circumstances necessary for plantation
forestry did arise in eighteenth century Japan, and entrepreneurial
woodsmen, both governmental and private, successfully seized the
opportunity to create self-sustaining lumber plantations. In doing so,
they moved Japan out of the "traditional" age of exploitative logging
toward the "modern" age of regenerative forestry.

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Chapter Seven

Land-Use Patterns and

Afforestation

During the seventeenth century, overconsumption of forest products,

timber in particular, generated problems that led to the creation of
the negative regimen, whose central element was an elaborate coun-
trywide system of forest management. That system may have pre-
vented the worst of woodland abuses, and it may have hepled main-
tain social order in the face of difficulties arising from scarcity, but it
did not end the scarcity itself. Natural restocking failed to keep pace
with society's consumption of lumber and other forest goods, so
afforestation—or else exploitation of overseas areas—became essen-
tial if a brutal process of social contraction was to be avoided or at
least minimzed. The former occurred: by the late eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries planters were implementing afforesstation proj-
ects throughout the islands. In some cases they shifted into timber
production woodlands that had formerly yielded fuel, fodder, and
fertilizer, a change that might or might not constitute a net gain for
society. But in other cases woodland that otherwise was of limited
human value was brought into substantially greater production.
For this afforestation to happen, both intellectual and socioeco-
nomic obstacles had to be overcome. The development and dissemi-
nation of practical silvicultural know-how and its successful appli-
cation in appropriate locations, as discussed in chapters 5 and 6,
overcame the former obstacle. Changes in landholding arrangements
substantially overcame the latter.1
Modifications in woodland-control arrangements were crucial to

'49

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150 The Emergence of Regenerative Forestry

overcoming socioeconomic obstacles because plantation forestry re-

quired sustained stand nurturing for decades at a time. Such long-
term care was difficult in Tokugawa Japan because woodland near
villages, whose accessibility made it most desirable for afforestation,
generally was subject to several concurrent uses. The difficulty of
resolving conflicts among users sabotaged attempts at long-term site
management. This was particularly so not only on village common
land but also in woods controlled by governments and individual
households. Redefinition of customary land-use practices—in effect
shifting the basic premise of woodland management from multiple to
single use—became an essential prerequisite to most plantation de-
velopment. 2 This is not to say that a given site could be used only for a
single purpose but rather that site users had to accept one purpose as
primary while all others became secondary and subject to such con-
straints as the primary use dictated.

Multiple-Use Woodland Control

During the seventeenth century, as noted in chapter 4, governments
and villages throughout Japan elaborated forest-use rights and re-
strictions. They drew formal distinctions between the categories of
lord's forest (ohayashi], village common land (iriaichi), and household
land (hyakusho yama], but the actual use of such areas greatly over-
lapped. Basic to that overlapping were agreements sanctioning
multiple use, so that a specific parcel of woodland yielded diverse
goods and yielded them to more than one recipient.

Multiple Use: Its Creation and Character

The codification of multiple use was essentially a response to growing
forest scarcity. Competition for yield pitted villages and their inhabi-
tants against one other and against their governments, prodding
rulers and ruled to hammer out mutually acceptable regulations for
woodland exploitation. The regulations that emerged represented
compromises among clashing interests because neither party could
fully impose its will on the other. The rulers depended on village
cooperation because village labor constituted their economic foun-
dation, and effective taxation required a stable, peaceable, at least
sullenly cooperative village. Consequently, rulers accommodated vil-

lage demands sufficiently to keep the peace and perpetuate basic tax
arrangements. Villagers compromised their demands for various rea-
sons. Most obviously, the rulers had weapons of war, and they did
not. In addition, when disputes between and within villages proved
irreconcilable, rulers might have to be brought in as mediators.
Moreover, the rulers, if not too hostile, might respond favorably to
pleas for special concessions during periods of village hardship.
Because neither side could fully impose its will, when government
and village attempted to settle disputes over resource utilization, their
initiatives became intricately linked despite the apparent distance
between them. Local difficulties frequently led rulers to promulgate
regulatory measures, whether intended to enhance government au-
thority, protect the fisc, control erosion or other damage, or simply
resolve local disputes. Such measures commonly elicited village reac-
tions, however, which led in turn to modifications of government
policy. The upshot was a proliferation of more or less rigorously
policed arrangements that most commonly allowed peasants to
gather fertilizer material, fuelwood, and other products in lord's
forest as well as in village and household woodland, while lords
claimed most or all of the timber production on the same lands.
Two examples from Shinano province will illustrate how village-
regime interaction led to formal regulation of multiple-use practices.
During the i66os the bakufu delineated ohayashi boundaries in a
section of the Ina district in Shinano. One village adjacent to a newly
designated parcel of lord's forest protested that its members had
customarily taken wood from the sequestered area for housewares,
tools, poles, and well casings, and they requested permission to con-
tinue doing so. The writers added that they had also pursued swidden
culture in the area but would agree to cease that practice if allowed to
continue extracting wood products. Their initial petition was unsuc-
cessful, so they presented another. They protested the hardship that
the loss was imposing on them, insisting they had never caused
wildfire in the forest—"not even once!"—and they finally regained
the right to gather grass and fuelwood for home use. The settlement
stipulated, however, that they could not take any for sale and that
they could cut out timber only after obtaining explicit permission.3
Elsewhere in Ina the expansion of arable forced cultivators to
collect green fertilizer material ever more intensively from surviving
brushland, even from areas formerly used for fuelwood and timber.

Residents of Ikuma village, who had customarily obtained diverse

goods from brushland in the jurisdiction of Ogawa village, found
their rights sharply restricted in 1647. That year the bakufu intendant
(daikari) responded to a petition previously submitted by Ogawa by
instructing Ikuma villagers that henceforth they could gather fuel
from only one carefully delineated area and grass from another. They
could take out building timber for home use only with the approval of
their village headman and the countersignature of the intendant.
And no trees suitable for government use could be removed. Lest
Ikuma not acquiesce, the leaders of Ogawa notified the village that
if its people did any collecting in unauthorized areas, the miscre-
ants' tools would be seized, the workers driven away, and the forest
completely closed to their use. How well the settlement worked is
unclear.4
Two concise examples, those of Maebashi and Tsugaru han, will
illustrate the general character of multiple-use arrangements. In
Maebashi, a middle-sized, rather poorly forested domain north of
Edo, deciduous broadleafs predominated and good conifer stands
were scarce.5 Reflecting this condition, the han regulations for ohayashi
claimed all timber for the lord. Peasants were forbidden to enter lord's
forest without official permits and when admitted were required to
obtain explicit authorization before cutting branches to clear paths or
skidways through the woods. The government required them to
provide fuel as tax payment and to notify officials of any dead or
windthrown trees they sighted while in the ohayashi. As quid pro quo
they were allowed to cut out undergrowth for set fees. Only by special
petition could they get out lumber for home use, for example, to
construct irrigation dams or canal banks. And they could not make
charcoal. The han farmed out charcoal making, the contractor pro-
viding charcoal and money in return for the right to sell the rest of his
yield to interested buyers, which included the han government itself
as well as samurai and commoners.
On other woodland Maebashi claimed all reserved trees (tomeki)
but permitted villagers to fell them for home construction in case of
special need. Villagers had the right to take undergrowth from village
land, but han regulations specified how they must go about obtaining
permission to make charcoal or fell timber trees for home use or sale.
Permission for the latter was especially difficult to obtain.
In Tsugaru han, the sprawling, handsomely forested domain at the

northern tip of Honshu, lord's forest was called miteyama.6 The

daimyo claimed most of the timber on it, but villagers could get out
firewood, charcoal, and scrap wood from logging projects, and they
could sell timber by special permit. After parcels of miteyama were
logged, however, the han closed them to commoners until a new
timber crop could establish itself. To make closure effective, from the
i68os the government placed newly logged miteyama in the hands of
specified villages or individuals, who were ordered to reforest and
manage it for several decades. In return, the rulers allowed them to
get out brush and other useful materials and, for a fee, to make
charcoal and take out small-sized lumber for home use. Some vil-
lagers petitioned to take over and reforest such parcels of miteyama,
and the government allowed them to do so in accord with specific
regulations.
Besides miteyama, Tsugaru recognized other categories of han forest,
as well as village and household woodlands. In all of them the
government allowed peasant use but restricted or taxed it or both in
various ways, while identifying tomeki and reserving them for han
needs. Timber remained the government's major interest, but vil-
lagers generally could obtain temporary permits to extract wood for
farm tools, boats, and simple structures. Firewood and charcoal were
available from all but the restricted species of trees either for a fee or
with the stipulation that a portion of the yield be donated to the
domain. Many varieties of undergrowth were free for the taking, and
villagers could keep the yield from authorized forest-improvement
projects. Should a village be destroyed, by fire for example, a special
authorization would enable the residents to get out material for
rebuilding, sometimes even allowing them to cut restricted species
such as sugi or hiba.
Arrangements of this sort, with governments claiming large tim-
ber and villagers mostly using undergrowth, were common on all
categories of woodland throughout the islands. As long as production
was more or less adequate to current needs, the multiple-use system
was able to function. It could do so because the basic qualities of
woodland-use rights, as enumerated in chapter 4—their specificity,
transferability, and legitimacy, and the existence and use of mecha-
nisms for the orderly resolution of disputes—enabled people to define
rights adequately, adjust them to the vicissitudes of life, and agree on
how disputes over particulars should be resolved.

Strains on the System

In any society, as long as human wants exceed environmental capac-

ity, no fully satisfactory system of resource allocation is possible.
Either the humans must adjust their wants downward, which is
unpleasant, or they must find ways to increase the environment's
output of desired goods, a process that is never cost-free.
Doubtless, every system of forest utilization encounters some sort
of difficulty when humans attempt to increase forest production. In
early modern Japan, as yield failed to keep abreast of demand,
woodland users tried to increase output by resorting to long-term
forest management, especially for timber production. As they did so,
they found their multiple-use system becoming inadequate. Because
multiple use was rarely the best way to maximize any particular type
of yield on a given site, more and more disputes arose as users sought
to increase one type of biomass production at the expense of others.
Disputants increasingly sought to establish single-use arrangements
or at least an agreement among site users that a particular use was
primary. Sometimes timber emerged as the dominant product and
sometimes fuelwood, but in many instances wood was sacrificed to
agricultural needs, whether green fertilizer or even arable acreage.
Governments were key players in the drama because of their wish
to maximize timber output, and tomeyama policy was the main device
they employed to that end. Frequently, as in the case ofbakufu ohayashi
on Izu, noted in chapter 4, local resistance thwarted or at least led to
substantial compromises in the application of tomeyama policy. Some-
times, however, closure was enforced quite successfully. Prior to 1708,
to cite one example, Owari hanallowed villagers to take various goods
from woodland in the Kiso valley as long as they spared tomeki. But
that year the hanadopted a draconian policy that forbade local people
to cut any trees at all, or even to gather bark or fallen branches. In
addition, the government required them to report any instances of
such activities and held them accountable for any violations in forests
near their homes. In following years villagers repeatedly petitioned
and appealed for the restoration of their old use rights, but to no
avail.7 Rather, the han offered them modest money payments in
lieu of forest yield, surveyed more woodland, and established more
tomeyama. Only after a crop failure in 1738 precipitated local hardship

and disorder did the han relax some of its harshest rules and permit
some controlled woodcutting by villagers.8
Sometimes villagers found ways to accommodate government
pressure for timber production yet safeguard their own interests. In
Suwa han in central Japan villagers had a customary right to take green
fertilizer from ohqyashi for a fee. Because the government wished to
grow timber on its land, however, it regularly sought to shut them out
of harvested areas while timber growth revived. Peasants just as
regularly petitioned to retain their rights. In one instance a group of
villagers in 1807 petitioned for continuation of their existing use rights
and, in return, shrewdly offered to plant larch (karamatsu) seedlings
in the deforested area. In making their case they wrote, "Planting
seedlings is very important for the lord's forest, but while some larch
have already been planted, the number is insufficient. We request
permission to plant more."9 A forest inspector visited the area and
reported seeing the larch they had planted. He agreed that if they
continued the work, it would indeed improve the woodland. He
reported that the village's seedbed was producing sturdy seedlings
that would be good for setting out, so their petition should be granted.
And it was.
The shrewdness of the villagers lay not only in the way they
phrased their proposal to the lord but also in their choice of larch.
Unlike the evergreen conifers that would have grown from the
natural self-seeding customary on tomeyama, larch are deciduous. In
the autumn their needles fall, providing some mediocre green ferti-
lizer and exposing the forest floor to sunlight. Larch thus allowed
more undergrowth to survive, which yielded the fodder and fertilizer
material villagers desired.
At other times government attempts to favor timber growth
backfired, and trees were sacrificed for village needs. Because trees are
oblivious to man-made boundaries, their natural self-seeding habits
insidiously extended evergreen growth well beyond tomeyama into
village lands. That tendency was enhanced by the obscurity of most
boundaries. Although governments delineated most domain and
village borders during the late seventeenth century, the exact location
of village and lord's forest often was poorly demarcated. As long as
similar multiple-use arrangements applied to both categories of
land, there was little need to locate parcels precisely, but with more

governments enforcing tomeyama policies, villagers had greater need

to keep their own areas free of timber.
Unsure of tomeyama boundaries, villagers were cautious in their
clearing of young evergreen growth lest they run afoul of the law.
Time and again they complained that sprouts from nearby seed trees
or protected timber stands were overrunning areas they used for
fodder, fuel, and fertilizer material. Thus, in Numata han in the
northern Kanto villagers and han foresters collided over use of some
woodland in early 1701. The problem, village leaders explained to
investigating officials, was that tobimatsu ("flying pine"), meaning
seedlings sprouted from seed produced on a nearby area of recently
designated ohqyashi, had obscured the borders of some fodder-
producing areas, precipitating the disagreement over their use.10
How that dispute was resolved is unrecorded, but self-seeded re-
forestation of this type also created new forest growth on village land
in Suwa. A serious fertilizer shortage had arisen by the 17205, and
villagers attributed it to a scarcity of land that produced grass and
brush. In response to peasant petitions and evidence of hardship,
officials investigated and ordered villagers to cut down the new
timber growth so the areas could produce grass. It was done, but by
the 17605 new forest had sprung up again, and the villagers again
petitioned to reconvert it to grass. They wrote:
Before 1724 lush new forest developed, making it difficult to maintain
grassland. Consequently, a petition was submitted, and [named inspectors]
examined the registers and had the new growth destroyed. Both the starting
of new forest and the conversion of grassland to tillage were forbidden, much
to the gratitude of the petitioners. Again, however, new forest has prolifer-
ated and grassland has shrunk. Because of poor harvests, many peasants are
unable to survive, and we would be grateful for your assistance [in clearing
the new growth].11
The outcome of their petition is unclear, but presumably it was
approved.
Rather similarly, in Mito from the 17205 onward, the han periodi-
cally issued orders instructing peasants to cut back forests, including
even hand-planted stands, where they shaded any crop fields.12 Thus,
forest growth that developed in response to such government policies
as tomeyama and tomeki could also be destroyed by government action if
it threatened nearby peasant agricultural production and, as a corol-
lary, government tax income.

Often, however, disputes over a particular site simply dragged on,

with no specific use being accepted as primary. The dispute could be
expressed as disagreement over the site's official status. Thus, in Akita
in 1778 a government official complained: "Unjo land [i.e., untilled
land subject to tax] is the lord's land. However, there are villagers
who do not agree that the lord's land extends beyond evergreens and
tomeyama. Consequently, there have been many disputes over for-
estland in past years."13
Whatever the rationale of a dispute, whether presented as a prob-
lem of boundary, land category, or use right, perhaps the most
common expression of the system's inadequacy was conscious viola-
tion of woodland rules, whether they be rules of government, village,
or landholder. For obvious reasons such activities are not subject to
quantification, but forest officials frequently complained of villagers
illegally cutting down trees for use or sale and habitually destroying
protected seedlings in order to preserve or expand areas that pro-
duced green fertilizer, fodder, and fuelwood. Resentful villagers
might "accidentally" cross an obscure boundary into a planted area
and hack down seedlings or "accidentally" let a field fire race out of
control and destroy a young plantation. Nor was government forest
the only target. In Naguri village in the mountains west of Edo some
woodland holders started pine and sugi stands on disputed land. After
setting out their seedlings, they had to go on guard duty, posting
themselves on a hill overlooking the planting site and flinging rocks
down on uncooperative neighbors, who tried to enter the area to use it
for their own purposes.14
In sum, as the need for woodland yield intensified, the multiple-use
system came under attack and was eroded by acts of both government
and village. Often the needs of agriculture prevailed, but sometimes
those of timber production did. Whatever the outcome, however, in
most instances the process undercut the multiple-use pattern of the
seventeenth century, replacing it with woodland arrangements that
gave priority to a single type of production.

Modifying Woodland Control

Not surprisingly, as scarcity enhanced the value of timber produc-
tion, and as the techniques and benefits of plantation forestry became
more widely known, woodland holders sought ways to turn oppor-

tunity to advantage. For that purpose they devised various rental or

quasi-rental mechanisms, which scholars have identified as shakuchi
ringyo, or "rental forestry," a term dating from about igoo.15 Those
mechanisms, which in fact embraced a range of local practices that
are not always clearly distinguishable, can usefully be treated in terms
of three more precisely defined arrangements: wariyama, nenkiyama,
and buwakebayashi.

Wariyama
Tamawari, or " mountain dividing," is one of several terms that denote
the practice of parceling out woodland, whether iriaichi or ohayashi,
among the households of a village to form divided forests, or wariyama
(literally, "divided uplands").16 This practice, found from the four-
teenth to twentieth centuries, was intended to permit a landholder
freer use of his assigned parcel. Production of fertilizer and fuelwood
(for home use or sale) was a more common function of wariyama than
was production of lumber, and afforestation was rarely a purpose of
its creation.17 It requires attention, however, because landholders
often applied nenkiyama and buwakebayashi arrangements to parcels of
wariyama.
Upland division seems often to have occurred when communal
arrangements failed to protect an area, reducing its value to vil-
lagers and even turning it into a liability as site degradation threat-
ened the village with flooding, erosion, and subsequent drought. Vil-
lagers themselves might effect the division after efforts at communal
management had proven futile. Thus, in Kanaizawa village in Aizu,
woodland gradually deteriorated because of overuse, and in the
summer of 1719 thirty-seven villagers assembled, agreed on a policy
to protect the forest, and appended their names to this statement:
Regulation of Pine and Zoki Forests in the Village
Forests in our village have from the past consisted of areas for the
lord's use and areas for village use. Of late there has been much care-
lessness in their treatment, and in council today the village decreed
that standing trees shall not henceforth be felled in these woodlands.
Even twigs, leaves, and undergrowth shall not be removed. In this
regard, the village in council now affirms by signature of all members
that there shall be no violations of this decision. Should anyone in
defiance remove such materials, they shall be fined one ryo. Half the

fine shall go to the village, half to the person who catches the offender.
Anyone who neglects to report evidence of such cutting shall be fined
one kan ten man of copper cash. The regulation is formulated in this
manner to assure that there be no violations.
i yig/intercalary 6 Headman of Kanaizawa village: Goroshichi
Peasants of said village: [thirty-seven names]18
Essentially, this regulation applied to village forests the restrictions
already applied in law to the ohayashi under their jurisdiction, but in
the outcome it evidently proved unenforceable. Illegal cutting con-
tinued, leading to other policy initiatives during the 17405. Those also
failed of their purpose, and during the years 1756 60 the village
divided the woodland in question among its households, assigning
them use rights and maintenance responsibilities for the areas they
received.19
Wariyama arrangements varied greatly. Some settlements divided
acreage equally among households; others allotted it in proportion to
household arable; yet others combined the two methods. Some divi-
sions were made for a specified period of time; others were made in
perpetuity. Some hedged use rights closely; others imposed few or no
restraints. In some cases upland division was linked to division of
arable, the former serving as a source of fertilizer for the latter; in
other cases it occurred independently. Whatever the particulars,
however, the dividing of forested or forestable areas usually left
individual households in substantial charge of clearly delineated
parcels, which, if they chose, they could then reforest, nurture, and
harvest as their own.
The diversity of wariyama arrangements reflects the direct impact
that such division had on crucial household interests. Woodland
usufruct was critical to village life, and attempts to resolve woodland
disputes might generate so much mutual distrust among villagers that
outside intervention was necessary before effective upland division
could be achieved. In the summer of 1707 bakufu forest magistrates
issued instructions on delineating boundaries myamawari cases. One
clause called for preventing further overcutting of such sites to control
erosion, and another required officials to prepare maps of the parcels
to assure that there be no further disagreements over particular
settlements.20
Villagers, or at least tax-paying landholders (honbyakusho), usually
worked out their wariyama agreements in some form of village as-

sembly. The details and the extent of specificity in the documents

varied greatly, but below is an example of such an agreement, dated
1693, from a village in Omi province. It shows a village redistributing
an area of restricted-use village land (satsuyama) that evidently had
been divided previously but not to the satisfaction of recipients,
perhaps because the restrictions were imposed after the earlier divi-
sion had been made.

In Seirinin valley there has been much discontent over restricted-

use areas. Therefore, in accordance with the decision by villagers in
assembly, forest division there will be redone and people notified.
Thenceforth, there are to be no more complaints. The areas divided
may not be sold or pawned. Should a family line die out, the parcel
will revert to the village. At present there are forty households;
should any multiply in the future, land for the new household will
be taken from that of the parent house. So be it henceforth.
1693/12/28
[names and seals of forty villagers]21

In some cases the formation of wariyama was directly linked to

reforestation. Parcels being reforested were sometimes treated as
village land that was being temporarily "rented out" to a villager or
assigned to him for supervision. For example, in a village now ab-
sorbed into Otsu city on the edge of Lake Biwa, residents divided
their iriaichi in 1839, by which time afforestation was being widely
practiced. As one householder explained: "In recent years the hinoki
and undergrowth of village forests have been recklessly slashed. As a
result, we villagers discussed the problem and decided during the
third month to divide the forest among village households. Each
household was to receive and manage three parcels. The assigning of
plots was done this winter." He then went on to list his own three
parcels, noting the site name and location, the grade of forest, and the
numbers of large trees on each (e.g., "contains some large trees over
two feet in circumference and many over one foot. Sixty-two such
trees"). He noted that one of his parcels was of respectable quality but
had some open areas and that he was going to plant pine seedlings
there during the coming year.22
In a sentence, the act of dividing upland solved problems of
communal usage by clarifying use rights, eliminating disputes over
types and extent of exploitation, and permitting the pursuit of a

sustained, long-term policy of land use. In addition, wariyama ar-

rangements linked the land clearly to a source of more willing labor
or investment capital or both, thereby creating a situation more
favorable to afforestation when such activity became feasible.

Nenkiyama
Nenkiyama is the land-use arrangement most central to "rental for-
estry." It may be thought of as a long-term (nenki means "fixed
term") lease of forestland. It seems more correct, however, to view it
as an advance sale of stands, because the buyer did not acquire
unrestricted use rights to the land on which his trees stood; partici-
pants in the transactions had trees rather than land in mind when
they negotiated. Nenkiyama was, in essence, comparable to the older
practice of marketing a rice crop soon after the seedlings had been
transplanted from seedbed to paddy.
Scholarly studies of nenkiyama in the Yoshino mountains and the
lower Tenryu river valley illuminate the practice. As utilized in
Yoshino, nenkiyama involved the advance sale of stands held by vil-
lagers, often on wariyama. From about 1700, a village landholder
would afforest a given site and sell his young stand to a timber
merchant, either local or urban. After selling the stand and receiving
payment, the villager continued to nurture the trees, enjoying usu-
fruct, notably of the underbrush, as quid pro quo. When the stand
was felled, the buyer paid the village an additional small fee. Use of
the land then reverted to the original holder who could, if he chose,
start another crop of seedlings and repeat the rental cycle.23
In the lower Tenryu valley, some twenty miles from the coast,
nenkiyama arrangements seem to have emerged during the iy6os
from older practices in which smallholders placed woodland in pawn
to cover debts or taxes due.24 The holder set out seedlings, sold the
stand to a timber merchant, and received his payment when the
contract was signed. Thereafter the merchant was responsible for
nurturing and felling the stand, after which land use reverted to the
holder.
Aoyama Zen'uemon of Yokoyama village, who operated his busi-
ness along the Tenryu, was particularly active in this trade. In his
contracts with landholders he agreed to nurture and harvest (or
resell) stands of timber, sharing the income with the man whose land

he had leased. The following is a nenkiyama contract that Zen'uemon

accepted in 1782:
A Term Contract on Sugi Forest
In re my sugi forest located at the place known as Yamaguchi, one
parcel of land, bounded on the south by Hyoemon's property [and
on other sides as specified]. Three thousand sugi are planted on this
parcel, and I sell them to you without exception for the sum of six
ryo two bu, duly received. These trees, being seedlings and small
trees, will henceforth be left to grow for however many years until
ready for felling to make lumber. During that term all sugi, and
other trees as well, may be cut as you choose. Having no reservation
on this matter, I agree to this contract.
1782/12
[signed and sealed by the landholder,
guarantor, and coguarantor]
To [Aoyama] Zen'uemon
Yokoyama village
This matter proceeding as stated, after thirty years or thereabouts,
when all sugi trees have been removed, said land is to revert to [the
seller].25
In following years the Aoyama family logged with enough success
so that in a contract dated 1796 the family head agreed to rent three
parcels of land on which he proposed to raise a crop of trees from seed.
In this example the landholder specifies the conditions of his lease,
probably in line with an earlier offer from Aoyama.
I now wish you to plant sugi on three parcels of mountain land in
Hosokubo that have been in my family for generations. You may
plant on said parcels in the manner you deem best. Upon sale of the
mature sugi, proceeds will be divided on a forty-sixty basis with 40
percent as my share. Boundaries of the parcels are as indicated in
your statement to me. Until the stand is mature, you will provide
aftercare, and after felling, the land will revert to us. Duly certified.
1796/3
To Aoyama Kihei [seals of the landholder,
Yokoyama village guarantor, coguarantor, and nanushi]26
The significance of nenkiyama, or advance sale of stands, seems clear
enough: it defined use rights for tree lifetimes and served to link land,
labor, capital, and marketplace. Villagers provided the land and
labor. Merchants provided the long-term investment capital, en-
abling the smallholder to recover his investment quickly, and assured

the producer of access to markets. Moreover, the practice evaded

government prohibitions on the sale of land and sidestepped the
reluctance of holders to alienate property permanently.

Buwakebayashi
The term buwakebqyashi, or shared-yield forest, refers to a parcel of
ohayashi or other woodland (including village and household land)
that a government leased to an entrepreneurial peasant or village.
The lessee planted timber trees on the parcel, nurtured the stand, and
shared the harvest with the government (and any third-party land-
holder) in accordance with the terms of the lease.27 In one form or
another the practice spread widely through Japan during the eigh-
teenth century, appearing under various rubrics in han from Tsugaru
to Satsuma.28
Arrangements varied from place to place and changed over time.
In brief, during the early eighteenth century more and more han
leaders came to realize that tomeyama and tomeki policies were insuf-
ficient for their needs. With lumber stock continuing to be depleted,
more of them advocated reforestation. To induce village participa-
tion, officials promised planters a share of the yield, and as the
eighteenth century progressed, the planter's portion gradually in-
creased from about a third to a half and eventually to two-thirds or
more of the harvest.
Governments applied the sharing rules not only to ohayashi but also
to village and household land. This policy partially nullified tomeki
and tomeyama effects, creating an economic inducement to villagers
that offset the counterattractions of fuelwood and green fertilizer
culture (i.e., growing coppice, scrub brush, bamboo, and grass).
Moreover, governments furnished some seed, seedlings, cuttings, sil-
vicultural advice, loan funds, and occasional grants to encourage
buwakebqyashi planting.
As the eighteenth century advanced, ever more villagers found the
terms of buwakebayashi agreements attractive, and the number of
shared-yield forests multiplied. In Obi han in southeast Kyushu, for
example, the han began authorizing extensive shared-yield planting
from the 17805. The planter chose a site (whether han, village, or
household land) and obtained permission from the han forester (ueki-
kata) to plant. Then he set out his sugi cuttings, provided replacements
and aftercare, and protected the area from fire. Five to fifteen years

later he had the han forest magistrate (yamakata bugyo) inspect the area,
designate it a shared-yield forest, and record the stand in the forest
register. At appropriate times the planter thinned his stand, keeping
the yield. When it was ready for harvesting, usually sixty to seventy
years after planting, the planter (or more likely his heir) petitioned to
cut. The magistrate inspected and granted approval, and officials
oversaw the felling. Commonly, they divided stands into three-tree
clusters, designating the best one of the three a han tree and leaving it
to grow a few more years. The other two they ordered felled. They
measured the timber, recorded the yield in their forest register, and
made the division between planter and han. The han took one-third,
the planter got the other two-thirds. For the planter the final yield
plus the intermediate benefits evidently sufficed to pay for the labor
invested. For the han the yield was nearly clear profit, and in addition
officials knew that an area of upland had been protected from abuse
and had helped support the local economy, which ultimately con-
stituted the han's fiscal foundation. 29
The planters of buwakebayashi might be villagers who recouped
their labor investment decades later at harvest time, or they might be
entrepreneurs who paid for labor and recovered their capital invest-
ment upon marketing the timber. The agreements ran for the tree
generation being planted, but they could be renewed if the parties
so desired.
The format of buwakebayashi agreements varied greatly; here is one
from Akita han dated 1813:
To the village:
Katsurazawa village
in Hatara village
in Ogachi district
Regarding the village request to plant sugi on the tomeyama in
Katsurazawa, which you submitted during my cruise of the forest
this spring, it has been approved as requested, following inspection
of the site. Now, devote yourself energetically to the task. When you
petition [to fell] the mature stand, it will be authorized as per the
standard division [of seven parts for the planter, three for the han].
When I make my semiannual spring and fall cruises of the area, you
are to report the number of trees planted. If investigation reveals
that proper attention has not been given the site, this agreement will
be nullified. Take this admonition to heart.
1813/10/10
Shirazuchi Giuemon30

These buwakebqyashi agreements accomplished several things. By

guaranteeing a future payoff, they gave villagers an incentive to
reforest government land. For people interested in reforesting village
land (either in their own or another village) or woodland held by
someone else, the contracts assured them a government guarantee of
their undertaking. In such an instance the yield would be divided
three ways between the government, planter, and registered holder of
the land, whether village, temple, shrine, or household. The agree-
ments thus bound village, entrepreneur, and regime in a mutually
beneficial commitment to single-use plantation projects. They also
linked land to labor and generated essential capital, not only in terms
of labor and land but also in terms of government or entrepreneurial
funding of the project. Finally, they assured the planter access to the
market through the government, which in many cases had some
control over the market as well as a compelling reason to assure that
the yield be disposed of advantageously.

The Emergence of Plantation Forestry

The emergence of widely practiced afforestation during the latter half
of the Edo period was neither compelled nor made successful by the
institutional innovations of rental or quasi-rental forestry, specifically
wariyama, nenkiyama, and buwakebqyashi. As with the diffusion of silvi-
cultural know-how, those innovations were permissive or conducive,
not causative in that outcome. When scarcity, with its political and
marketplace ramifications, induced people to pursue tree planting,
those rental practices facilitated it, indeed, made it possible on many
woodland sites. In differing ways they overcame institutional barriers
to the effective linking of land, labor, capital, and marketplace. They
expedited the rise of long-term forest management and enabled
plantation culture to supplement natural rejuvenation as a method of
forest production.
Plantation culture did not supplant natural replacement every-
where. In Akita most timber forest rejuvenation was accomplished
without resort to artificial planting. The same was true in the great
Kiso forests of Owari in central Japan. In Kiso policies of selective
rotation cutting were introduced in 1779, after decades of forest
rehabilitation. In subsequent years the han was able to sustain its
annual yield at 250,000 to 280,000 pieces of lumber. 31
For Japan as a whole, however, natural rejuvenation was insuffi-

cient. Consequently, afforestation, which had been a minor theme

during the seventeenth century and then primarily as an aspect of
protection forestry, emerged during the eighteenth as a major thrust
of policy. Especially from about the 17605 both governments and
entrepreneurs planted trees to produce timber.
Government planting became widespread. Even the bakufu pro-
moted it, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.32 As noted in chap-
ter 4, bakufu forests in Hida had been largely stripped of timber by the
17405. From that time officials began requiring villagers to plant, and
by the 18505 they were being paid to set out some one hundred
thousand seedlings per year. This government reforestation eventu-
ally helped restore Hida's forests to conditions approaching what had
existed before they were cut over by bakufu loggers.33
Daimyo also promoted timber plantations. Little Suwa han in
central Japan was actively encouraging afforestation by the 17805.
Initially, forest officials used natural seedlings. So many died, how-
ever, that they started buying sugi, sawara, and especially karamatsu
seedlings from nurseries. By the late 17903 han foresters were promot-
ing seedbed development, and during the nineteenth century plant-
ing activity accelerated. Annual plantings of over a thousand larch
were common during the early :8oos; by mid-century the scale was
far greater. In 1851 han officials supervised a planting of forty-two
thousand larch. Twelve years later the han bought 10,500 nursery
seedlings to set out; gathered another 50,000 naturally sprouted
seedlings for placement in beds, and collected about twenty liters of
seed for sowing in beds the next year.34
As another example, officials of Kumamoto han in Kyushu ad-
vocated tree planting from the i66os, initially using corvee labor to
achieve it. By the 17505 te-directed planting was widespread, with
villages providing labor, which the han paid in slowly rising rates of
money. According to surviving records, sugi and hinoki planting in
three districts of the han was as follows during the nineteenth
century: 35

Period District. Seedlings Annual Rate

1815-1847 Kamimashiki 2,400,000 75,000
1820-1865 Kikuchi 9,327,000 207,266
1824-1829 Tamana 1,000,000 200,000

Beyond the recorded afforestation activity of governments was the

private work of entrepreneurial woodsmen such as Aoyama. Because
their enterprises were widely scattered and often of modest scale,
instructive figures are hard to come by. However, the scholar Ma-
tsushima Yoshio has worked out a general chronology of entrepre-
neurial afforestation in terms of four stages:

1. 1716-63: In the Kinai basin and a few other sites small-scale

timber-tree planting is practiced by a few Buddhist monks,
samurai, wealthy villagers, and doctors who are pursuing local
objectives of public improvement.
2. 1764-1803: Afforestation develops where transportation is conve-
nient. Planters use seedlings and cuttings intending to market the
yield, but the scale remains small.
3. 1804 43: With timber still scarce and prices high, commercial
afforestation spreads even to mountain villages and inaccessible
interior areas. It is widely practiced by villagers, landlords, and
regional merchants. Planting techniques improve rapidly, are dif-
fused widely, and add extensive seedbed culture to naturally
seeded stock.
4. 1844-67: Commercially oriented afforestation is widespread and
large in scale. Stand management is sophisticated; marketing
arrangements are well developed.36

Another scholar, Fujita Yoshihisa, speaks of the half century after

1750 as the period in which entrepreneurial afforestation expanded
greatly, and after 1803, he notes, it was found nationwide.37 Fujita
has also studied the regional distribution of such planting. His find-
ings, represented in map 8, show that the most complex forest prac-
tices existed in central Japan, in terrain favorable to conifer growth
and near the greatest population centers. Lumber constituted a
significant regional market product for the cooler northeast, which
was a comparatively underpopulated and underdeveloped section of
the country. Woodland holders there engaged in extensive seedbed
culture but gave little or no aftercare to the seedlings once they were
set out.38
In addition to afforestation projects pursued independently by
governments and entrepreneurs, buwakebqyashi arrangements facili-

tated planting through the combined auspices of the two. By the

nineteenth century the three forms of afforestation had created such
a demand for seedlings that more and more tree growers were sprout-
ing their own seeds, especially in such areas of entrepreneurial
forestry as Owase on the Kii peninsula, the Saitama and Chichibu
areas of the Kanto region, and several sites in modern Shizuoka
prefecture.39 Daimyo domains, villages, and forest-operating entre-
preneurs all maintained seedbeds, primarily for starting sugi and
hinoki, but also for a wide variety of other species, usually conifers.
And, as noted in chapter 6, in some areas, most notably the Kyoto-
Osaka vicinity, commercial seedbed operations developed that sold
their products all over Japan.40
By the early nineteenth century Japan had moved well into the era
of plantation forestry. Old-growth forests were nearly gone. Nursery
culture, stand nurturing, rotation cutting, and other practices of
purposeful forest management were providing sustained yields in a
growing number of forests.
Solid statistics do not exist to demonstrate the magnitude of in-
crease in timber output, but available figures suggest that the adop-
tion of plantation culture was translating into increases in timber
production, if not gross forest output. Increases in timber output
along the Ki and Oi rivers were mentioned in chapter 6. To cite some
other instances, in Tsugaru, han forests were harvested in rotation by
the late eighteenth century. Sections were cut selectively at ten- to
fifteen-year intervals in a carefully managed policy designed to get
out high-quality pieces with minimal injury, to protect the surviving
stand from damage during the logging operation, and to provide
villagers with waste wood for their own use.41 Because of improved
woodland management, Tsugaru's forest yield expanded, and by the
18208 lumber was providing the han with income approaching seven
thousand ryo annually. 42 Far to the south, little Obi han by the i86os
was able to get out some ten thousand koku (2,780 cubic meters) of
lumber per year. 43 Just over the mountains to the west, Kumamoto
han was harvesting some seventy thousand koku (19,460 cubic meters)
of timber on the stump (tachiki] annually. 44 In central Japan, in the
Ome district west of Edo, where lumbering was handled by local
entrepreneurs, production had shifted by the nineteenth century to
plantation stands that contributed most of the annual 5,500 raft loads
of lumber sent downstream to the capital. 45

In sum, by the nineteenth century seedling and cutting cultures

were well advanced. A complex body of silvicultural knowledge was
widely available in written form and was well known to a large
number of practicing silviculturists. A plethora of large- and small-
scale afforestation projects was shifting enough forest production to a
plantation basis so that Japan had ceased to depend on old-growth
forests and was meeting most of its timber needs from replacement
stock. Much was in mixed stands of natural or semi-natural growth,
but a steadily increasing proportion of the harvest came from plan-
tation stands maintained through the practices examined here. By the
18303, it appeared that long-term forest stability was being achieved,
and sustained-yield forestry was being practiced widely throughout
the archipelago. A revolution of sorts had been accomplished.

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Conclusion

This study opened with the suggestion that Japan today should be an
impoverished, slum-ridden, peasant society subsisting on an eroded
moonscape, rather than a wealthy, dynamic, highly industrialized
society living on a luxuriant, green archipelago. We would predict
the former situation because this fragile chain of islands long ago
should have been devastated by the demands of its extraordinarily
dense human population.1
To develop that proposition a bit further, Japan is a "fragile chain
of islands" in this sense. It is not a migrant piece of archaic continent
in the manner of the British Isles, where bedrock plains merge imper-
ceptibly with rolling hills and highlands. Rather, it is an assemblage
of recently formed mountains produced by the relentless pressure of
northwestward-bound oceanic plates diving beneath the eastern edge
of the southeastward-bound Asian continent. Consequently, Japan
has no continental flatlands, neither pre-Cambrian shields nor more
recent horizontal bedrock formations. Its bedrock, having been
thrust up out of coastal waters by violent tectonic activity, is all folded
and broken into precipitous ridges interspersed with cones and lava
mantles remaining from episodes of vulcanism. The only flatlands are
unconsolidated deposits of recent sedimentary origin. They consist of
new (Holocene) alluvial plains—the site of most arable land and
human settlement—that formed after the last glacial maximum some
fifteen thousand to twenty thousand years ago and older (Upper
Pleistocene) "diluvial" terrace deposits. Most of the latter rise
abruptly from the newer plains to form angular, ravaged, low hilly
country.

'71

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172 Conclusion

Beyond these small sedimentary areas are the hard rock mountains
that constitute 80 percent of the archipelago. They are sheathed with
a thin, immature soil that is low in fertility and subject to easy
destabilization. Their surface fragility, manifested in landslides and
erosion, is exacerbated by continuing crustal activity, such as earth-
quakes and vulcanism, and by irregularly heavy precipitation, most
especially typhoons and monsoons, and on the Sea of Japan littoral,
sudden spring thaws and rapid snow runoff.
Because of this geological origin and character, the boundaries of
safely arable land are much more clearly delineated than in most
densely populated regions, such as China, India, Western Europe,
and the northeastern United States. Encroachment on bedrock
mountains runs the risk of precipitating erosion and landslides that
may ruin not only the mountainsides but also arable land and human
settlements below. When agriculturists do push beyond sedimentary
boundaries, they must engage in painstaking terracing and intensive
manipulation simply to create and maintain tillable soil. These con-
ditions mean that the human carrying capacity of the archipelago is
relatively inflexible. Once the biosystem's limits have been reached,
under a given technological and social regime, it has little elasticity
for handling further human demand. Instead, the limits quickly
manifest themselves in ecological damage and human hardship.
We can speak of Japan's "extraordinarily dense population"
because in terms of density per unit of total land surface, Japan is
one of the world's most heavily populated societies. And in terms of
density per unit of arable it is dramatically more populous than any
other major society on earth. More important for this topic is that the
archipelago has maintained an extremely large human population
for centuries: perhaps some 5 million by A.D. 700; 7 million by 1200; 12
million around 1600; 31 million in 1720; 33 million in 1870; and 120
million today.2
Japan's dense preindustrial population placed great demand not
only on arable land but also on forests. In part this was so because the
arable was created from woodland, and every gain of the one consti-
tuted a loss of the other. More significantly it was so because Japan's
forests provided most of the fertilizer that grew the crops that fed the
people. During the Edo period in particular, when the population
nearly tripled and pressure on the land became most acute, tillers tried
to maximize their yield because every increment of output reduced

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Conclusion 173

their risk of hunger or increased their market income. They achieved

those increments in part by opening more marginal land to culti-
vation. That strategy, however, placed an ever larger proportion of
total yield at risk while increasing the energy inputs (labor and
nutrients) required for every unit of added production.
To compensate for the scarcity and marginality of arable, early
modern farmers tilled intensively and applied fertilizer liberally,
mostly using grass, scrub brush, and leaf fall. Fertilizer requirements
varied with soil quality and crop, but in general about five to ten
times as much area was needed for fertilizer material as for the crop it
grew.3 Hence, every increase in cultivated acreage entailed a many-
fold increase in acreage devoted to fertilizer production.4 Fertilizer
collection rights were so important to tillers that they became the
paramount issue in disputes among them. As population growth drove
preindustrial Japan to the limits of its carrying capacity, excessive
demand on woodland thus manifested itself in intensifying and pro-
liferating disputes over "rights" of exploitation.
In these disputes the interests of affected groups did not receive
equal consideration. Among the human disputants, "rights" were
acknowledged roughly in proportion to the power that claimants
brought to the case. The "rights" of unborn human generations were
represented particularistically by disputants because of the strongly
hereditary character of social status and place. The "rights" of other
species did not enjoy any such representation, however, and only
creatures "useful" to the humans, most notably domesticated plants
and animals, found their interests protected in the ongoing contest
over woodland use. "Useless" biota fared well only where they could
adapt to "parasitic" roles vis-a-vis the human populace or where they
could escape the effects of human activity.
It is these considerations of topography, climate, population den-
sity, and intensive resource exploitation that prompt the suggestion
that so many people living for so many centuries on so little land
should long ago have ruined it. The problem was foreshadowed
during the ancient predation of A.D. 600—850, when the introduction
of continental political, economic, religious, and architectural prac-
tices gave rise in the Kinai basin to an unprecedented spasm of city
and monument building. That activity reduced much of the basin's
high forest to scrub, opened more marginal land to tillage, and
subjected those areas most accessible from Nara and Heian to

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174 Conclusion

severe exploitation and consequent environmental change and

deterioration.
After a few generations, however, it became apparent that the
builders of this urban civilization lacked the power to extend their
forest exploitation throughout the archipelago. Once they had con-
sumed the accumulated biomass of forests in and around the Kinai
basin, their wood-based civilization became dependent on the
region's annual biological production. That proved insufficient to
maintain their great metropolitan center, and in due course it
decayed.
In the twelfth century Japan entered an era of unstable, decen-
tralized rule during which forest consumption was spread more evenly
over the archipelago and seemed to press few areas beyond carrying
capacity. That situation ended late in the sixteenth century when a
military dictatorship of unparalleled power reimposed order on the
country and precipitated a nationwide surge of deforestation. During
this early modern predation (1570-1670) the Japanese harvested
most of the archipelago's forests south of Ezo (Hokkaido) and
brought most remaining workable areas under the hoe. In the process
they triggered widespread erosion and flooding and everywhere gen-
erated disputes over woodland-use rights. They seemed to be pressing
their islands beyond endurance, driving them toward environmental
catastrophe.
Disaster did not unfold, however. Instead, from late in the seven-
teenth century the rate of exploitation slowed and more stable pat-
terns of forest usage emerged, producing a condition perhaps de-
scribed as maximum tolerable utilization. Within another century
woodland holders throughout the islands were adopting methods
to increase desired woodland production, and that development
marked Japan's shift from exploitation to regenerative forestry. The
issues that have invited particular scrutiny in this study, therefore, are
why this spasm of early modern forest overuse developed and what
countermeasures it induced. Addressing those issues then prompts the
further and much more complicated question, why did affairs work
out as they did?

Why Did Forest Overuse Develop?

Forest overuse was a product of several trends that characterized
seventeenth-century Japan. Peace had been restored, and as noted at

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Conclusion 175

length in chapter 3, the newly powerful rulers celebrated their attain-

ments by constructing glorious monuments: castles, mansions,
palaces, temples, and shrines. Moreover, the growth of cities and
towns proceeded at an unprecedented pace, consuming additional
quantities of construction lumber. A surge of population growth
sharply increased demand for food, fuel, and shelter, and the as-
sociated spurt in land opening greatly expanded the area of arable,
removing much land from forest production even while creating
greater need for fertilizer material. Finally, intensified tillage prac-
tices added to the demand for fertilizer.
Figure i, which depicts a hypothetical forest site, illustrates the
changes in the local situation. By the late sixteenth century much of
Japan's alluvial plain was under cultivation, and villagers used
nearby hilly areas, especially diluvial terraces, for fuel, fertilizer, and
building materials. The rulers, meanwhile, logged the areas of high-
quality forest, most of which were found on unopened valley floors
and the slopes of bedrock mountains. As the century passed, new
villages were established and land opening brought the remaining
alluvium and much diluvium under cultivation. Accordingly, vil-
lagers turned increasingly to bedrock hillsides for fuel and fertilizer.
That trend not only triggered erosion and downstream damage but
also pitted villagers against one another in disputes over forest-use
rights. Moreover, it pitted them against their rulers, who normally
wished cutover woodland left undisturbed so that seedlings could
grow to maturity.
By the later 16oos the pressure on resources was evident not only
in disputes over use rights but also in the growing scarcity and costli-
ness of wood products, the serious deterioration of forestland, and the
resultant erosion and damage to lowland.

What Countermeasures Did the Situation

Promote?
In essence, forest overuse and its ramifications promoted sequentially
two types of countermeasure, the first usually labeled negative and
the second, positive. The first, the "negative regimen" of chapter 4,
was a system of restrictions that affected the three spheres of pro-
duction, distribution, and consumption. It developed erratically
throughout the country between about 1630 and 1720 and consisted
of steps taken to limit and channel forest usage, thereby slowing the

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1590s: A hypothetical locality

Figure i. Changes in a Hypothetical Forest Site

From Conrad Totrnan, "The Forests of Tokugawa Japan: A Catastrophe

That Was Avoided," The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 3d ser.,
vol. 18(1983): 4-5.

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1660s: A hypothetical locality

Figure I. (continued]

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178 Conclusion

rate of tree felling, restricting brush cutting, and assisting natural

processes of forest regeneration. Those measures seem to have helped
most woodland escape serious ecological abuse. Except in the Kinai
and Nobi basins and the coastal areas of the Inland Sea, most soil did
not become so severely degraded as to form hageyama, or dessicated,
infertile bald mountains. 5 Rather, most uplands retained their basic
biological capacity to support healthy forests.
Nevertheless, natural forest regeneration was unable to satisfy the
lumber, fuel, and fertilizer demands of eighteenth-century Japan.
Large trees became rare and stands, thinner, and disputes over use
rights continued to flourish. In consequence, as the century ad-
vanced, governments and villagers began adopting positive policies of
tree planting to produce timber stock. By century's end plantation
stands could be found growing throughout the islands. And during
the nineteenth century the acreage of hand-planted forest increased
rapidly. By 1868 a large number of conifer plantations, mostly sugi
and hinoki, were growing from Kyushu to Tohoku.
This outcome was not cost-free. The negative regimen consistently
and purposely discriminated against lower-status people by allowing
them fewer and less valued goods. When plantations developed,
moreover, many were on accessible land that otherwise would have
produced fodder, fuel, or fertilizer material. This shift in yield, which
addressed the wants of the high-status people more than the needs
of the low, was commonly achieved, it appears, by depriving poorer
villagers of customary use rights and forcing them to meet their needs
elsewhere. Beyond these human costs, plantations presented a poten-
tial ecological danger because even-aged monocultures are notori-
ously species-restrictive and vulnerable biotic systems. In early mod-
ern Japan, however, the destructive potential of forest monocropping
appears not to have developed, probably because plantation forests
remained scattered, small in size, and a small portion of total
woodland.
Despite their costs, negative and positive countermeasures were
instituted and eventually proved reasonably effective in stabilizing
forest use and invigorating output. To point that out does not,
however, really explain why Tokugawa Japan escaped environ-
mental calamity because it does not explain why the measures worked
out as they did. The mere existence of a need, after all, does not assure
a response, and to respond is not necessarily to respond effectively.

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Conclusion 179

Why Did Matters Work Out as They Did?

To explain the eventual effectiveness of Edo-period forest preser-

vation measures, it may be helpful first to note some possible expla-
nations that do not withstand scrutiny.
Foreigners, and some Japanese as well, often speak fondly of a
special Japanese "love of nature" that can be credited with this early
modern forest recovery. To so argue, however, invites the tart query:
did they love nature so much less during the ancient and early
modern predations? More seriously, to advance this "love of nature"
as an explanation would be to misconstrue terms. The "nature" of
this sensibility is an aesthetic abstraction that has little relationship to
the "nature" of a real ecosystem. The sensibility associated with
raising bonsai, viewing cherry blossoms, nurturing disciplined orna-
mental gardens, treasuring painted landscapes, and admiring chry-
santhemums is an entirely different order of things from the concerns
and feelings involved in policing woodlands and planting trees. The
former is quintessentially "urban"; the latter, "rural." The one is a
matter of recreation and luxury; the other, of work and necessity. The
one is comfortable and "indoor"; the other, uncomfortable and "out-
door." The one is delicate and refined; the other, ponderous and
crude. The people who labored to salvage Japan's forests were not
especially concerned with beauty or driven by any ideological sense of
the aesthetics of nature. They had other matters on their minds.
Just as we do not find woodland regulators and tree growers
justifying their own actions, or urging action by others, in the name of
"nature," so we do not find any themes of Buddhist reverence for
"sentient beings" showing up as reason or rationale in forest policy.
One reason for its absence, no doubt, is that as a practical matter
"sentient beings" generally meant mammals and birds. Ordinary
trees, along with earthworms, grass, and almost everything else in the
biosystem, lacked religious standing. Nor do other religious doctrines,
such as Shinto or ShugendS, show up as motivators in the actions of
forest preservers. Doubtless, a few gnarly old trees were left standing
near shrines or other sacred places out of an aesthetic-religious sensi-
bility, but such occurrences were local in application and severely
limited in their environmental impact.
The one philosophical rationale that frequently appears in horta-
tory writings is Confucian in character. Before we conclude, however,

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180 Conclusion

that the "why" of early modern forest recovery can be found in

"Confucian values," it would be well to remember that Confucian
values had not stopped the elite from plundering Japan's forests
during either the ancient or early modern predations. And it is not
immediately evident that the elite predators were any less "Con-
fucian" than their descendants of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Nor should we forget that Confucian values did not save
the forests of China.
Two other possible doctrine-based explanations deserve note. One
is "modernization theory," an interpretive approach to Japanese
history that enjoyed great popularity during the 19605. In this view
Japan "progressed" along the path of modernization during the Edo
period, with society becoming more "rational" and "secular" as
decades passed. In terms of forest history this view would seem to
suggest that the decline in temple building, with its concomitant
reduction in demand for timber, reflected a waning religious fervor
and rising secularism. The difficulty with this thesis is that the early
seventeenth-century spurt of temple and shrine construction was
caused by rulers for reasons that had little to do with religious
conviction and much to do with self-glorification and the demon-
stration of moral rectitude. Moreover, it is difficult to demonstrate
any decline in the religiosity of their political successors.6
Modernization theory also might suggest that the emergence of
a conservationist value system constituted the application of secular
rationality to woodland management. Certainly, the writings on
woodland conservation are this-worldly and pragmatic in tone, but
that seems to have been as true in the early Edo period as later. The
formal rhetoric often is Confucian, but much of the content could as
easily be termed "practical peasant common sense" as "modern
rationality." This silvicultural literature is important not because of
its location in any historicist theory but because it was actually
written and because many of the people who could benefit from it
could read, and they did read and evidently apply it.
The other doctrine-based explanation that might be advanced
posits the rise of a precocious ecological consciousness. It is a wonder-
fully appealing notion, but to my knowledge no one in early modern
Japan argued that all living creatures have "rights." None held that
biological diversity is either intrinsically good or essential to human
well-being; those ideas have taken root only during the twentieth

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Conclusion 181

century. Rather, the concerns of those who restored woodland were

emphatically "practical." They were concerned with what erosion
did to road, village, and cropland. They wanted forests that would
meet material human needs.
No, to seek the explanation of early modern forest recovery in
formal doctrine is unhelpful. We have to get beyond simple formula-
tions of of ideology to examine the complex questions of how people
addressed their interest in human-oriented forest production and why
the process of addressing that interest had the corollary effect
of nurturing rather than ruining the forests of eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century Japan. As that phrasing suggests, we must bear
in mind that forest recovery was generally a means, not an end; a
by-product more than a purposeful outcome of human effort.
To understand why human effort resulted in the by-product of
forest recovery enmeshes us in multivariate analysis because we are
dealing with an ecological problem that involves both human and
environmental variables. The variables can be grouped into five
categories—biological, technological, ideological, institutional, and
ecological—each of which illuminates part of the problem. The
contributions of the five can usefully be examined separately before
we attempt to integrate them in an overall explanation.
i. The biological variables played their role through a pattern of
socially modified forest dynamics that enabled woodland to adapt to
human demand. The essential point here is that as loggers consumed
old-growth stands of sugi, hinoki, sawara, hiba, and other conifers, those
areas not converted to tillage or pasture grew up to mixed stands with
a high proportion of broadleaf species. These broadleafs were decid-
uous in most areas but included important evergreen species along
the southern littoral. The new stands provided far less lumber of the
sort prized by builders of monuments, but they provided far more
high-quality fuelwood and fertilizer material and often an absolute
increase in biomass production per acre.
In an elemental sense this replacement of conifers with other
species was a natural expression of forest dynamics. Felling removed a
mature climax stand, opening the way for pioneer species to start a
new cycle that would evolve through intermediate growth to a new
climax forest.7 In many places, however, this natural succession was
slowed by villagers, whose repeated cutting of grass, brush, and
young growth prevented the reassertion of indigenous conifers.8 Ulti-

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182 Conclusion

mately, the Tokugawa populace, rulers included, could not survive

without fertilizer to grow food and fuel to cook it, but it could get
along without grand temples, mansions, and other such structures. In
consequence, this change in forest composition was never fully re-
versed, even where governments vigorously promoted afforestation,
and except in plantation stands, mixed forests came to dominate
the mountains of Tokugawa Japan.
The prevalence of deciduous broadleaf growth served woodland
well by enabling it to meet society's most insistent demands. This
forest composition also helped preserve woodland by clothing
hillsides in vegetation that gave soil exceptional protection. Whereas
dense conifer stands shaded out most undergrowth, leaving a gener-
ally barren, needle-covered surface, deciduous woodland often con-
tained substantial grass and brush. Moreover, when loggers felled
conifers, the stumps died and roots decayed, permitting the barren
slopes to erode easily. By contrast, when they cut down broadleafs,
the stumps—especially of certain common species of oak and beech,
but as well of hornbeam, chestnut, and mulberry—lived on, continu-
ing to bind the soil in place. Moreover, these stumps rapidly pushed
out new sprouts and leafy growth, forming coppice stands that soon
gave soil additional protection against rain and wind.
In short, the natural process of forest succession, as modified by
woodland users, enabled forests to meet the most pressing human
needs while doing the best job of protecting themselves from natural
damage. By themselves, of course, these biological factors cannot
account for the larger pattern of forest recovery, as is evident from the
severe deterioration experienced by woodlands in the Kinai and
Inland Sea regions. There, biological habit notwithstanding, a longer
period of human overuse achieved considerable destruction of forests
and degradation of once-healthy soil.
2. Accordingly, the character of human exploitation also requires
consideration. The technology of forest exploitation was a key vari-
able, and certainly the survival of forest vitality was aided by the
limitations of a primitive technology applied to impenetrable moun-
tains. Both the felling and transport of timber required extraordinary
manual effort despite the invention and widespread application
of complex logging techniques. Woodsmen used slender-hafted,
narrow-bladed axes and wedges to fell trees and form logs for ship-
ping. And even though they showed great ingenuity in developing

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Conclusion 183

chutes, sleds, and other devices for moving timber from felling site to
river and equally great imagination in developing sluicing, rafting,
snagging, and storage methods, the work remained slow, tedious, and
labor-intensive. Those conditions enabled many deep mountain
areas to continue providing sanctuary for both valued growth and
"useless" biota that otherwise would have fallen victim to human
actions. And even in more accessible areas technological consider-
ations limited the frequency and intensity of human exploitation.
Two notable political restraints affected logging technology, one
relating to wheeled vehicles and one to saws. For reasons that are not
entirely clear, rulers prohibited intercity wheeled transport of goods
and people.9 In consequence, heavy wood products could not go
overland, and shippers sent them by stream and coastal vessel instead.
Given Japan's deeply incised topography and the extreme irregular-
ity of streamflow, which repeatedly ruined fords and bridges, the
prohibition on wheeled vehicles may have had little effect on the
overall efficiency of timber transport, but in some locations it surely
hampered forest exploitation and may have added to production
costs.
More noteworthy was policy on crosscut saws. During the fifteenth
century Japanese blacksmiths mastered the art of hammering out
heavy-duty saws (oga) of sufficient size, flatness, and temper to fell
large trees. Woodsmen employed them in some logging projects
during the rule of both Hideyoshi and leyasu, but for most of the Edo
period governments proscribed them except for ripping timbers into
planking and board stock. In some areas at least, rulers forbade felling
by saw because a person could stealthily drop reserved trees with a
crosscut saw, whereas the sound of ax blows carried far enough to
discourage illegal woodcutting.10 Because saws could cut much more
rapidly than axes, their prohibition slowed logging and raised its
labor cost appreciably.
These technological constraints on felling and moving timber to mar-
ket helped keep logging an incredibly difficult and time-consuming
task throughout the Edo period. By increasing labor costs, they may
have helped discourage consumption. And they certainly slowed
deforestation, thereby improving a forest's capacity to repair itself as
felling progressed. The technical difficulty of logging did not stop it,
however, and was in itself insufficient to save Japan's forests from
destruction. Other factors were involved.

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184 Conclusion

3. Ideology, like technology, helps shape human behavior, and the

development of a conservation ethic and its effective application by
rulers and villagers alike certainly influenced the forest experience.
Clearly, there was such an ethic, and it began taking shape as soon as
the first signs of overcutting appeared.11 Before 1615, for example, a
senior official of Akita han admonished his colleagues to bear in mind
that "the treasure of the realm is the treasure of the mountains. When
all [the trees] are cut and gone, however, their value will be nil. Before
all is lost, proper care must be taken. Destitution of the mountains will
result in destitution of the realm."12
Especially from about 1700, as noted in chapter 5, a stream of
horticultural treatises (jikatasho); government edicts and regulations;
and village, family, and business codes admonished people through-
out Japan to preserve their property; nurture their resources; maxi-
mize the productivity of their lands, people, and enterprises; and
bequeath a flourishing patrimony to the next generation. The writers
applied this general ideal of resource preservation and output max-
imization to forests as well as to farmland and urban facilities. It
underlay both the negative policies of use restriction and the positive
policies of tree planting.
Without question, the existence of this conservation ethic was
important to the survival and revival of Japan's forests. The presence
of an ethic, however, does not explain why it can be applied effec-
tively to a problem at hand. Somehow in the arrangement of its
activities a society must so order affairs that people can translate an
ideal into practical behavior. That requirement leads to exploration
of the fourth, or institutional, set of factors that affected Tokugawa
forest history.
4. An examination of institutional factors begins by noting some
relevant contextual items of an institutional nature. Two items are
the government policies of preserving domestic peace and minimizing
foreign contact, which were largely in place by 1640 and perpetuated
thereafter. One effect of these policies was to preclude a common
solution to the problems caused by resource overexploitation: seizing
neighboring territory to compensate for what one's own area no
longer provides. The people of Tokugawa Japan, high and low alike,
had to make do with what they had and what they could acquire
peacefully, and they knew it. These government policies had the
additional effects of preventing the introduction from abroad of

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Conclusion 185

disequilibrating technology and ideas and of sustaining at home a

general faith in the immutable nature of the social order. People
simply took it for granted that the essential character of the future was
knowable: they could prepare for it, but they must do so with the
resources at hand.
Two other relevant contextual factors are these: by the mid-
seventeenth century the household was established as the basic build-
ing block of society, and social status and location were strongly
hereditary. Although there was in fact a great deal of geographical
mobility in early modern Japan and few poor families actually main-
tained themselves for many generations, nevertheless a basic assump-
tion on which villagers commonly planned the future was that ideally
one's heir would inherit one's estate. Consequently, insofar as one's
labor enhanced the worth of that estate, the labor would redound to
the benefit of those whom one most cherished.
With these contextual matters in mind, an examination of insti-
tutional factors focuses on modifications in use rights that placed
more and more real control of woodland in the hands of people with a
vested interest in—and the resources to pursue—long-term forest
regeneration. These modifications enabled early modern Japanese to
apply their conservation ethic to woodland. The first widespread
change was the formation of tomeyama, which governments estab-
lished to prevent villagers from overcutting or destroying timber seed-
lings in their quest for fuel and fertilizer. This policy successfully
protected large tracts of comparatively inaccessible forest, but as
suggested in chapters 4 and 7, it did little to restore high-grade timber
stands.
Furthermore, government policy was of limited value in woodland
near villages, most of which was managed by villagers themselves,
whether as communal or as household land. The quality of these
woods, common land in particular, deteriorated as hard-pressed or
irresponsible villagers despoiled them in defiance of protests and
counterpressure from neighbors and official superiors.
In response to these problems, villages began dividing their
common land, assigning designated portions (wariyama) to specified
households for varying lengths of time and with various limitations of
use, thereby giving those households greater incentive to nurture the
land. Following such division, it appears, many deteriorated areas of
former commons gradually regained heavier covers of grass, brush,

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186 Conclusion

coppice growth, and even hand-planted stands of timber trees. In

contrast, in some places the conversion of commons to wariyama
intensified the pressure on surviving communal land as poorer mem-
bers of villages struggled to eke out a living by scraping together fuel
and fertilizer from the patches of land still accessible to them. In
consequence, the revival of some forest sites was accompanied by the
spread ofhageyama in adjoining areas.
Two other woodland arrangements that appeared in the
eighteenth century—land leasing (nenkiyama) and yield sharing
(buwakebqyashi]—also gave interested parties reason and capacity to
exercise responsible stewardship. In effect, the formation of tomeyama,
wariyama, nenkiyama, and buwakebqyashi shifted the basic philosophy
of site utilization from multiple-use to single-use forestry, not by
precluding all other uses or users but by establishing sustainable
priorities on specific parcels. By facilitating this shift in the face of
intensifying overconsumption of biomass, these several changes in
woodland-use rights permitted orderly long-term utilization of for-
ests and the adoption of sustained-yield policies.
5. Japan's early modern woodland experience was thus shaped by
the performance of both the forests and their human exploiters. It
would not do, however, to view the relationship as a simple bilateral
interaction of humans and forest vegetation. The relationship was
actually more complex, involving more actors whose roles are best
examined from a broader ecological perspective. From this perspec-
tive the maintenance of sustained yield and, more fundamentally, the
preservation of forest vitality depended on the establishment often-
able equilibria between a great array of supplies and demands. The
attainment of these equilibria, and the consequent effectiveness of
preservation measures, can be attributed to restraints that arose
within the "homocentric biological community" of woodland ex-
ploiters, enabling it to live within the limits of its environmental
context.
To explain this last sentence, the Japanese, like other human
groups, were by themselves incapable of doing much damage to the
ecosystem. Only after they adopted agricultural practices, forming
symbiotic alliances with collaborating species of plants and animals,
could they radically alter the biosystem. In forming such alliances,
they not only advanced their own interests at the expense of other
flora and fauna but also helped their collaborators advance their own

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Conclusion 187

species interest. Among plants in general, certain grains and grasses

and select "vegetables" and "fruit" proved to be adaptable collabo-
rators, with rice emerging as the primary beneficiary. Dogs, horses,
chickens, and cattle proved particularly adept among the animals.
Among trees, sugi emerged as a major winner during the Edo period.
Working together, but in the service of the dominant humans, the
members of this biological community established hegemony over
ever larger areas of the country, primarily through systems of culti-
vation, pasturage, and orchardry that displaced many indigenous
flora and fauna, leaving them to fare as best they could by moving
elsewhere or finding "parasitic" niches.13
During the early modern predation, the Japanese and their biolog-
ical collaborators extended their territorial sway about as far as they
could on the islands south of Ezo.14 For two reasons, however, that
sway proved less damaging to other biota and to the ecosystem as a
whole than it might have. First, the exploiting community did not
include browsing herds of domesticated goats and sheep, such as have
wreaked havoc in other parts of the world. Second, the community
appears to have stabilized and perhaps even reduced its total demand
on woodland during the eighteenth century, in part by restraining
consumption, in part by extending its exploitation farther into the
ocean, and in part by improving the efficiency of exploitation.
The human population itself nearly ceased growing after about
1720, and while the mechanisms and motivation of that numerical
stabilization are topics of substantial scholarly debate, the root cause
can surely be found in the intensifying constraints that the homo-
centric community encountered in its search for sustenance.15 The
processes of population control improved the efficiency of human ex-
ploitation of resources, it appears, by reducing the proportion of unpro-
ductive members—children, the aged, and the infirm—and, through
periodic famines, by driving people out of the most vulnerable areas
of the biosystem, notably interior valleys where extraction of re-
sources was particularly difficult and where human activity could be
especially destructive of the environment. Furthermore, instead of
expanding consumption per capita on all fronts, the humans sorted
out their priorities. They nearly abandoned monumental construc-
tion, both secular and religious, barely maintained urban establish-
ments, and shifted woodland that once grew timber into production
of more essential fertilizer, fuel, food, and other goods until the rise of

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188 Conclusion

plantation culture and the appearance of fertilizer substitutes allowed

selective reconversion of hillsides to intensive timber production.
Gross human demand on woodland may thus have stabilized. It is
possible, moreover, that some other sectors of the homocentric com-
munity shrank, enabling humans to consume directly a larger portion
of the community's total woodland harvest. Most notably, where
draft animals previously had pulled plows and carts, during the Edo
period humans took over those tasks.16 With those changes, and with
the cessation of warfare, which eliminated the need for many cavalry
mounts, horse and cattle populations may have declined, at least
relative to the human population, allowing fodder-growing areas to
produce green fertilizer, fuel, food, or other goods for more direct
human consumption.
Trends in the population of other domestic animals are even less
clear,17 but a reduction in the overall consumption of foodstuffs by
collaborating species may have left more for human use. In addition,
expanded exploitation of marine products, as protein for humans and
fertilizer for agriculture, meant that the human population could
meet more of its needs without increasing the burden on forests. By
stabilizing or even reducing its total demand on woodland, and by
shifting more of the yield to direct human consumption, the homo-
centric biological community enabled forest production to come
closer to satisfying the wants of the Japanese populace, thereby
making easier the adoption of sustained-yield policies and the pres-
ervation of the terrestrial ecosystem.

In the end the historian wants to know "why" and "so what." Why
did Japan's forest experience develop as it did? What were the conse-
quences of its having done so? A sufficient explanation (the "why")
and assessment (the "so what") of Tokugawa forest history must pull
together these several variables of climate, geology, biology, ecology,
technology, ideology, and social organization and change, to show
how the result of their interaction was the survival of a stable ecosys-
tem and vital forestland despite great and enduring human demand.
Such a formulation might read something like this. Aspects of the
archipelago's geology and climate facilitated forest preservation.
Because Japan was not buried under late Pleistocene glaciers, most
hillsides, though geologically young and subject to easy surface de-
stabilization, have not recently been stripped of regolith and instead

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Conclusion 189

have a fairly even, if thin and immature, covering of soil. Also,

because glacial activity did not scour sharp ridges into rolling hills,
disrupt drainage patterns, and create irregular depositional to-
pography, and because Japan, unlike northwest Europe, has rela-
tively rain-free winters, deforested areas are not rapidly overrun by
peat moss and converted to bog and thus deprived of the capacity to
reforest. Consequently, as long as deforestation is not followed by
severe erosion, new woodland growth can establish itself without
heroic human intervention.
Aided by these environmental qualities, and having been sub-
jected to only moderate exploitation, most of Japan's forests outside
the Kinai basin remained in generally good health until the seven-
teenth century. Population growth and other developments of that
century, however, led to the despoliation of much woodland, giving
rise to shortages of fuel, fertilizer, and construction timber and gen-
erating severe problems of flooding and erosion as well as social
conflict. During the seventeenth century, these multiple pressures
prodded rulers and villagers to devise new strategies of forest manage-
ment. The resulting "negative regimen" of forest ordinances did little
to restore high-grade timber stands, but it did mitigate the worst
problems.
This policy of regulation was aided by the primitiveness of logging
technology, which, given the topography of the islands, militated
against rapid deforestation, and by the natural defense mechanisms of
woodland, which slowed deterioration. Those factors, together with
the social stability afforded by Japan's general avoidance of foreign
disruptions and domestic upheaval, gave the humans more time to
begin rearranging and restraining consumption within the homocen-
tric biological community of forest users, thereby facilitating the
eventual establishment of a general supply-demand equilibrium.
During the eighteenth century a body of useful silvicultural
knowledge emerged. It was fostered by a basic ethic of conservation,
sometimes couched in elegant Confucian terms but more commonly
in terms of household or community well-being, that served the
interests of the governments and village landholders who controlled
most of the woodland. That silvicultural corpus, which became more
sophisticated as the years passed, spelled out "positive" methods for
coping with site damage and product shortages by nurturing desir-
able forest growth. Given the contextual factors of peace, hereditary

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190 Conclusion

status, and the household as the basic social unit, contemporary

changes in land-control patterns made long-term forest nurturing
worthwhile for those householders who managed land in economi-
cally favored locations, particularly along transportation arteries
near major cities. In consequence, they were able to apply the new
silvicultural knowledge to improve woodland conditions and increase
timber output on selected sites, thereby easing logging pressure on
other areas.
Because of this configuration of factors, by the mid-nineteenth
century the Japanese had made appreciable strides in revitalizing
forest production. However, the changes in woodland condition that
made this possible were not achieved without cost. Within society, the
broader homocentric biological community, and the ecosystem as a
whole, the costs were substantial. And they were not borne equitably.
Moreover, some of the gains in one type of yield were basically trade-
offs achieved at the expense of other types, especially near villages, so
the overall constraints on community use of woodland yield remained
essentially intact. In the absence of other technological and social
changes, any sharp increase in the homocentric community's total
biomass consumption would produce renewed environmental de-
terioration and scarcities that could only disrupt long-term stability
of supply.
Those caveats notwithstanding, the changes in woodland use that
arose in response to the early modern predation halted much site
deterioration, helped sustain species diversity, addressed with some
success the social consequences of scarcity, and helped maintain
valued types of forest output. In terms of the overall vitality of Japan's
ecosystem, it may be appropriate to conclude that, given the scale and
character of human demand on woodland during the Edo period, the
social and ecological benefits of the transition from exploitation to
regenerative forestry substantially outweighed the costs. That tran-
sition played a key role in enabling twentieth century Japan to
survive as a luxuriant green archipelago rather than a slum-ridden,
peasant society.

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Bibliographical Essay:
Scholarship on Preindustrial
Japanese Forestry, 1880—1980

This study is the first extended report in English on preindustrial

Japanese forestry.1 Because it is a pioneer effort, some of its findings
surely will be revised by subsequent scholarship. As perusers of
notes will have observed, it relies heavily on the work of Japanese
scholars, and this bibliographical essay attempts to summarize that
work and facilitate access to it by examining the development of the
field during the past century and by identifying titles pertinent to
specific topics within it.2
Measures of forest management in Japan date back to the
seventh century, but forestry experienced its most noteworthy
advances during the early modern (Edo or Tokugawa) period
(1600—1868). Not surprisingly, the advances in forest management,
forest industry, and silviculture of the early modern period have
commanded the most scholarly interest. That interest, which dates
from the Meiji government's collection during the i88os of doc-
uments on Tokugawa forestry, has been growing for a century now
and has given rise to a complex and sophisticated historical sub-
discipline.3 By contrast, the study of pre-i6oo woodland affairs
dates only from about 1950 and is a field of study still in its infancy.
Consequently, the literature on preindustrial forestry pertains over-
whelmingly to the early modern period.
Studying this literature has its difficulties. There is a problem
of boundaries because the topic merges imperceptibly into a host

191

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192 Bibliographical Essay

of others, including post-1868 history; local, commercial, and

industrial history; the history of social structure and change, of
mountain-village living conditions, and of transportation; riparian
work; agricultural technology; social thought; and science. More-
over, the historiography is difficult to survey because the writings
are scattered through a vast array of journals and bulletins and
appear in books that sometimes are difficult to locate and quickly
go out of print. 4 This essay, based on works I have been able to
examine, will doubtless fail to cite some items of value.5 Post-1980
scholarship is purposely omitted.

Major Interpretive Issues

Preindustrial forest history seems on first glance an unlikely forum
for political comment. We soon discover, however, that burning
issues are imbedded in it. Even in its genesis the discipline was
merely an academic by-product of practical efforts by the new
Meiji government to consolidate power and pursue national re-
form. The decision to establish a centrally controlled national forest
system led to the original compilation of documents and prepa-
ration of descriptive studies of forest organization and operation.
After the new forest system took shape, moreover, stubborn prac-
tical problems continued to sustain much of the scholarly interest
in earlier forest practices.
Other less immediate concerns also have fostered study of pre-
industrial forestry. Both before and after the Pacific War, some
scholars wrote on early modern silviculture, patriotically demon-
strating that Japan had an indigenous, still-serviceable tradition
of forestry. In contrast, as part of the angry postwar search for ex-
planations of recent state policy, some forest historians produced
studies that highlighted the repressive nature of "feudal" forestry
and the exploitative nature of "capitalist" forestry, which, they
argued, paved the way for Japan's expansionist twentieth-century
"absolutism."
The issue in forest history that has most richly embodied con-
temporary concerns has been the state and fate of village common
land (iriaichi).6 When the Meiji government rationalized forest
administration during the i88os, it precipitated widespread rural
hardship and discontent by making sweeping changes in rights to

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Bibliographical Essay 193

common land. That situation prompted scholars to study con-

temporary iriai arrangements and their historical background.
During the 19305, as parts of rural Japan wallowed in misery, iriai
research intensified, still focusing on post-1868 developments. It
was redoubled in the changed intellectual climate of the postwar
years because rural suffering was seen as central to Japan's recently
disastrous political experience. Concurrently, a new burst of land
reform generated more disputes over common land, and these stim-
ulated further historical study. Scholars dug deeper into the prob-
lem, and the quest for origins and determinitive experiences shifted
the focus of inquiry backward to the Edo period. Since then,
common-land practices have remained a focal point of research.
A broader aspect of Meiji land reform also sparked much schol-
arship. The creation of Japan's modern national forest system ex-
cluded many villagers not only from wooded common land but also
from forestland of other types that they previously had utilized. The
government's rationale for this far-reaching forest closure was that
timber stands must be protected and lumber production enhanced,
tasks best handled by officialdom. This perception of government as
the benevolent protector of the commonweal was reflected in (and
reinforced by) scholarly studies of early modern forestry, which ex-
plored carefully the extensive and presumably beneficial govern-
mental forest policies of the Edo period.
In the wake of World War II this elitist government posture
struck many scholars as dubious, and a fierce debate arose concern-
ing the relative merits of "family forests" and "state forests." This
debate promoted a considerable body of scholarship designed to
reassess the contributions of early modern governments, villages,
and individual entrepreneurs to forest protection, afforestation,
and, by extension, the public welfare. The result has been a
significant reinterpretation of how Tokugawa forestry operated.
Whereas studies made earlier in the twentieth century commonly
saw early modern forest policy as a desirable government effort
imposed on a reluctant and unenlightened rural populace, recent
works more often see government policy as exploitative and re-
pressive, whereas private initiatives were creative and fruitful. The
task of reconciling this view with that of an exploitative merchant
capitalist role in Tokugawa forestry will doubtless keep scholars
occupied for some time.

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194 Bibliographical Essay

During the last several years, the pain of Japan's mid-century

failures has been displaced by the pleasure of more recent triumphs.
In keeping with this spirit, scholarship has lost some of its critical
social bite. Authors have eliminated much overtly political content
from their writings, transcending the issues of modern history
and studying the preindustrial forest experience "objectively." The
effort has generated much detailed monographic work, whose lack
of explicit political purpose often makes it more accessible for inter-
pretive use than the socially engaged scholarship. For the foreign
scholar this descriptive literature can be particularly valuable.
Students of Japanese history will recognize that in addressing
modern social issues, researchers in preindustrial forestry are en-
gaged in intellectual endeavors common to the nation's historical
profession as a whole. Forest history is thus an integral part of the
broader historical discipline. For scholars of forest history the im-
plication is somewhat more burdensome: it means that a general
familiarity with these issues is essential to understanding the signifi-
cance of the secondary literature.

The Historiography of Preindustrial Forestry

The study of forest history prior to the Edo period is difficult. The
documentary base is very limited and consists largely of random
bits of information scattered among records of other matters, mostly
relating to the administration of political and religious institutions.
By contrast, Tokugawa forest history is based on an exception-
ally rich documentation, including government archives, village
records, business and family records, and the technical writings of
professional agronomists of the day. Many of the government doc-
uments were assembled by Meiji officialdom during the :88os, but
rather little scholarship appeared until the 19305, when the field ex-
perienced a burst of activity. During that decade scholars such as
Endo Yasutaro, Hattori Marenobu, Toba Masao, and Tokugawa
Muneyoshi produced a series of solidly researched monographs and
perceptive interpretive studies of early modern forest organization,
thought, and practice. Work in the field was nearly halted by the
war and the hardships of the late 19408, but during the fifties schol-
arship revived. It built on the achievements of the thirties and
broke new ground, led by such figures as Nishikawa Zensuke,
Shimada Kinzo, and Tokoro Mitsuo.

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Bibliographical Essay 195

In recent decades the discipline has flowered, developing several

subspecialties. They overlap, and terminology is not entirely stan-
dardized, but they can be categorized as follows:
rinseishi: the history of forest administration
ringyoshi: the history of forest industries, primarily lumbering,
firewood, and charcoal
sansonshi: the history of mountain villages
sanrin shisoshi: the history of thought on forests and forestry
ringyo gijutsushi: the history of forest technology
zorinshi: the history of afforestation

As this summary of the field suggests, the discipline can be studied

in terms of source materials, prewar scholarship, scholarship during
the postwar decade, and the subspecialties that have matured dur-
ing the quarter century to 1980.

The Source Materials

Government documents on early modern forestry are profuse be-

cause so many governments managed woodland. Not only did the
bakufu manage its great forests, but most of the 250 han also con-
trolled woodland, maintaining administrative records and han-
dling an endless stream of litigation relating to woodland use. Much
of this corpus survived intact when the Tokugawa regime collapsed
in 1868.
As Tokoro Mitsuo explains in his bibliographical essay, "Rinsei-
shi" (259),' in June 1879 Meiji government leaders instructed the
recently formed Forest Agency (Sanrinkyoku) to assemble doc-
uments that would aid in drafting legislation for a new forest
system. Prefectural officials collected them, had copies transcribed,
submitted the copies to Tokyo, and prepared reports detailing
practices within their jurisdictions. As material flowed into the cap-
ital, agency scribes compiled it in a massive collection titled Sanrin
enkakushi [Historical records of forestland]. On the basis of this ma-
terial, plus study of European forestry, the agency prepared draft
legislation and in August 1882 submitted a finished version to Meiji
leaders. This document became the basis of a unified national forest
system that replaced the crazy-quilt Tokugawa arrangements.

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196 Bibliographical Essay

The Sanrin enkakushi, together with some other material, was then
stored in an agency archive in Tokyo, where it was inaccessible to
scholars. Even if it had been accessible, however, it might not have
contributed to extensive writing on early modern forestry because
the Meiji era (1868-1911) was a time when practical questions of
woodland management and development and European rather
than Japanese forest practices dominated professional interest, as is
evident in Tokugawa Muneyoshi's bibliographical essay on early
Meiji forestry (268).
During the first decades of the twentieth century, official
agencies, in particular prefectural governments, utilized the mate-
rials compiled in 1879-80 to publish a few volumes on forestry in
their areas. Most noteworthy are the following one-volume works:
Shinano sanrin shi (1907), Kyoto-fu sanrin shi (1909), Miyagi-ken ringyo
shiryo (1915), Higo han rinsei enshiko (1916), Hitoyoshi han rinsei en-
kakushi (1922), Saga han rinsei enkakushi (1922), and Tamanashi-ken
rinseishi (1922).
In 1923 matters were cruelly disrupted. Just before noon on Sep-
tember i, a massive earthquake ravaged Tokyo, killing over one
hundred thousand people. One of the resulting fires consumed the
Forest Agency and its great compilation, Sanrin enkakushi.8 In 1925,
after recovering from the disaster, the Ministry of Agriculture and
Forestry (Norinsho) ordered the entire project redone. It instructed
the prefectural governments, which by then had come into posses-
sion of many more documents than they had had during the i88os,
to assemble and prepare copies of relevant material. They were to
send copies to a compilation office that was established in the Forest
Agency's Tokyo office and supervised by the agency head. There a
group of officials and scholars, which eventually included Endo
and Toba, were to organize them for publication. The compilers
planned to proceed in an orderly manner, assembling the doc-
uments han by han, working from north to south until they had
covered the country.
The project began with documents of Tsugaru han. The Aomori
prefectural government, which administered the area, hired a
group of elderly residents who could read old documents and were
familiar with local forest terminology to transcribe material in the
prefectural library. Using carbon paper, they made four copies of
each document. The first two were clear, the third marginal, and

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Bibliographical Essay 197

the fourth nearly unreadable. The three readable copies were for-
warded to Tokyo, where compilers arranged them for binding. By
the time the Aomori transcribers finished their task, they had
copied material enough to fill 302 handwritten volumes (kari).
As sheaves of material poured into Tokyo, it became apparent
that the documentation was much more extensive than anticipated,
and the compilers excluded more and more peripheral records.
To complicate matters further, after two years of work govern-
ment retrenchment halved the number of compilers. The remaining
workers had to screen materials even more rigorously, and in con-
sequence the documentation from other han is much less complete.
In contrast to Tsugaru's 302 kan, for example, the source materials
on Morioka fill 121; Akita, 80; Kii and Owari, only 23 each; and
Saga and Kumamoto, 33 and 38, respectively. Moreover, the com-
pilers finally focused upon 41 han and the bakufu, whose forests were
most important, completely excluding materials from the other
2OO-odd han.
Despite this substantial scaling down of the project, the compilers
produced 1,380 kan of 150-250 pages apiece under the title Nihon
rinseiski chosa shiryo [Documents of the investigation into the history
of Japan's forest system]. To assure that their handiwork would
escape the fate of Sanrin enkakuski, the three readable copies of the
manuscript were stored separately: one at the ministry; one in a
research library at Tokyo Imperial University; and the other in
the closed archives of the Tokugawa Institute for the History of
Forestry (Tokugawa Rinseishi Kenkyujo) at Mejiro in northwest
Tokyo.9
Upon completion of the basic compilation, further selection dur-
ing 1930-35 produced Nihon rinseishi shiryo [Records of the history
of Japanese forestry] (165), a thirty-volume published edition of
documents relating to forest administration. It consists of one
volume on pre-Tokugawa forest management; one on management
by temples, shrines, and nobles; three on bakufu forest policy; and
twenty-five volumes that cover thirty-eight han.
During the Pacific War the original ministry copy of the 1,380-
kan document was destroyed by American bombers. The other two
copies survived, but neither was complete due to mishaps in the
compiling process and later losses. Together they did constitute a
complete set, however, and following the recovery from the war,

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198 Bibliographical Essay

the gaps in each were filled with photocopies from the other. In
1970 the complete work was microfilmed, and copies of the 7o6-reel
version are now available in several locations in Japan but, as of
this writing, not in the United States. A guide to the work, which
originally appeared in the journal Sanrin iho in 1936, was repub-
lished in 1971 by the Tokugawa Institute, with collations for the
microfilm edition (269). Also in 1971 the thirty-volume published
edition of administrative documents was reprinted.
In the decades after the Meiji Restoration many other compila-
tion projects were undertaken. Some of these (224—27) included
works by Edo-period agronomists such as Miyazaki Antei, Okura
Nagatsune, Sato Shin'en, and the Okinawan, Sai On, most of
whom devoted some attention to forest problems and practices.
Since then the most important of the early modern agricultural
writings have reappeared periodically in new editions. Prefectural
governments have published collections of documents on the history
of their areas, and these commonly include materials on forestry.
Cities, likewise, have published histories and collections of doc-
uments that contain entries on woodland affairs. Towns, villages,
and local historical associations from time to time find and re-
produce local records pertaining to forests, and lumber-merchant
organizations and families have published some of their records.
Finally, individual scholars continue to unearth and utilize un-
published documents (78, 185).10 Illustrative of such contributions
is Shimada KinzS's recent book-length study of Edo lumber mer-
chants, which consists of 129 documents plus an interpretive essay
on their significance (i86).n
The appearance of these original sources has been crucial to the
discipline's development. The original compilation of Sanrin en-
kakushi made possible Shirakawa Taro's pioneering Teikoku rinseishi
[A history of the empire's forest system], published in 1902 (200).
The compilation of documents after 1925 and the publication of
Nihon rinseishi shiryo underlay the scholarly achievements of the
19305. The reissue of works by early modern agronomists has been
crucial to the study of afforestation and forest thought. And the
dramatic maturation of the discipline during the past quarter cen-
tury has been based directly on the capacity of scholars to obtain
and utilize the documents necessary for more detailed analyses of
their subjects.12

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Bibliographical Essay 199

Pre—Pacific War Scholarship

Following Shirakawa Taro's pathfinding work of 1902, the only

notable scholarly works for nearly three decades were a few based
on documents of selected han (in, 271, 279), in particular Tsukii
Tadahiro's richly documented study of Akita (Kubota) han forestry
and Tokugawa Yoshichika's Kisoyama, a descriptive ethnography of
the mountainous Kiso area.
During the 19305 several more studies of specific han appeared.
In 1935 Monda Sai, a scholar-official in Kochi, published Tosa han
rinseishi (133). A year later Tokugawa Yoshichika began rework-
ing his study of Kiso, publishing the results in twenty-two issues of
the journal Goryorin (270). In 1939 this type of inquiry culminated
in Iwasaki Naoto's massive, highly intelligent, exhaustively re-
searched study of forestry in Akita (90). Iwasaki described Akita's
forest system as a whole and then focused on the sugi forests of the
Yoneshiro river watershed. He examined the system of forest pro-
tection, the overcutting of conifers, han responses thereto, the de-
struction of broadleaf stands, countermeasures that followed, and
finally the planting, nurturing, vicissitudes, and marketing of the
sugi plantations that became established from about 1800 onward.
Broader studies of the early modern forest system also appeared.
The most noteworthy was "Tokugawa jidai ni okeru rin'ya seido no
taiyo" [An outline of the forest system of the Tokugawa period]. This
series of essays, which was the most immediate by-product of Nikon
rinseishi shiryo, was prepared by Takeda Hisao, a Norinsh5 official in-
volved in the compilation project, and appeared in Sanrin iho between
1934 and 1940. Each essay is a systematic distillation of the main char-
acteristics of forest organization in one of the han covered by the pub-
lished collection. The essays, which in their entirety constitute a sum-
mary interpretation of the collected documents, were reproduced in
book form in 1954 by the Department of Forestry (Rin'yacho) (177).
Two shorter general works of the thirties also owed much to the
compilation effort. One was a fine, concise essay on Tokugawa for-
estry that Toba Masao wrote for the multivolume Iwanami history
of Japan published in 1934-36 (231). The other was Ringyo keizai
kenkyu [A study of the economics of forestry], a general work pre-
pared by Hattori Marenobu in 1940, which was in great part a reissue
of earlier essays (49—55).13

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aoo Bibliographical Essay

Endo Yasutar5, most ambitious of the 19308 scholars, attempted

to produce a definitive work on the Tokugawa forest system. He
was able to complete only one "section," however, titled Nihon
sanrinshi: Hogorin hen [A history of Japanese forestry: Protection for-
ests] (14). That one "section" is a three-volume work: one volume
of narrative, one of illustrations and tables, and one of documents
arranged topically. The go8-page narrative volume treats system-
atically a great variety of early modern forests, including those
protecting temples, highways, soil, beaches, and riverbanks, and
those maintained for water conservancy, fuel, hunting, sanitation,
and aesthetic reasons.
Endo never completed his gigantic project, but he did publish
other valuable works (12—16), notably an imaginative volume that
examines the link between forestry and culture in northeast Japan
by exploring the region's forestry and forest life and industry (15).
He and other scholars, Hattori and Toba in particular (230, 232,
236} 238), also wrote shorter pieces on aspects of afforestation and
forest administration, economics, protection, and harvesting.
In 1936 the Dai Nihon Sanrinkai (Forest Association of Imperial
Japan) published a two-volume collection of biographical sketches
of figures noted for their contributions to afforestation (310). Vol-
ume one has short sketches from a half page to several pages of
142 figures active during the Edo period. Volume two covers figures
active after 1868. An earlier companion work contained sketches of
figures whose contributions were in the field of shoreline conser-
vancy (113).
Valuable studies of Edo-period thought on forests and forestry
also began to appear during the thirties. A pioneer essay by
Yamamoto Tokusaburo in 1928 examined the writings on forestry
of Kumazawa Banzan (303). Subsequently, Endo Yasutaro wrote
two essays and Tokoro Mitsuo and others one apiece on forest
thought (13,16,98, 245, 287).
The outstanding contributor to this silvicultural history was
Tokugawa Muneyoshi. During 1940 he wrote for the journal Sanrin
a series often concise essays discussing ten major Edo-period writers
on forestry, and two years later he formulated a general periodiza-
tion for the development of early modern silvicultural thought
(265, 267). In 1941 he published his masterpiece, Edo jidai ni okeru

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Bibliographical Essay 201

zorin gijutsu no shiteki kenkyu [A historical study of afforestation tech-

niques in the Edo period] (266). It is a lucid exposition of the tech-
niques of vegetative and seedling propagation, examining such
topics as seed selection, seedbed preparation, sowing, nurturing,
transplanting, rearing, and harvesting. The author based his work
on exhaustive scrutiny of the writings of early modern agronomists,
family and village records, and government documents. And he
brought to it a sound grasp of modern silvicultural insight.
In toto, during the thirties some two or three dozen secondary
works—books, articles, and series of articles—examined early
modern forest history. Meanwhile, an independent line of scholar-
ship was beginning to converge with this corpus. That was the
study of common land (iriaichi) and the process of division
(yamawari) that allotted parcels of it to individual households,
thereby giving it some of the attributes of private property and
making it more amenable to the long-term management required
by plantation forestry.
The study of common land and its division began near the turn
of the century as an inquiry into contemporary village problems.
An early scholar of note was Nakada Kaoru. His analyses of post-
1868 common-land developments were deemed sufficiently val-
uable to warrant their reissue as a book in 1949 (148). Many other
scholars also examined iriaichi and land division, as Ueda Tojuro
noted early in 1931 (290), but they, like Nakada, usually focused on
agricultural land and post-1868 patterns. During the thirties, how-
ever, as Harada Toshimaru pointed out in 1969 (38), scholarly un-
derstanding of common land and its division advanced rapidly,
becoming inextricably linked to forest history (195, 288-89). In
the early forties, forested common land (rin'ya iriaichi} of the Edo
period began receiving attention (134).
The major prewar study of iriai practices was Kaino Michitaka's
Mai no kenkyu (93), a sophisticated analysis of both forested and
open common land. Kaino focused primarily on post-1868 develop-
ments but devoted about a fourth of his pages to the Edo period.
With the appearance of his study, which became a key reference
work, the main threads of prewar Japanese forest history were in
place. After surviving the catastrophic years 1944-46, scholars
would pick up again the themes of forest administration and eco-

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2O2 Bibliographical Essay

nomics, afforestation, forest thought, and forests in village life and

build them into the rich subdiscipline that is the contemporary field
of early modern forest history.

Scholarship during the Postwar Decade

For Japanese intellectuals the road back to scholarly vitality was a

long and painful one. In the field of early modern forest history a
decade passed before the discipline regained its prewar level of
quality and quantity. Some writing was done, however, motivated
by two concurrent public tasks. One was the task of repairing
woodland damaged by pervasive overharvesting during the war
and postwar reconstruction. The other was resolution of land-use
disputes, many pertaining to common-land use rights (iriaiken), that
accompanied postwar land reform.
This present-centered interest led scholars of forestry and forest
history to pursue both historical research and the study of current
problems of forestry (187, 234—35, 3°°)- To note but one example,
Endo Jiichir5, a scholar-official associated with the Department of
Forestry, was deeply involved in the reform of common-land usage.
He also found time for historical scholarship. In 1947 he published
a book, Nihon rin'ya iriaiken ron [Disputes over rights to forested
common land in Japan] (n), that reviewed Edo-period iriai prac-
tices, their reorganization during the Meiji period, and the con-
temporary situation. A decade later he republished the book with
an appended essay on postwar forest reform.
The concern to revive Japan's forests inspired the study of
Tokugawa afforestation techniques. The first notable postwar piece
on the subject was completed by Yamanouchi Shizuo in 1949
(304). The following year a team of scholars published Sugi no
kenkyu [Studies of cryptomeria], a work that zeroed in on Japan's
most valuable timber tree (181). It was a multidisciplinary exami-
nation of sugi culture and use and included an essay by Matsushima
Yoshio that surveyed Japan's long history of sugi afforestation
(125). In a later piece Matsushima broadened his scope to cover the
history of early modern afforestation in general (126). In a short
essay in 1950, and two years later in a book, the professional for-
ester Tanaka Hajime treated the topic in much more detail and with
a more overtly expressed wish to preserve the "spiritual" values of

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Bibliographical Essay 203

Japan in the face of overweening "Western materialism" (228—29).

In 1953 the intellectual historian Kano Kyqji began publishing in
the journal Ringyo keizai a series of solid scholarly essays that ana-
lyzed the contributions of major early modern writers on forestry.
A few other pre-Meiji topics also received article-length treat-
ment in the early fifties (95, 99, 135, 171, 185, 198), and in 1954 the
Department of Forestry republished in book form Takeda Hisao's
prewar synopses of early modern forest administration (177). The
subject that commanded the most sustained attention, however,
was common land and its division. The postwar debate over iriaichi
was launched by Furushima Toshio, whose studies, which generally
focus on post-1868 trends and patterns, are probably unmatched
in both quality and influence. Some of the best have recently reap-
peared in a new multivolume edition (27).
Much of the vast literature on common land, communalism, and
land division is not relevant to the study of Tokugawa forestry
because it deals with post-1868 agricultural lands and is primarily
concerned with village structure and conditions. A few essays of the
early fifties, however, did deal with early modern forested common
land, examining its organization and use and the changes that ac-
companied its division among village households (80, 158, 183,
275). Major works by Furushima in 1955 and Nishikawa Zensuke
in 1957 may be seen as culminating this postwar phase of debate
and setting the stage for subsequent scholarly disputes about the
cause, character, and consequence of changes in iriai arrangements
(29,161).
By the time Nishikawa's book appeared, the world of Japanese
forest history was entering an era of dramatic growth. In the de-
cades after 1955 new scholars would rise to prominence, and the dis-
cipline would acquire unprecedented diversity and sophistication.

Recent Scholarship on
Preindustrial Forestry, 1955—80
Since 1955, scholars of preindustrial forest history have been ex-
tremely active, but they have not given equal attention to all facets
of their subdiscipline. Nearly all research focuses on early modern
forestry; only a few pieces examine pre-Tokugawa developments.
Within the early modern segment there have been a number of gen-

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204 Bibliographical Essay

eral works, much research on forest administration and industry

(rinseishi and ringyoshi], and extensive study of mountain villages
(sansonshi). Less effort has been devoted to forest thought (sanrin
shisoshi), afforestation (zorinski), and the history of forest technology
(ringyo gijutsushi), although a few major contributions have been
made in those areas. Water conservancy and forest ecology have
also received some attention.

Pre- Tokugawa Forest History

The study of pre-i6oo forestry received a major boost in 1958 with
the appearance of Meijizen Nihon ringyo gijutsu hattatsushi [The de-
velopment of forest technology in pre-Meiji Japan], compiled by
Nihon Gakushiin (153). It is a masterful, topically organized study
that traces the techniques and technology of forest exploitation
from prehistory through the nineteenth century. In 1959, 1961, and
1962 Tokoro Mitsuo penned three essays, all titled "RingyS," that
examined forestry in preindustrial Japan (255—57) • The first ranged
broadly from prehistory to the nineteenth century, describing tim-
ber and logging technology, land-use rights, and the rites and
rituals of forest work. The 1961 piece described the history of lum-
bering, lumber use, and forest management in the centuries before
1600, and the third focused on logging techniques and the carpen-
ter's arts, especially during the centuries 700-900.
In a series of essays that appeared in Ringyo keizai in 1964-67,
Yamamoto Hikaru summarized main trends in forestry from pre-
history to the seventeenth century, relying on the scholarly work of
general historians for much of his information (295—99, 3 O I ~ 2 )-
Over the years a few other pieces have appeared that illuminate
aspects of pre-Tokugawa forest history (16, 125, 140—41, 159, 171,
235, 304). A recent work that suggests the possibilities still present
in this field is Toda Yoshimi's essay on aristocratic woodland man-
agement in tenth-century Japan (239).

General Works on Early Modern Forestry

One of the less satisfying aspects of early modern forest history dur-
ing the past twenty-five years has been that of general interpreta-
tion. So far no scholar has successfully pulled together the several

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Bibliographical Essay 205

thriving lines of research to present an integrated explanation of

how the Tokugawa forest system functioned as a whole.
This situation is not surprising. The great works of compilation
that underlay earlier general interpretations consisted primarily
of government documents. They conveyed the picture of a forest
system operated by bakufu and han officials in accordance with gov-
ernment regulations. Although the system might seem a nearly
incomprehensible labyrinth, it was essentially a unidimensional,
government-controlled phenomenon.
The current picture is more complex. Monographic work of re-
cent decades has shown that government, villages, merchants, and
village householders all shared in operating woodland. Their re-
lationships and degrees of influence varied tremendously, however,
from place to place and time to time. Moreover, the relationships
had both conflictive and symbiotic dimensions that were expressed
through buying, selling, leasing, and sharing and that encompassed
diverse forms of obligation and payment. Successful integration of
all these variables has thus far eluded scholars, and the field is
characterized by great caution at this level of interpretation.
Nevertheless, the quarter century to 1980 witnessed the appear-
ance of several general essays on the subject. Although most authors
focus on the twentieth century, allotting little space to the Toku-
gawa period, and even less to preceding centuries, a few trace the
history from its beginnings. In 1960 Funakoshi Shqji examined
the rise of the modern lumber industry as an aspect of emerging
Japanese capitalism, devoting forty pages to Edo-period logging be-
fore focusing on post-1868 developments (23). The same year the
Department of Forestry published Nikon ringyo hattatsushi [A history
of the rise of Japanese forestry] (176), which also focused on post-
1868 developments. However, its authors opened with a lucid
thirty-page description of bakufu and han forest organization and
devoted forty pages to an examination of those districts where
entrepreneurial forestry flourished during the late Edo period. The
work treated governments as determining forest utilization, with
official policy allowing various forms of village participation in the
use of forest products.
In 1978 Tsutsui Michio published Nihon rinseishi kenkyu josetsu
[An introduction to the study of Japanese forest history] (281). The
sixty pages devoted to Tokugawa forestry are an admirable source

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206 Bibliographical Essay

of information on han policy, notably afforestation, and they also

contain a revealing discussion of burnt-field culture. The essay re-
tains, however, the government-centered focus of earlier scholar-
ship and reveals little of the complexity of village and merchant
roles in forest usage.
There remains for consideration one other general work, Tokoro
Mitsuo's Kinsei ringyoshi no kenkyu [Studies in the history of early
modern forestry] (249). Drawing material freely from his earlier es-
says, Tokoro opens with a section on pre-i6oo forestry and then ex-
amines bakufu forestry in the Ina and Hida areas and han forest op-
erations in Matsumoto, Matsushiro, and Owari. The volume also
contains a fifty-page compilation of forest terms based on glossaries
of the Edo period that is valuable because the vocabulary of early
modern forestry is so different from that of today's as to be inac-
cessible. The book conveys a sense of the complex interplay offerees
in early modern forestry, and while an integrated picture of the
system as a whole may not emerge clearly, the volume sums up a
lifetime of scholarship. A treasure house of detailed information and
valuable insights, it reveals the author's mastery of his subject.
Local forest history has flourished since the sixties. A number of
local studies, such as Hirao Michio's book on forestry in Tosa (58),
fall into the category of general works because their purpose is to
describe all major aspects of the forest system and its functioning in
a given locality. Several solid essays of this type can be found in the
volumes ofNihon sangyoshi taikei [An outline of the industrial history
of Japan] (9, 115, 121, 136, 144, 233, 251), and others have ap-
peared elsewhere (116,120, 131, 143,147, 169,199, 258).

Forest Administration (Rinseishi)

Homonyms can obscure useful distinctions. The term rinsei can be
written in two ways. The first, using the sei of seido (system, institu-
tion, organization) denotes the forest system in formal, static, insti-
tutional terms. It entails the identification of organizational struc-
tures, rules and regulations, realms of authority, and the fixed
procedures of administration. The second rinsei, using the sei of seiji
(government, administration, politics) denotes the forest system in
dynamic terms of process. It involves description and analysis of
how forests are operated, how disputes are settled, how interests

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Bibliographical Essay 207

interact, and how over time relationships, interests, structures,

regulations, and procedures change.
As long as the scholarly study of forest administration was pre-
occupied with formal structure, as in Takeda Hisao's essays (177),
it was possible to draw a clear distinction between rinsei, meaning
"structural" rinsei, and the disciplinary subspecialties of ringyo and
Zorin (forest industry and afforestation). Once basic institutions had
been delineated, however, and scholars started scrutinizing the
dynamics of the system, the distinctions between rinsei, in the sense
of "dynamic" rinsei, and ringyo and zorin began to blur. Further-
more, as scholars have scrutinized the dynamics of early modern
forestry, the complexity of merchant-village-government relation-
ships has become more apparent. This has diminished the analyti-
cal utility of the three categories of government, village, and house-
hold woodland, causing mountain village history (sansonshi) to
become thoroughly entwined with the histories of rinsei, ringyo, and

Nevertheless, works that can usefully be categorized as rinseishi

continue to appear (4, 35, 56, 106, 114, 118, 149, 170, 215, 219,
244, 272, 292, 306). Even these, however, tend to overlap other
fields. Thus, Asai Junko's study of bakufu forest administration on
Mount Amagi touches on zorinshi by illuminating the regime's
afforestation policies (3). And an essay by Minemura Hideo uses
documents of the forest inspector's office in Suwa han to illuminate
both the domain's afforestation policy (zorinshi} and its methods of
regulating timber harvesting (ringyoshi) (128).
Some of the best studies of forest administration examine two
practices that are particularly interesting from the perspective of
woodland preservation: the formation of buwakebayashi, or shared-
yield forests, and the establishment of nenkiyama, or leased forests.
The outstanding work on shared-yield forests is Shioya Tsutomu's
654-page Buwakebayashi seido no shiteki kenkyu [Historical studies of
the shared-forest system] (197), which combines detailed study of
the practice in individual han with integrative essays on the practice
in both early modern and post- 1868 Japan.
The nenkiyama phenomenon initially received attention because
historians saw in it a developing capitalist lumber industry and thus
an experience illustrative of the elemental dynamics of history. Now
the practice is considered too diverse for such a unitary interpreta-

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ao8 Bibliographical Essay

tion. As Sawata Takaharu's study of forestry on Awaji island points

up (182), there were different types of leasing. A fair amount simply
entailed granting villagers very short-term access to scrubland to
permit harvesting of fertilizer and fuel materials, as Wakabayashi
Kisaburo has shown (293). Very different, and more important in
the development of plantation forestry, was the type of leasing that
Kaneiwa Yoshio, Kasai KySetsu, and Shimada Kinz5 have de-
scribed (99, IO2, 189-92).

Forest Industry (Ringyoshi)

Studies of forest industry (ringyo), lumbering in particular, form the
heart of recent scholarship on Tokugawa forestry.14 It is a complex
area of study because major aspects merge with a host of related
subjects, including village history and the history of afforestation as
well as shared-yield and forest-leasing practices.
A key economic issue that bears directly on the relationships
among governments, merchants, and villagers is the question of
who controlled and carried on lumbering. There were two dis-
tinguishable but connected types of lumbering in early modern
Japan: that under government auspices and that initiated by ven-
ture capitalists of merchant or peasant provenance. Nishikawa
Zensuke used these categories when he examined the history of
forest industry in a series of seminal essays in Ringyo keizai in
1959-61 (159, 160), and his formulations have underlain subse-
quent research.
A number of essays, mostly by Tokoro Mitsuo, have examined
the roles of lord and merchant in forest exploitation during the
years of Hideyoshi and the early Tokugawa rulers (1590-1630)
(196, 241, 243, 250, 254, 262). Other studies in ringyoshi have had a
regional focus (62—63, I2 7j I29» I79> 24°> 261). Tokoro's research
on the Kiso valley (246, 249, 264), lioka Masatake's essays on log-
ging in the Tenryu valley (81—87), Takase Tamotsu's analyses of
Kaga han lumbering (218-22), and Fujita Yoshitani's study of
logging in the Oi watershed northwest of Kyoto (20) merit special
notice.
Getting timber to market was the crux of the logger's task, and
most wood went by river and sea. Scholars have examined the
development of transportation arrangements, especially rafting.

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Bibliographical Essay 209

Fujita Yoshitani's study of Oi river logging, like some of lioka's

essays, devotes substantial attention to transportation. Tokoro's
delightful old study of the log boom at Nishikori on the Kiso (253)
must also be mentioned. More recent essays by Tokoro, Shimada,
Takase, and others have also examined water transport (1239 14*9
194, 216-17, 263, 291), and an excellent article by Yokoyama
Atsumi looks at overland shipment of lumber produced in Matsu-
moto han (307).
Many of the works already cited deal with merchant activity,
that of Fujita Yoshitani being a major example. Other studies focus
on lumber merchants in Osaka (172, 305), Kyoto (132), or Edo
(157, 186, 188, 308). The histories of lumbermen's associations tend
to deal almost entirely with post-1868 developments (97, 211), but
for the study of early modern lumbering, one of the most useful is
Shizuoka ken mokuzaishi [A history of lumbering in Shizuoka prefec-
ture] (201), which has a section on pre-Meiji forestry in the Suruga
area. The question of how large-scale city merchants related to
local merchants, villages, and governments, a question that has im-
portant implications for basic interpretations of Japanese history,
lies at the heart of the best and conceptually most self-conscious
studies in this corpus. Essays by Nishikawa Zensuke (162) and
Shimada Kinzo (189,193) address the question directly.
Finally, the study ofringyoshi has at its periphery the study of sev-
eral forest products other than lumber. Most important are firewood
and charcoal, which often are discussed together, although some
works focus entirely on the charcoal industry (i, 2, 57). Of the
many other forest industries, we can mention for illustrative pur-
poses lacquer and wax (164, 202), both of which were derived from
trees; pottery and tile (103), which needed abundant fuelwood for
firing; and mining, which required both mine timbers and smelting
fuel.15

Forestry and Mountain Villages (Sansonshi)

It is egregiously artificial to remove studies of mountain villages
from the context of general village history and to break them off at
1868. Such measures are necessary, however, to make the vast
corpus manageable and to identify those works most pertinent to
Tokugawa forest history.

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21 o Bibliographical Essay

Most of the general works on mountain villages, such as

Miyamoto Tsuneichi's twenty-volume regionally organized study
(130), deal primarily with the past century. A few, however, exam-
ine villages of the Tokugawa period (10, 28, 213) and provide a
point of departure for the researcher. The relations between early
modern villagers and outsiders, primarily government officials and
urban entrepreneurs, were marked by tension and legal conflict.
The resulting documentation has provided grist for scholarly re-
search, some of it forest-related (39, 77, 96, 100, 160, 246, 248).
Other works have dealt more directly with the impact of logging on
villages (21—22, 117, 168, 275), notably the essays in Nihon ringyo-
rinsei no shiteki kenkyu [Historical studies of forest industries and
administration], edited by Hojo Hiroshi and Ota Katsuya (75).
The study of common land (iriaichi} remains central to the his-
toriography of early modern mountain villages.1* Because the topic
has been tied to modern-day social problems, however, general
works on common land, like those on mountain villages, focus on
post-1868 developments. This is evident in the works of Hqjo (71,
73-75), currently one of the most active students of iriaichi, and in
the publications of others (104,152,282).
There is, nevertheless, a considerable literature on early modern
wooded common land, notably the works of Hirasawa Kiyondo
(59-67), who examines village forestry in the Ina district. Other
scholars continue this line of inquiry, frequently citing the works of
Hirasawa, Furushima, and Nishikawa as seminal in the field. Per-
haps the most thorough study since Hirasawa's is HqjS's recent
book on common land near Mount Fuji (72). Other studies explore
the origin of common woodland, trends during the Edo period, the
effect of common-land arrangements on village living conditions
and class relations, and the nature and outcome of disputes (68, 79,
108,167, 207, 210,283,285,309)
The other major focus of study in village-forestry relations is
upland division (yamawari}. The topic has commanded attention
because it has seemed central to the historical process that de-
stroyed communalism; eroded the Tokugawa system; gave rise to
private property rights, parasitic landlordism, and capitalist forest
holding; and resulted in the proletarianization of poorer villagers
and the creation of an exploitative, authoritarian state order that

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Bibliographical Essay 211

finally wreaked havoc in Japan, ravaged the rest of Asia, and brought
on the catastrophe of 1945. Obviously, this assessment sees yama-
wari as an integral part of a ruinous social process. Other writers,
by contrast, find in it themes of human liberation from communal
and political oppression, the assertion of individual rights, im-
proved management of natural resources, and increased village
productivity.
Taking the works of Furushima, Nishikawa, and Hirasawa as
points of departure, several scholars have threaded their way
through this explosive intellectual terrain to delineate the signifi-
cance of yamawari during the Edo period. Of the group the most
prolific has been Harada Toshimaru, many of whose carefully re-
searched essays were incorporated in his book, Kinsei iriai seido kaitai
katei no kenkyu [Studies in the decay of the early modern common-
land system] (36-48). Together with others in the field (24-26,
203, 206, 214), Harada has given us a richly documented picture of
the changes involved in upland division.
One topic in sansonshi that has received rather little attention,
perhaps because documentation is scarce, is slash-and-burn agricul-
ture. Its history is closely tied to that of early modern forestry, but
the nature of the connection has yet to be thoroughly explored.
Furushima Toshio's old essay on the historical character of burnt-
field culture in Japan (31) is a convenient introduction to the topic
and a guide to the slender earlier literature. Subsequent works on
the topic also are few.17 Furushima's work, however, together with
the discussion by Tsutsui Michio in his introductory text on forest
history (281), will serve to sketch out the character, function, and
fate of burnt-field culture during the Edo period.18
In terms of preindustrial forest history the relevance of these
studies of mountain villages is not always apparent. Often it is nec-
essary to read past an author's main themes and infer significance
that is not made explicit. Nevertheless, cumulatively they reveal
much about forest control and use. They help us explain, for ex-
ample, why parcels of common land might be abused while nearby
"privately held" household land fared better. They help us locate
iriaichi in the global history of common land and assist our under-
standing of early modern Japanese entrepreneurial afforestation
and wood production.

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212 Bibliographical Essay

Forest Thought and Technology; Afforestation;

Water Conservancy

At present the history of forest thought (sanrin skisoshi) has all the
earmarks of a defunct subspecialty, with only three noteworthy
works appearing during the past twenty-five years. In 1963 Kano
Kyoji republished in book form (101) his studies that previously
had appeared in Ringyo keizai of Edo-period intellectuals. Six years
later Oishi Shinzaburo brought out his two-volume edition of Jikata
hanreiroku, a horticultural treatise prepared by Oishi Hisayoshi
in about 1794 (166). In 1974 Tsukamoto Manabu published a
thoughtful essay on seventeenth-century attitudes toward "private"
holding of forestland (277). Until fresh thought and new per-
spectives are brought to the topic, sanrin shisoshi seems unlikely to
flourish.
The study of forest technology (ringyo gijutsu} and afforestation
(zorin) are in nearly as parlous condition. The postwar burst of in-
terest in silvicultural techniques reached its climax in 1959 with the
earlier-cited Meijizen Nihon ringyo gijutsu hattatsushi (153). It con-
tained extensive information on early modern afforestation and
protection forestry as well as detail on the technology of wood use.
Otherwise, save for a study of afforestation in Yoshino during the
Edo period and a review of the use of cuttings in sugi regeneration
(89, 124), the principles and techniques of early modern afforesta-
tion have practically ceased to command scholarly attention.
The study of afforestation has gained a new lease on life, how-
ever, because scholars have broadened their scope of inquiry,
thereby giving it new interpretive capabilities. Rather than simply
elucidating techniques and policy theory, they have cast affores-
tation into the larger context of a basic shift from exploitative to
regenerative forestry. Within that framework they now ask what
actually was done and by whom, when, why, how, and with what
result. In this expanded formulation, which merges zorinshi and
ringyoshi, the subspecialty is flourishing and fresh studies are
shedding light on afforestation practices. For example, some of the
multidisciplinary work on the forests of Yamaguni being done by
Motoyoshi Rurio and his colleagues at Kyoto University deals with
the Edo period (140-41). Recent essays by Fujita Yoshihisa bring
into focus regional differences in afforestation practices (17—18),

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Bibliographical Essay 213

and Tokoro Mitsuo has placed tree planting in the Kiso valley in
the wider context of Owari han's overall forest preservation policy
(247, 260). Sato Takayuki has posed the critical question of how
well government planting initiatives fitted the wishes of villagers
(180), and essays by several other scholars clarify other aspects of
early modern afforestation (119,173,209, 274, 280).
In early modern tree planting, water conservancy was a major
concern. The two key objectives were to prevent flooding and
assure a stable supply of water for paddy land. Flooding did occur,
however, and riparian works developed to minimize the damage.
There is a substantial literature on stream management, but its
authors generally assume, rather than examine, the connections
between deforestation, forest management, flooding, and riparian
policy. Consequently, the literature on this topic is much less useful
in the study of forest history than it might be (5, 32, 107, 146,
*14-15> *!*> *™> 278)
There are, finally, two idiosyncratic works that do not fit these
historiographical categories but are valuable for any ecologically
oriented study of Japan's forest history. They are Chiba Tokuji's
Hageyama no kenkyu [A study of bald mountains] and Hageyama no
bunka [The culture of bald mountains], the latter being a radically
reorganized version of the former (7—8). In these eclectic, insightful
studies, Chiba utilizes early modern cases to examine the processes
whereby human activity has led to the denuding of mountains.
He perceives the process in terms of interacting biological, geologi-
cal, and social factors. These works can help one understand the
achievements — and limits — of early modern Japanese efforts at
forest preservation and regeneration.

A Summation
As of 1880 there existed no field of historical study in early modern
Japanese forestry. By 1980 it constituted a rich subdiscipline char-
acterized by specialization, diversity, and depth.
Two qualities have characterized the field from its inception to
the present. First, there has been an intimate connection between
the assemblage and dissemination of original source materials and
the production of a secondary literature. Second, the subdiscipline
has been inspired by contemporary concerns. Immediate issues

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214 Bibliographical Essay

relating to forest organization and use rights have figured promi-

nently in much of the scholarship. Larger issues of social justice,
national identity, material need, and postulated dynamics of his-
tory have been central to other work. And in the recent, relatively
affluent years, a socially detached, or at least satisfied, academic
curiosity has become more evident.
Two other points deserve note. As the subdiscipline has matured,
it has become ever more complex. Begun as the study of organiza-
tional structure, it has grown to embrace organizational process,
forest industry, forestry thought and techniques, afforestation, and
village-forestry relations, to cite only the main research foci.
Second, as scholarship has probed more deeply, it has revealed a
much more intricate history than earlier studies suggested. The
history involves several complexly interacting social groups and
is characterized by dramatic growth and change. For all its dis-
ciplinary maturity, the study of early modern Japanese forestry has
only begun to reveal the dynamics of this phase of forest history. It
is an exciting field. The splendid monuments of the past notwith-
standing, the best work is yet to come.

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Notes

Introduction: An Overview of
Preindustrial Japanese Forest History
1. This introduction is an extensively revised portion of my essay
"Forestry in Early Modern Japan, 1650-1850: A Preliminary Survey."
2. The major English-language study of Japanese geography is Glenn
Thomas Trewartha, Japan: A Physical, Cultural, and Regional Geography. Re-
garding geological foundations, see Takashi Yoshida, ed., An Outline of the
Geology of Japan, 3d ed.
3. An authoritative English-language study of Japanese demography is
Irene Taeuber, The Population of Japan. The more recent study by Susan
B. Hanley and Kozo Yamamura, Economic and Demographic Change in Pre-
industrial Japan, 1600-1868, contains an excellent bibliography on the
subject.
4. Here I am disregarding the millennia before the last Wisconsin inter-
glacial, circa 40,000-30,000 B.P., although some type of human, perhaps
Homo sapiens neanderthalis, was present in Japan at the time. See Fumiko
Ikawa-Smith, "Current Issues in Japanese Archeology," for a concise re-
port on nearly current understanding of Japan's human prehistory.
5. By "Kinai basin" I mean basically the watersheds of the Yodo and
Yamato rivers, which encompass the five "home provinces" of Izumi,
Kawachi, Yamato, Yamashiro, and Settsu, plus Omi and Iga, and the Oi
watershed in Tanba.
6. We can view Japan's age of regenerative forestry in terms of two
phases. The first, lasting from the seventeenth until the late nineteenth
century, can be called the era of early modern forestry. The second, dating
from the formation of national forests late in the nineteenth, runs to the
present and can be called the era of modern forestry. It consists of two pe-
riods of overcutting followed by years of recovery. Overcutting in early

2'5

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a 16 Notes to Pages 4-10

Meiji slowed as national forest regulations came into effect, but from the
19305 war-related logging intensified, even consuming trees in city parks.
As cities rebuilt after 1945, public forests were scoured for usable timber
and landlords hurriedly clearcut woodlots before losing them to land re-
form. By 1950 Japan's forests were exhausted and the country entered its
current state of arboreal rejuvenation.
7. Of course, many wooded areas lying outside those indicated on the
map were cut over by regional power holders. For example, a pollen-count
study has shown that the maintenance of frontier forts against Ezo tribes-
men in the Sendai area produced substantial change in local woodland
composition during the eighth century (Yoshinori Yasuda, "Early Historic
Forest Clearance around the Ancient Castle Site of Tagajo, Miyagi Pre-
fecture, Japan"). Around the year 1000, forests were cut down in the
vicinity of Hiraizumi, about eighty kilometers north of Sendai, when a pow-
erful local family undertook to create a replica of Heian and felled trees
enough to build several thousand structures, including scores of temples,
shrines, and mansions (Endo Yasutaro, [Sanrinshi jo yori mitaru] Tohoku
bunka no kenkyu [ichimei: Tohoku sanrinshi], 43). Prior to the early modern
predation, forests in Kyushu and elsewhere also felt the ax to satisfy the
egos and ambitions of the regionally powerful and to provide timber for
eastern China, where forests were severely reduced. (On the early need for
reforestation in Kagoshima, for example, see Shioya Tsutomu, "Hansei
jidai no rinsei.")
8. Of course, this statement does not apply to Hokkaido. However, that
island was not really integrated into Japanese society until the twentieth
century and is therefore disregarded in this study.

i. The Ancient Predation, 600-850

1. In its original form this chapter grew out of information in the works of
Tokoro Mitsuo, Yamamoto Hikaru, and Nihon Gakushiin, as cited below.
To strengthen the argument, I subsequently read more extensively, in the
process profiting particularly from the work of William Wayne Farris. I
owe a special debt of gratitude to Cornelius Kiley, friend of years too nu-
merous to count. His bibliographical guidance and helpful criticism led me
to useful materials and saved me from embarrassing errors. For those flaws
that surely remain, only I am accountable.
2. Yamamoto Hikaru, "Waga kuni kodai no ringyo," 18. Yamamoto
reports that when fanned with a bellows, hardwood charcoal could gen-
erate temperatures of one thousand degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Nihon Gakushiin, comp., Meijizen Nihon ringyo gijutsu hattatsushi, 465.
To identify tree species, see the Glossary of Vegetation.

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21
Notes to Pages 11-14 1

4. lyanaga Teiz5, "Ritsuryosei teki tochi shoyu," 33-78, reports that

in regulations of the ritsuryo period the common modern Japanese word for
forest, hqyashi (tin), meant an area hand planted to trees rather than nat-
ural woodland. Hqyashi was, in other words, a product of human intent.
Rather similarly, in medieval England "forest" identified an area of land,
of whatever vegetation, that had been explicitly denned as crown property
subject to forest law. Clarence J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore,
325-26 n. 122, discusses the term's etymology. J. V. Thirgood, Man and the
Mediterranean Forest: A History of Resource Depletion, 83 n. 82, suggests that the
term "forest" may trace to the medieval Latin phrase/om stare, meaning
"keep out," which was used by overlords when denying local people rights
of exploitation in designated parcels of woodland. In both the Japanese
and European cases "forest" was a product of human will, but in the
Japanese case it evidently arose from the "positive" policy of tree planting
and in Europe from the "negative" policy of restricting use of natural
growth.
5. Yazaki Takeo, Social Change and the City in Japan, 15.
6. J. Edward Kidder, Early Buddhist Japan, 61.
7. Yazaki, Social Change, 49, writes that Heian dairi "were built accord-
ing to age-old Japanese architectural styles, with exposed natural lumber
and thatched roofs of cypress bark," but he does not refer to the use of
sunken pole construction, as he did in an earlier description (35) of the
Heijo dairi. Kidder, Early Buddhist, 46, 54, 57, 61-66, 69-71, 76, 81, 87,
89, 95, 96, 199, 200, has information on the adoption and use of stone bases
in seventh- and eighth-century Japanese architecture.
8. The customary explanation for these moves, which tends to lump
together the two phenomena of reconstruction and relocation, cites re-
ligious principles of pollution that presumably rendered the palace site of a
deceased sovereign unfit for the successor. In "Why Leave Nara? Kammu
and the Transfer of the Capital," 331-47, Ronald Toby summarizes the
debate and argues that political factionalism grounded in imperial gene-
alogy lay at the base of these moves, as evidenced most particularly in the
move to Heian.
9. In 1704-10 a major flood-control project rerouted the Yamato river
to its modern course, which flows directly west across Kawachi into Osaka
bay.
10. Yamamoto, "Waga kuni," 21-22. Robert Treat Paine and Alexan-
der Soper, The Art and Architecture of Japan, 2d ed., 195, give a brief descrip-
tion of the capital at Fujiwara.
11. This interpretation has been skillfully developed by Takikawa Ma-
sajiro, who argues in Kyosei narabi ni tojosei no kenkyu that, following the
move to Heian, the conscious tradition of "dual capitals" (baito) that derived

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2i8 Notes to Pages 14-16

from China was displaced by the ideal of a single capital. Takikawa con-
tends that the secondary capitals of the dual capital system should not be
confused with "detached palaces" (rikyu), which were essentially vacation
villas.
12. Toby, "Why Leave Nara?" 333-36, and Yazaki, Social Change,
46-47, discuss Shomu's movements. Toby reports "a series of earth-
quakes" as preceding the imperial decision to return to Heij5. Nihon
Gakushiin, Meijizen, 15, and Yamamoto, "Waga kuni," 21, mention forest
fires near Shigaraki. The Shoku Nihongi (henceforth SN), in Shintei zoho
kokushi taikei (henceforth S^KT), ed. Kuroita Katsumi, vol. 2, pp. 181—85,
carefully reports these natural disasters. Because Chinese cosmology, which
enjoyed official support in Heijo, treated natural phenomena as evidence
of a ruler's virtue or lack thereof, court records of such phenomena must
be regarded as more than merely dispassionate reports of current natural
events. But perhaps we may assume they were not fabrications.
13. Takikawa, Kyosei, 352—67, reports on the capital at Hora. Murao
Jiro, Ritsuryo zaisei no kenkyu (zoteihan), 65-87, provides information on the
provisioning for Ishiyamadera construction.
14. Toby, "Why Leave Nara?" 332, citing SN, date of 788/9/28;
Yazaki, Social Change, 47.
15. Kidder, Early Buddhist, 77.
16. Yamamoto Hikaru, "Heian jidai no rin'ya riyo," 34; Motoyoshi
Rurio, "Yamaguni ringyo chitai ni okeru jinko zorin no shinten to ikurin
gijutsu no hensen," 72; idem, "Yamaguni sugi ni kan suru kenkyu (ichi),"
42-43.
17. For a concise description of Kyoto and its history, see John W. Hall,
"Kyoto as Historical Background," 3-38.
18. Yamamoto, "Waga kuni," 20.
19. Tokoro Mitsuo, "Ringyo" (1959), 144-45. According to Nihon
Gakushiin, Meijizen, 319, citing an unidentified document from the
ShSsoin, a cartload ofhiwada contained thirty-five to forty bundles.
20. High-density tree growth forces rapid, straight stem development,
so that lower branches are shaded out, die after a few years, wither, and
shortly drop off, leaving only a small knothole that the tree can soon grow
over, forming a straight, smooth, uninterrupted bark surface. Such a sur-
face, unlike one that is marred with knotholes, will pull away from the log
in one solid piece. When installed on a roof, it will overlap tightly and shed
water dependably.
21. Tokoro Mitsuo, Kinsei ringyoshi no kenkyu, 4-5. Tokoro seems to be
describing the same building as Paine and Soper, Art and Architecture,
203-4. For fuller detail on the building, including the raw figures on
which Tokoro may have based his calculations, see Sekino Masaru, "Zai

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Notes to Pages i6-ig 219

Shigaraki Fujiwara Toyonari itadono ko," 15-38. One tsubo equals about
thirty-six square feet.
22. Tokoro, "Ringyo" (1959), 122.
23. William H. Coaldrake, "Edo Architecture and Tokugawa Law,"
254. Coaldrake uses this document to support a very different thesis regard-
ing government leaders' alleged concern with the physical accoutrements
of high status.
24. Tokoro, "Ringyo" (1959), 123. Kidder, Early Buddhist, 79—126,
furnishes considerable detail on pre-Heian temples.
25. The term "processed lumber" sounds redundant, but it distin-
guishes jtozai from genboku. Because large logs were heavy and difficult to
move, they usually were reduced to manageable size in the forest by peel-
ing, splitting, or sawing. The resulting pieces, together with logs, were gen-
boku, which were further processed into final construction pieces, yoz.ai, at
the building site.
26. Tokoro, "Ringyo" (1959), 124; idem, Kinsei, 9. One hundred
thousand koku (about twenty-eight thousand cubic meters) of yozai are
equivalent to some 980,000 boards one foot wide by ten feet long. An
eighteen-by-twenty-four-foot house contains floor space equal to four six-
mat rooms.
27. Tokoro, "Ringyo" (1959), 123; Nihon Gakushiin, Meijizen, 5,
285—86; Tokoro Mitsuo, "Ringyo" (1962), 872. Robert Karl Reischauer,
Early Japanese History (c. 40 B.C.-A.D. iiG"f), 159, cites the 685/10/13
order regularizing the twenty-year alternation of Ise Shrine between
two sites. I presume that previous reconstructions had been handled less
methodically.
28. Paine and Soper, Art and Architecture, 211.
29. Lumber yields vary by species, age, fullness of stand, and quality of
site. My figure is based on tables for sixty-year-old hinoki stands growing in
the Kiso river valley, as given in yield tables of Tokyo Kyoiku Daigaku
Nogakubu Ringakka, comp., Jitsuyo ringyo keisan hikkei, 15. The yield for
sugi is somewhat higher than that for hinoki because sugi grows more
rapidly. The yield for a number of other conifers is lower because they
grow more slowly. See nn. 35 and 46 of chapter 3 for more comments on
yield calculations.
30. Kure is the term that appears in ancient documents, but some
scholars refer to it by the alternative Edo-period term, kureki. The wooden
walls of the Shosoin and Toshodaiji warehouses consist of long timbers
split in the manner of kure, that is, in "mikanwari" style, through the heart
of the log, with the pointed heartwood then cut out to leave a stick with a
blunted wedge-shaped cross section. It is sometimes unclear in discussions
of kure whether the term refers to the log that is to be so split or to the piece

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22O Notes to Pages 19-24

resulting from the splitting. In some instances the former seems to be the
case and in others the latter, which suggests that kure was an imprecise
generic term for wood used in that manner.
31. Toda Yoshimi, "Sekkanke ryo no somayama ni tsuite," 358.
32. These comments on shipbuilding are based on Nihon Gakushiin,
Meijizen, 286-87, 459-65.
33. Except as noted, the sources for these paragraphs on sculpture are
Nihon Gakushiin, Meijizen, 8-9, 468-69; Yamamoto, "Waga kuni," 18;
and idem, "Heian," 35.
34. Hinoki has been described as "strong, elastic, durable, and scent-
ed." It is also straight-grained and relatively soft (Natural Resources Sec-
tion, Important Trees of Japan [Report No. 119], 23).
35. Nihon Gakushiin, Meijizen, 468, mentions kaya and asunaro as the
main conifers and sendan, harigiri, keyaki, sakura, kaede, and katsura among
the broadleafs used in sculpture.
36. These comments on fuel use derive from Tokoro, Kinsei, 3-4, 33;
idem, "Ringyo" (1959), 143-44; and Nihon Gakushiin, Meijizen, 494-95.
Tokoro, Kinsei, 4, gives the go percent figure for Germany. According to
Franz Heske, German Forestry, 39, as late as 1850 about 70 percent to 80
percent of total German wood production was fuelwood. And in France,
according to Theodore S. Woolsey, Jr., Studies in French Forestry, 70, as late
as 1920 some 75 percent of French forest yield was fuelwood.
37. Tokoro, "Ringyo" (1959), 144, also reports that in 740, sixty
bundles of firewood sold for four hundred man, or about six and a half man
per bundle, so a shoulder load likely consisted of two bundles.
38. Tokoro, Kinsei, 4, has changed his figure, given here, from the
18,686 koku he gave in 1959. My conversion rate assumes these to be mari-
time koku (one by one by ten shaku) rather than the agricultural tax koku of
the Edo period, which is about 40 percent smaller.
39. Toba Masao, Nihon ringyoshi, 70-74, exhaustively lists forest prod-
ucts used by Nara-Heian people of all sorts. And on 103—9, ne nsts by
province forest products paid as taxes.
40. Tokoro, "Ringyo" (1959), 126, cites an archeological find, an ancient
house uncovered in Akita in 1817. Whether it bears much resemblance to
commoner housing in the warmer Kinai region is hard to say.
41. lyanaga, "Ritsuryosei," 38. He notes that when such disputes
occurred within a province, they would be settled locally. In consequence,
they would not show up in court records, and the frequency of such dis-
putes is unknown.
42. Except as noted, this recapitulation of deforestation is based on
Yamamoto, "Waga kuni," 21; Yamamoto, "Heian," 37; Nihon Ga-
kushiin, Meijizen, 315; and Tokoro, Kinsei, 14—15, 21.

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Notes to Pages 25-28 2 21

43. Murao, Ritsuryo zaisei, 70, 74.

44. Tokoro, "Ringyo" (1959), 145. This order of 796/9/26 appeared
about six months after new regulations that tightened up the permissible
dimensions for official lumber. The document, from Ruiju sandai kyaku
(henceforth RSK), is in S£KT, vol. 25, 587-88. The order of 1030 also re-
stricted lower aristocrats in their use of wood in walls (Reischauer, Early
Japanese, 332).
45. I discuss the techniques and problems of timber provisioning in a
separate study.
46. Murao, Ritsuryo zaisei, 77-78, 81, fixes clearly on transit cost as a key
factor in lumber prices. See also figures cited from the Engi shiki by Tokoro,
"RingyS" (1959), 136. On labor cost differentials along the supply line in
Edo-period lumber provisioning, see my essay "Logging the Unloggable:
Timber Transport in Early Modern Japan."
47. Toba, Nihon ringyoshi, 99.
48. William Wayne Farris, Population, Disease, and Land in Early Japan,
645—goo, 13. Temmu's order of 675/2/15 is reproduced from Nihon Shoki, in
Kokushi taikei, vol. i, p. 507. (Farris cites the page reference from volume
one ofS^KT, which I was unable to consult while preparing this chapter.)
49. lyanaga, "Ritsuryosei," 36—37. Toba, Nihon ringyoshi, 158—71, lists
forest-related ordinances from 676 to 924, gleaned from primary sources.
50. Quoted in Yamamoto, "Waga kuni," 23. lyanaga notes that this
phrasing had precedent in Chinese law.
51. Farris, Population, 76—77. He suggests that the courtiers sought
"more land, not more rice paddies" but does not indicate why they wanted
it.
52. Toda, "Sekkanke," 329—58, describes sekkanke forests and their
use.
53. Tokoro, Kinsei, 19, 32.
54. Farris, Population, 76—77. The documents are reproduced from SN,
in S£KT, vol. 2, pp. 26, 47.
55. Tokoro, Kinsei, 19—20; Yamamoto, "Heian," 34—36. In "Shoen
tenkai katei ni miru rin'ya seido: Toku ni sono kaisSsei ni chakumoku
shite," 18-23, Osaki Rokuro examines forest-use rights in shoen, but mostly
for later centuries.
56. This order of 798/12, from RSK, can be found in S£KT, vol. 25,
497-
57. Nihon Gakushiin, Meijizen, 15; Tokoro, Kinsei, 14, 18—20.
58. Farris, Population, 111, translates Temmu's notice of 676/5. It is
reproduced from Nihon Shoki, in Kokushi taikei, vol. i, p. 510. The order of
710/2/29 is cited in Reischauer, Early Japanese, 169. It is from SN and can
be found in S^KT, vol. 2, p. 43.

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222 Notes to Pages sg —35

59. Toba, Nikon ringyoshi, 163. See, for example, the order of 8o6/
intercalary 6/8, from RSK, in S£KT, vol. 25, p. 498.
60. Quoted in Farris, Population, 100. He translates somewhat more of
the document.
61. Tsuchiya Takao, "An Economic History of Japan," 87-89, lists
items sold in the Heian marketplace.
62. Yamanouchi Shizuo, Nikon zorin gyoseishi gaisetsu, 2. Nihon Gaku-
shiin, Meijizen, 5, 15, 730, discusses forest fires in ancient Japan.
63. SN, in S£KT, vol. 2, p. 182. Perhaps the smallpox epidemic of the
7308 had so decimated the Kinai populace that arable was abandoned, re-
turning to wild growth, which developed by 745 into highly flammable
brushland. See Farris, Population, 53-69, for a discussion of the epidemic of
735—37 and its consequences.
64. Quoted from an unidentified source in Nihon Gakushiin, Meijizen,
15. However, SN, in S^KT, vol. 2, p. 183, simply reports that "a thousand
people from Omi turned out and suppressed a forest fire in the Koga cap-
ital vicinity."
65. Chiba Tokuji, Hageyama no henkyu, 92—96. Chiba reports that
hiratake requires over 30 percent soil moisture, while matsutake thrives on
less than 30 percent.
66. This discussion of ancient afforestation measures is gleaned from
these sources: Endo Yasutaro, "Suigen kan'yorin ni tai suru zendai hi to no
shiso," 93-96; Yamanouchi, Nihon zorin, 4-7; Matsushima Yoshio, "Sugi
no zorinshi," 101—4, 107—10; Nihon Gakushiin, Meijizen, 14; and Tokoro,
Kinsei, 19-20.

2. Forests and Forestry in Medieval Japan, 1050—1550

1. How much and how steadily the population grew are issues of ongo-
ing scholarly debate. For a recent and exciting examination of this topic in
English, see William Wayne Farris, Population, Disease, and Land in Early
Japan, 645-900. For some customary population figures, see my Japan before
Perry, 15—16 n. 7. For a sharply lower estimate of the population in 1600, see
Hayami Akira, "The Population at the Beginning of the Tokugawa
Period—An Introduction to the Historical Demography of Pre-industrial
Japan." For monographic detail on the Edo period, see Susan B. Hanley
and Kozo Yamamura, Economic and Demographic Change in Preindustrial
Japan, 1600-1868. In n. 2 of the Conclusion I discuss the logic of the figures
used in this study.
2. This material on agricultural change conies from the following essays
by Yamamoto Hikaru: "Heian jidai no rin'ya riyo," 39; "Kamakura jidai
no ringyS," 9, 13; "Nanbokucho jidai ni okeru sanrin gen'ya no riyo," 30;
"Muromachi jidai no ringyo," 30-31; and "Sengoku jidai no ringyo," 35.

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Motes to Pages 35-42 223

3. In English the most thorough investigation of medieval Japanese

agriculture is that currently being pursued by Kristina Troost, a graduate
student at Harvard. When Troost's work is complete, it will enrich our
understanding immensely and probably require modification of some pas-
sages in this chapter.
4. Furushima Toshio, "Yakibatake nogyS no rekishiteki seikaku to
sono kosaku keitai," 40-43.
5. Chiba Tokuji, Hageyama no kenkyu, 92—96.
6. Osaki Rokuro, "Shoen tenkai katei ni miru rin'ya seido: Toku ni
sono kaiso sei ni chakumoku shite," 22; Toba Masao, Nihonringyoshi,173-80.
7. Jeffrey P. Mass, The Kamakura Bakufu: A Study in Documents, 27-28,
72, 106-7.
8. Whereas most of the Muromachi regime's ordinances on pawning
goods date from 1441, the first one that concerns pawned lumber appears
to date from 1520, and other laws dealing with woodland production do
not seem to exist (Kenneth A. Grossberg, The Laws of the Muromachi Bakufu,
148).
9. Furushima Toshio, Kinsei keizaishi no kiso katei: Nengu shudatsu to
kyodotai, 142-45.
10. Toba, Nihon ringyoshi, 174—79; Osaki, "Shoen tenkai katei," 21—23;
Furushima, Kinsei keizaishi, 153.
11. This summary of village change is primarily an attempt to sum up
the essays by Yamamoto Hikaru. He, in turn, is condensing the analyses of
other Japanese scholars (Yamamoto, "Heian," 36-39; idem, "Kama-
kura," 9-10, 12-13, 15> idem, "Nanboku," 28-30; idem, "Muromachi,"
32; idem, "Sengoku," 33-35). See also Nishikawa Zensuke, "Ringyo
keizai shiron (2): Mokuzai seisan o chushin to shite," 15—30, for details
on soma, especially in the Yamaguni district.
12. Yamamoto, "Heian," 36, 38.
13. Furushima, Kinsei'-keizaishi, 148—151.
14. Yamamoto, "Heian," 34, 36, furnishes an example of this pattern
on a parcel of Todaiji land in Iga province.
15. Nishikawa, "Ringyo keizai shiron (2)," 26—30; Motoyoshi Rurio,
"Yamaguni ringyo chitai ni okeru jinko zorin no shinten to ikurin gijutsu
no hensen," 74.
16. Furushima, Kinsei keizaishi, 151—55, summarizes this development
nicely.
17. Yamamoto, "Sengoku," 34-35. The tools were kamakiri, nata, and
masakari.
18. This paragraph is based on Yamamoto, "Kamakura," 10, 13; and
idem, "Muromachi," 31-32. Trial by ordeal is discussed in Harada To-
shimaru, "Kinsei no Omi ni okeru rin'ya no kyokai soron to tekka
saiban," 81.

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224 Notes to Pages 44-46

19. Akabane Takeshi, "Hokensei ka ni okeru mokutan seisan no tenkai

kozo (i)," 2.
20. Yamamoto, "Kamakura," 11, quoting Azuma kagami for 1253/ro/
11. The prices set were 100 man per horse load of charcoal and 100 man per
thirty bundles of firewood. A bundle measured "three hands" in circum-
ference; the size of a horse load is unclear. The guidelines also listed these
items: 50 mon per horse load (eight bundles) of thatch; 50 man per horse
load (eight bundles) of straw; and 50 mon per horse load of rice bran.
21. Yamamoto, "Heian," 39-40; idem, "Kamakura," u. My "fifteen
feet" derives from fourteen to fifteen shaku, and "up to four feet" from four
shaku.
22. Yamamoto, "Kamakura," 15.
23. Tokoro Mitsuo, Kinsei ringyoshi no kenkyu, 15; Nihon Gakushiin,
comp., Meijizen Nihon ringyo gijutsu hattatsushi, 6.
24. Quoted in Yamamoto, "Kamakura," 15. The date referred to is
1219/9/22. The Azuma kagami, or "The Mirror of the East," is a history of
the early years of the Kamakura bakufu.
25. Yamamoto, "Muromachi," 32.
26. Yamamoto, "Kamakura," 11. See also Toba, Nihon ringyoshi, 112.
By "foot" I refer to shaku, which equals .994 foot. This Kamakura kureki,
which evidently followed late Heian ("as of old") precedents, was substan-
tially shorter than the twelve-shaku kureki of Nara. The seven-shaku min-
imum probably refers to the length between raft-lashing grooves, the
notched or eyed places near the ends of sticks where they were lashed to-
gether to form rafts.
27. This material on Kinai provisioning is from Nihon Gakushiin,
Meijizen, 6, 13. Also Yamamoto, "Muromachi," 32—33; idem, "Sengoku,"
36-37-
28. Until 1586 the Kiso joined the Nagara just east of Ogaki.
29. This description of TSdaiji provisioning derives from information in
Nihon Gakushiin, Meijizen, 308. Also Yamamoto, "Kamakura," 10-11;
Toba, Nihon ringyoshi, 51.
30. Even this pick of the Saba stand yielded pillars decidedly inferior to
those of the original Todaiji. Because they had grown less densely or on a
less favorable site, the trees were shorter and the fellers had to take speci-
mens that were about a foot wider at the base in order to obtain the desired
height. This meant that when installed the pillers consumed substantially
more floor space, resulting in a more crowded, less convenient, and less
aesthetically appealing structure. My "eighty to ninety feet" derives from
nine to ten jo and "about five feet" from five shaku four sun.
31. Nihon Gakushiin, Meijizen, 308. My "twenty miles" derives from
three hundred cho and "seventeen miles" from seven n.

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jVbtes to Pages 46-54 225

32. Motoyoshi, "Yamaguni ringyo chitai," 73; Motoyoshi Rurio,

"Yamaguni sugi ni kan suru kenkyu (ichi)," 42—43.
33. Yamamoto, "Muromachi," 33. The Tofukuji's six thousand horse
loads formed two hundred rafts. The Nanzenji's one thousand cartloads
yielded three hundred raft loads. Assuming equal-sized rafts, one cartload
equals about nine horse loads.
34. Even in the great medieval Zen monasteries, which emulated the
Karayo architectural style of China, Japanese builders evidently did not
attempt to replicate the height of Chinese monasteries. Moreover, in com-
parison with earlier monastery architecture of Japan, "in place of bold
spans and sturdy members, there is a cautious piecing-together of a multi-
tude of small parts" (Robert Treat Paine and Alexander Soper, The Art
and Architecture of Japan, 2d ed., 243, 245).
35. Yamanouchi Shizuo, Nihon zorin gyoseishi gaisetsu, 5, 10.
36. Yamamoto, "Nanboku," 30; idem, "Muromachi," 33; Sakamoto
Kiyozo, Kitayama daisugi to migaki maruta, 53—56; Matsushima Yoshio,
"Sugi no zorinshi," 101, 109—110, 115.
37. Matsumura Yasukazu, "Sugisashiki ringyo no gijutsushiteki kosatsu:
Sugi no sashiki ringyo no kenkyu (dai yon)," 144-48. Matsushima, "Sugi
no zorinshi," 99-116, reports on these afforestation efforts.
38. Toba, Nihon ringyoshi, 41-42, 47, 51-52.
39. Toba, Nihon ringyoshi, 113.

3. Timber Depletion during

the Early Modern Predation, 1570-1670
1. The term "shrine" refers to Shinto establishments (jinja, jingu).
"Temple" and "monastery" refer to Buddhist institutions (tera). In Japan
Buddhism was originally a religion of monks engaged in the pursuit of
enlightenment, but during the medieval period it evolved into a popular
religion in which priests ministered to believers. Hence, tera evolved from
"monasteries" housing monks into "temples" where the faithful partici-
pated in religious services.
2. George Elison and Bardwell L. Smith, Warlords, Artists, and Com-
moners: Japan in the Sixteenth Century, 62—63. For a sense of Azuchi's ele-
gance, see especially Carolyn Wheelwright's essay, "A Visualization of
Eitoku's Lost Paintings at Azuchi Castle," 87—112.
3. Yamamoto Hikaru, "Azuchi Momoyama jidai no ringyo," 23.
4. Nishikawa Zensuke, "Ringyo keizai shiron (5): Ryochiteki ringyS
chitai," 2. The figures here are changed slightly to be consistent.
5. Nakamura Koya, leyasuden, 529-38.
6. Mitsuhashi Tokio, "Yoshino-Kumano no ringyo," 257.

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226 Motes to Pages 54-6i

7. Toba Masao, "Sengoku jidai no shinrin keizai to rinsei," 32.

8. Shioya Junji, "Fushimi chikujo to Akita sugi," 48.
9. Yamamoto Hikaru, "Sengoku jidai no ringyo," 36; Shizuoka Ken
Mokuzai Kyodo Kumiai Ren'aikai, Shizuoka ken mokuzaishi, 10. Michael P.
Birt mentions Hqjo forest policy briefly in his essay "Samurai in Passage:
Transformation of the Sixteenth-Century Kanto," 394.
10. Yamamoto, "Sengoku," 36; Shizuoka ken mokuzaishi, 11.
11. Miyashita Ichiro, "Takato han no rinseishi (ichi)," 51-52.
12. Shizuoka ken mokuzaishi, 12-13; Yamamoto, "Sengoku," 36; Matsu-
shima Yoshio, "Sugi no zorinshi," 114.
13. Yamamoto, "Sengoku," 35.
14. Endo Yasutaro, (Sanrinshi jo yori mitaru) Tohoku bunka no kenkyu
(ichimei: Tohoku sanrinshi'), 46.
15. Tokoro Mitsuo, Kinsei ringyoshi no kenkyu, 21; Toba Masao, "Toyo
taiko to shinrin keizai," 10.
16. Nihon Gakushiin, comp., Meijizen Nihon ringyo gijutsu hattatsushi,
3i5-i6.
17. Toba, "Toyo taiko," i o.
18. Tokoro, Kinsei, 21— 22.
19. Hirao Michio, Tosa han ringyo keizaishi, 4.
20. Tsuboi Shunzo, "Kinsei chu-go ki Tenryu ringyo ni tsuite," 20—21.
21. Tokoro, Kinsei, 122; Yamamoto, "Azuchi," 25; Tokoro Mitsuo,
"Ringyo" (1965), 205.
22. Shioya, "Fushimi," 50—51; Tokoro, Kinsei, 24—26.
23. This analysis of Hideyoshi's levy on Akita is from Shioya,
"Fushimi," 49-51.
24. The measure stipulated was six shaku four sun rough measure and
six shaku three sun "net width," a figure evidently allowing for loss from the
saw cut or finishing.
25. Mitsuhashi, "Yoshino-Kumano," 243-44.
26. Yamamoto, "Azuchi," 25; Tokoro, "Ringyo" (1965), a n ; Tokoro
Mitsuo, "leyasu kurairichi jidai no Kiso kanjo shiryo," 330—31.
27. Nishikawa, "Ringyo keizai shiron (5)," 12; Yamamoto, "Azuchi,"
24.
28. Tokoro, Kinsei, 802, 805; Yamamoto, "Azuchi," 24. Raft loads of
lumber (mostly kureki and itago) went down the Kiso along its old channel
to the Nagara and then down the Nagara to a landing at Sunomata or
further to the Nagara's confluence with the Ibi and up the Ibi to a landing
just south of Ogaki. There the rafts were disassembled and the lumber
loaded onto horses or carts for portage along the Nakasendo via Sekiga-
hara to Asazuma on Lake Biwa (just north of Hikone), from whence it
went by water to Kyoto and Fushimi.
29. Tokoro Mitsuo, "Suminokura Yoichi to Kisoyama," 8.

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Motes to Pages 61-63 227

30. See my essay "Logging the Unloggable: Timber Transport in Early

Modern Japan" for a somewhat fuller discussion of river improvement.
31. Shimada Kinzo, Edo- Tokyo z.aimoku ton'ya kumiai seishi, 518. Timber
bound for Edo from northeast Japan initally went down the Pacific coast
to the mouth of the Tone river at Choshi in Shimosa. There, to avoid the
dangerous seas at the tip of the Boso peninsula, riverboats hauled the
pieces up the Tone to where its southern branch forked off to flow south
into Edo bay. Later in the century Tohoku lumber began circling B6s5,
going by sea all the way to the city lumberyards.
32. Yoshida Yoshiaki, Kiba no rekishi, 52—53. Suminokura's labor bat-
talions excavated a channel to the east of the Kamo river, running it north-
ward from the Uji river through Fushimi, past the Hokqji, almost to the
site of the new palace, where it tapped into the Kamo for water. It soon
filled with rafts and timber-carrying vessels, and along its banks fifteen
timber merchants established their offices and lumberyards.
33. Toba Masao, "Edo jidai no rinsei," 11.
34. ShizMoka ken mokuzaishi, 14. leyasu's Sunpu residences were the
"harbor mansion" (hama goten) at Shimizu and a villa at Miho. He built
the harbor mansion in 1607, the year he settled into semiretirement at
Sunpu. He erected the villa on nearby Miho spit two years later. From it
he had a breathtaking view of Mount Fuji towering over Suruga bay. The
harbor mansion was torn down after his death. Part of the villa was de-
stroyed by a storm in 1611, and it was abandoned after 1619, to be oblit-
erated by an earthquake and tidal wave in 1707.
35. Tokoro, Kinsei, 12-13, 117, 257. According to Tokoro, four koku of
tachiki yield two of genboku and one ofyozai. Admittedly, deriving acreage
figures from estimates of lumber usage produces at best unreliable
"guesstimates," and I offer them solely to suggest the general magnitude of
the impact this construction activity had on woodland. My figures for
timber yield derive from the column of figures for thinned plus remaining
stem volume in the stand tables of Tokyo Kyoiku Daigaku Nogakubu
Ringakka, comp., Jitsuyo ringyo keisan hikkei. Because the tables are based
on plantation stands rather than the customarily less well stocked natural
growth, I am equating the stem volume figures with tachiki (stumpage)
rather than genboku (modern-day pulpwood, but in the Edo period, timber
that had been processed in any of various ways for rafting) in hopes that
conversion will give the acreage estimates a bit more validity.
36. Tokoro, "leyasu kurairichi," 329—30.
37. Hirao, Tosa, 4.
38. Tokoro, "Ringyo" (1965), 205-6.
39. Tokoro, Kinsei, 150-51. On occasion leyasu took a direct personal
interest in the process of lumber selection. Thus, in the spring of 1608, after
Sunpu castle burned, he traveled to his large lumber storage facility on the

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228 JVoto to Pages 63-69

Tenryu and selected some two thousand pieces of kureki for use in the re-
construction (Tokoro, Kinsei, 148).
40. Tokoro, Kinsei, 543. On p. 615 he gives an alternative figure for this
period of eight hundred thousand pieces ofj/dzai of all sorts annually.
41. Tokoro, Kinsei, 604.
42. For illustrations of the splendor of daimyo mansions in Edo, see
William H. Coaldrake, "Edo Architecture and Tokugawa Law," 261—84.
43. Yamamoto, "Azuchi," 24.
44. Matsuki Kan, "Tsugaru no hiba (hinoki)," 150.
45. This material on Matsumoto derives from Tokoro, Kinsei, 228-31,
258-60, 267-68, 276-78, 287. The Shinano river is called the Sai in its
upper reaches.
46. Tokoro, Kinsei, 257—58. Tokoro estimates that each house had twenty
tsubo (720 square feet) of floor space and that each tsubo required three
koku ofyozai. A lumber (or maritime) koku measures ten cubic shaku (9.82
cubic feet or 0.278 cubic meters), so two hundred thousand koku is 56,000
cubic meters of genboku, which would have required about 111,200 cubic
meters of tachiki. The stand table on p. 29 of Tokyo Kyoiku Daigaku
Nogakubu Ringakka, Jitsuyo ringyo keisan hikkei, estimates that fifty-year-
old akamatsu in first-grade stands in Nagano prefecture yield 440 cubic
meters of lumber per hectare. If one equates that yield with tachiki, to ob-
tain 111,200 cubic meters would have meant clear-cutting 250 hectares
(620 acres) of first-rate plantation or vastly more of natural woodland.
47. Hirao, Tosa, 2-5, 138, 140, 163, 164. The neighborhood of Tosa's
lumber storage in Osaka came to be known as Shiragacho, evidently after
the mountain that furnished the timber. The moneylender presumably
was one to whom the han was in debt.
48. Hirao, Tosa, 164—65.
49. Hirao, Tosa, 167—68.
50. Marius B. Jansen, "Tosa in the Seventeenth Century: The Es-
tablishment of Yamauchi Rule," 124, 128.
51. Shizuoka ken mokuzaishi, frontispiece commentary.
52. Nihon Gakushiin, Meijizen, 464-65.
53. Shizuoka ken mokuzaishi, 26.
54. Toba, "Edo jidai," 11-12. Shimada, Edo-Tokyo, 524—28, lists the
major Edo fires and their locations.
55. Nishikawa Zensuke, "Edo zaimokusho no kigen: Edo mokuzai
ichibashi josetsu," 14.
56. Yoshida, Kiba no rekishi, 52.
57. For a description of the lumber industry, see my essay "Lumber
Provisioning in Early Modern Japan, 1580-1850."
58. Shioya, "Fushimi," 52.

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Notes to Pages 69—73 229

59. Yamamoto, "Azuchi," 26; Tokoro, Kinsei, 124, 186; Sekishima

Hisao, "T5yama-ke no keizaiteki haikei (ichi): Musashi kuni Tama gun
Ogawa mura Ogawa-ke no Ina mokuzai kiridashi shiryo no shokai," 42.
60. Tokoro, Kinsei, 605, 614; Tokoro, "Suminokura," 8.
61. Tokoro, "Ringyo" (1965), 198. Kumazawa wrote this widely
quoted comment in Usa mondo. Nishikawa, "Ringyo keizai shiron (5)," 3,
reports cutting on Ezo from 1678.
62. See n. 45.
63. Hirasawa Kiyondo, Kinsei iriai kanko no seiritsu to tenkai: Shinshu
Shimo Ina chiho o chushin ni shite, 222.
64. Tokoro, Kinsei, 124, quoting a report of 1718 that probably was
part of the discussions resulting in the reduction of kureki dimensions.
Sanbo, or "three side" measure, is the sum of the exterior and two radial
faces of each split piece.
65. Tokoro, "Ringyo" (1965), 214.
66. The figures, from Tokoro, Kinsei, 126, are these:

Date and Type Length (shaku) Sanbo (sun) Hara (sun

1649 ("long kureki") 3-6 4-5 3-0
1678 ("short kureki") 2.6 4-5 3-0
1718 ("long") 3-3 3-o t-5
1718 ("short") 2-3 3-o i-5

Hara is the width of the inside surface of kureki, where heartwood has been
cut out.
67. Hirasawa, Kinsei iriai, 272. The final column of derived figures is my
addition to Hirasawa's table.
68. In 1725, to reduce stick losses on the river, the bakufu ordered kureki
bound into rafts at the mouths of branch rivers, whereas they previously
had floated loose to a downstream assembly point. See n. 75.
69. Hirasawa, Kinsei iriai, 221-22.
70. Tokoro, "Ringyo" (1965), 214. In some cases villagers fought so
hard to pay the tax in money because they wished to send lumber into the
more lucrative private trade. This suggests that scarcity had driven up the
market price of wood enough to assure a profit for anyone with timber to
sell. In that case the matter was essentially a contest between government
and peasant as to who would profit from the marketing opportunity.
71. Hirasawa, Kinsei'iriai, 150,245—46.
72. lioka Masatake, "Takatoryo 'ohayashi' ni okeru goyoki-uriki no
saishutsu: Genroku-Kyoho ki no 'mokushi sato,'" 447-63, studies this case
thoroughly.

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230 Notes to Pages 73—79

73. See my "Logging the Unloggable" for a more general discussion of

rafting with details on Kiso river practices.
74. Tokoro, Kinsei, 147.
75. lioka Masatake has studied this matter extensively in two of
his closely analyzed essays on Tenryu lumbering: "Enshu Funagira ni
okeru bakufu no kureki shobun: Genroku-Shotoku ki Shinshu Kashio-
Okawabarayama no motojime shidashi to kanren shite," 117—18; and
"Enshu Funagira ni okeru bakufu yozai no chukei kino," 114-16.
76. Nishikawa, "Ringyo keizai shiron (5)," 3.
77. Hattori Marenobu, Ringyo keizai kenkyu, 147. See also my Origins of
Japan's Modern Forests: The Case of Akita.
78. Matsushima Yoshio, "Tokugawa jidai ni okeru zorin seisaku ni
tsuite," 42—43.
79. Morita Seiichi, "Higo no ringyo," 119.
80. Hirao, Tosa, 9—10. Figures from Akita tell a similar story in its later
stages. The Yoneshiro watershed, heartland of the han's fabled woodland,
produced (to cite typical figures) 15,522 cubic meters of lumber in 1717;
7,020 in 1747; and an average of 3,947 in 1812—16 (Iwasaki Naoto, Akita
ken Noshirogawa kami chiho ni okeru sugibayashi no seiritsu narabi ni koshin ni kan
suru kenkyu, 209).
81. Hirao, Tosa, 10.
82. Hirao, Tosa, 9.
83. Tokoro, Kinsei, 557~59, 655. It is suggestive of the Owari problem
that in 1721 some 3,200 hectares of the formerly rich forest area of Tadachi
mountain numbered a mere thirty-five conifers of over six inches dbh per
hectare (Tokoro Mitsuo, "Kinsei Kiso sanrin no hozoku taisaku," 18).
Thirty-five is my extrapolation from Tokoro's figures. Figures on stand
density for particular sites are scattered widely through the literature or,
more correctly, can be derived from figures so scattered. What they signify
in particular cases is not at all clear, but the uniformity of very low figures
surely means what it suggests: the forests had been plundered, and few
mature trees remained standing.
84. Tokoro, "Suminokura," 15.
85. Tokoro, "Ringyo" (1965), 207—8.
86. Tsutsui Michio, Nihon rinseishi kenkyujosetsu, 174.
87. Quoted in Matsuki, "Tsugaru no hiba," 150-51.
88. "Custom" or "tradition" will not do as an explanation of why a
situation is as it is; it merely describes "what" is and perhaps the habitual
way in which members of that society understand "why" it is.
89. A convenient technical summary of Japan's geological history and
character is Takashi Yoshida, ed., An Outline of the Geology of Japan, 3d ed.,
6-24.

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jVotes to Pages 84-89 231

4. The Negative Regimen: Forest Regulation

1. A new and convenient bibliographical guide to further reading on
Tokugawa society is John W. Dower, Japanese History and Culture from An-
cient to Modern Times: Seven Basic Bibliographies. For a concise description of
Tokugawa society and its major segments, see Charles J. Dunn, Everyday
Life in Traditional Japan. For a lucid description of the Tokugawa political
system, see John W. Hall, "The Nature of Traditional Society: Japan."
For more detail on the bakufu, see my Politics in the Tokugawa Bakufu,
1600-1843.
2. The classic study of Tokugawa rural society is Thomas C. Smith, The
Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan. For a recent guide to English-language
literature on the Tokugawa peasantry, see my essay "Tokugawa Peasants:
Win, Lose, or Draw?"
3. Initially, some forest preserves were maintained as bird and game
sanctuaries to provide the rulers with sport hunting, but that interest
waned within a few decades as the ruling samurai elite became urbanized.
Many sanctuaries evolved into timber preserves, others into protection for-
ests, and some into iriaichi or household woodland.
4. Tokoro Mitsuo, Kinsei ringyoshi no kenkyu, 235—36. Boundary delinea-
tion also facilitated taxation. Thus, in 1686 the bakufu ordered a resurvey
of land in the Numata area of Kozuke province, specifying that woodland
and waste were to be covered in the survey and that large parcels of house-
hold forest were to be taxed "lightly," but small parcels could be ignored
(NSrinsho, comp., Nihon rinseishi shiryo, vol. 5, pp. 63—67).
5. During the seventeenth century, before afforestation techniques
became established, one factor that surely made government woodland of
more interest to villagers than village woodland was to the government
was that villagers could easily see how building timber could be reduced to
fuelwood, fuelwood to fertilizer material, and much fertilizer to fodder; but
even the canniest official would have been hard put to reverse the process
except by completely closing woodland to exploitation for decades at a time.
6. Tokoro, Kinsei, 243-47, sums up the diversity of iriaichi arrange-
ments.
7. "Ownership" essentially seems to be a particular cluster of use
rights—the right to acquire, to alienate, and while "owning" to utilize ex-
clusively as one wishes, subject to little or no external constraint—whose
value is determined, ideally, by the market. Arrangements very akin to
"ownership" did arise during the Edo period, but, particularly for wood-
land, they were never recognized as a single, indivisible conceptual unit of
human relations.
8. Tsutsui Michio, Nihon rinseishi kenkyu josetsu, 177—80.

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232 Notes to Pages Sg-gs

9. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 54—55.

10. N5rinsh6, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 45, 91—92; Toba Masao, "Edo
jidai no rinsei," 32.
11. Shioya Tsutomu, Buwakebayashi seido no shiteki kenkyu: Buwakebayashi
yori bunshurin e no tenkai, 59.
12. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 17, 87. The ken, now fixed at
i.99 yards (1.82 meters), ranged from about six to seven feet during the
seventeenth century, varying regionally and changing as decades passed.
13. Tsutsui, Nihon rinseishi, 179. If the builder acquired his own wood,
presumably he was allowed to use more.
14. Tsutsui, Nihon rinseishi, 178-79.
15. Linking consumption rights to status had the corollary effect of
turning the rationing system into an integral part of the status hierarchy.
The general pattern of status-linked sumptuary regulation is nicely laid
out by Donald H. Shively, "Sumptuary Regulation and Status in Early
Tokugawa Japan," 123-64. More recently, architectural aspects of the
pattern have been treated in William H. Coaldrake, "Edo Architecture
and Tokugawa Law," 235—84. Neither author confronts the tricky ques-
tion of cause, assuming that the pattern was simply an expression of politi-
cal ideology. From the outset the Tokugawa regime certainly did envisage
a correlation between a person's social status and material standard of
living. During the early seventeenth century, however, when the economy
was still growing ebulliently, sumptuary legislation was neither extensive
nor particularly precise in detail. Not until later in the century, when the
broader problem of ecological limits really started to press in on govern-
ment and society did the rulers begin cranking out ever more elaborate
and restrictive consumption edicts. They did so, I submit, not because the
edicts gave visible expression to some abstract sense of social propriety but
because it seemed an appropriate way, and perhaps the only way they
could envisage, to cope with the problems of the moment that resulted
from excessive human demand on the ecosystem. That the policy seemed
to serve their own interests was, needless to say, one aspect of its perceived
appropriateness.
16. The basic outlines of forest administration are given in standard
studies, such as Tsutsui, Nihon rinseishi; Ringyo Hattatsushi Chosakai, ed.,
Nihon ringyo hattatsushi: Meiji iko no tenkai katei; and Nihon Gakushiin,
comp., Meijizen Nihon ringyo gijutsu hattatsushi. For a highly systematized
han by han description of forest regulatory arrangements, see Rin'yacho,
comp., Tokugawa jidai ni okeru rin'ya seido no taiyo.
17. Ringyo Hattatsushi, Nihon ringyo, 6, 15.
18. Tsutsui, Nihon rinseishi, 177-215, and Tokugawa Muneyoshi, Edo
jidai ni okeru zdrin gijutsu no shiteki kenkyu, 351 — 71, provide convenient sum-
maries of the main lines of government forest regulation.

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Notes to Pages 93-96 233

19. Analytical categories can be misleading. The distinction being

made here between "protection" and "production" should not obscure
the fact that the two were inherently related. In the minds of rulers protec-
tion growth was to benefit some sort of production, usually agricultural.
And often enough trees originally preserved for protection purposes ended
up being harvested.
20. In 1615 leyasu assigned the Kiso area to Owari, the domain of his
newly married, newly enfeoffed son Yoshinao, but he stipulated that the
area must continue providing timber to Edo upon request. By 1630, how-
ever, Owari leaders were obstructing such provisioning and keeping the
Kiso yield for their own use (Tokoro Mitsuo, "Suminokura Yoichi to
Kisoyama," 11-13).
21. Tokoro, Kinsei, 97, 104—5, discusses protection forests. The reg-
ulations cited in this paragraph can also be found in Norinsho, Nihon
rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 4-6. The phrasing on careless cutting of trees and bam-
boo subsequently became routine in directives to officials administering
newly reassigned areas.
22. William S. Atwell, "Some Observations on the 'Seventeenth-
Century Crisis' in China and Japan," 226.
23. The regulations cited in this paragraph appear in Norinsho, Nihon
rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 17, 19—20, 22, 23.
24. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, p. 29.
25. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 33, 38. The injunctions of 1652
can also be found in Ishii Ryosuke, Tokugawa kinreiko, ser. i, vol. 4,
pp.124-25.
26. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, p. 48. Also quoted in Yamanouchi
Shizuo, Nihon zorin gyoseishi gaisetsu, 58.
27. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 68—69.
28. NorinshS, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, p. 61. Also quoted in Tokoro,
Kinsei, 97—98. The "other jurisdictions" mostly were daimyo lands.
29. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 61—62. Also quoted in Tokoro,
Kinsei, 98-99. The date is 1684/8/13.
30. Toba, "Edo jidai," 32. A notable characteristic of the documenta-
tion and scholarship on early modern Japan is that the topics of forest
utilization and riparian control exist almost independently of one another
even though there is a fundamental causal relationship between the two.
The documentary segregation almost surely reflects an administrative par-
ticularism and bureaucratic separation that resulted in the creation of sep-
arate sets of records. The scholarly segregation probably reflects, in part,
the extent to which research is shaped by the documents a scholar uses
and, in part, the questions a scholar brings to the documents, questions
about production and politics in the case of forests, and engineering and
politics in the case of riparian work. The more basic ecological perspective

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234 Motes to Pages96-103

that sees the inextricable linkage between forest use and river condition
does not seem really to have become established in this area of scholarship.
31. Tokoro, Kinsei, 99-1 oo.
32. Instances of the bakufu urging the opening of land during the early
eighteenth century can be found, for example, in Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi,
vol. 5, pp. 135, 138—40, 151, 161. Their effectiveness is not indicated.
33. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 151—52.
34. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 155-56. The source cited is
Jikata shui.
35. Fukai Masaumi, "Zaimoku (ishi) bugyo narabi ni hayashi bugyS
no shuninsha ni tsuite," 207—8.
36. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, p. 27.
37. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, p. 162; Fukai, "Zaimoku bugyo,"
208-9.
38. Shioya, Buwakebayashi, 52-53.
39. See, for examples, entries in Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 7,
9. I ' , 15-
40. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, p. 91. Also quoted in Shizuoka Ken
Mokuzai Kyodo Kumiai Ren'aikai, Shizuoka ken mokuzaishi, 21—22.
41. NSrinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 58-59, 109. Also quoted in
Shizuoka kenrn.okuzo.ishi,21.
42. NSrinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 92—93.
43. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 101-2, 104-5, :47- The docu-
ment for 1733 also appears in Ishii, Tokugawa kinreiko, ser. i, vol. 4, p. 146.
44. Shioya, Buwakebayashi, 53.
45. Quoted in Tokoro, Kinsei, 108—9. The villages appear to be in the
foothills north of Gifu. The indicated dates for the removal of trees from
the register are my interpretation of sexagenary entries in the record.
46. Diameter at breast height, or dbh, is the standard measure of stem
size in modern forest mensuration. Given the relatively short stature of
Edo-period Japanese, dbh is reasonably convertible to a common Edo-
period measure, circumference at eye level.
47. Akamatsu is found throughout Japan, whereas the other noteworthy
pines are not. Kuromatsu is located along the coast, particularly in the
south, and himekomatsu, preferring a cooler latitude, is rare in Mino. More-
over, himekomatsu is normally identified as such, whereas akamatsu is com-
monly signified as simply matsu.
48. Tokoro, Kinsei, 110.
49. Tokoro, Kinsei, 114—15. All trees in this count are roughly three
inches dbh or over. One square cho equals 2.45 acres. The last entry of
eighty-four cho is my calculation for an area recorded as fourteen by five cho
in linear measure (one cho equals 109 meters).

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Motes to Pages 104—116 235

50. Tokoro, Kinsei, n o — n . The "ridgeline conifers" probably were

trees on the parcel's boundary that were counted separately because their
felling normally was forbidden.
51. Tokoro, Kinsei, 116; Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 5, pp. 162—63.
52. Except as noted, this material on Amagi derives from Asai Junko,
"Ohayashiyama ni okeru bakufu ringyo seisaku: Izu Amagi ohayashiyama
ni tsuite," i —18. In a few particulars the information on Amagi in Shizuoka
ken mokuzaishi, 22-24, differs slightly.
53. On Amagi "large" trees were, by definition, three shaku or more in
circumference at eye level. "Small" were one to three shaku in circumfer-
ence, and those under one shaku were designated "seedlings" (naeki} (Asai,
"Ohayashiyama," 12). The large trees that the regime chose not to protect
may have been overaged wolf trees. The smaller ones that were protected
might have had more potential as timber trees, but they were also more
easily felled and slipped surreptitiously into charcoal kilns.
54. A faint echo of this intense concern with fire on Amagi is evident in
Dazai Osamu's novel of 1947, Shayo, translated by Donald Keene as The
Setting Sun, 31-38. A refugee from war-ravaged Tokyo moves to the in-
terior of Izu north of Amagi, where she accidentally burns her house
down, much to the dismay and outrage of her neighbors, who are unforgiv-
ing of her carelessness.
55. Shizuoka ken mokuzaishi, 24, 49, mentions the acts of 1762 and 1766.
56. Shizuoka ken mokuzaishi, 49.
57. This material on Hida derives from Tokoro, Kinsei, 152-60; Niwa
Kunio, "Hida 'ohayashiyama' no ichi kosatsu"; and NSrinsho, Nihon rin-
seishi, vol. 3, which consists entirely of documents relating to the Hida for-
ests. Tokoro's analysis is grounded in substantial documentation derived
from other sources as well.
58. NorinshS, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 3, pp. i, 2. Kanamori had designated
some uplands jitoyama and some unjoyama. The former presumably were
areas assigned to his vassals; the latter, subject to his direct taxation.
59. Norinsho, Nihon rinseishi, vol. 3, pp. 34—45, 364—80.
60. Tokoro, Kinsei, 95.
61. Reconstruction after the Meireki fire also subjected lumbermen to
distressing swings in a boom or bust entrepreneurial marketplace. I discuss
that issue briefly in "Lumber Provisioning in Early Modern Japan,
1580-1850."

5. Silviculture: Its Principles and Practice

i. Aspects of this nosho literature are discussed by Thomas C. Smith in
"Okura Nagatsune and the Technologists," and his earlier work, The

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236 Motes to Pages 7/7—720

Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan. Jennifer Robertson has discussed the

literature in "Japanese Farm Manuals: A Literature of Discovery," and
"Sexy Rice: Plant Gender, Farm Manuals, and Grass-Roots Nativism."
Smith looks at nosho from an economic perspective; Robertson, from an
ethnographic one. The literature is yet to be treated in English from
an ecological perspective.
2. These examples are taken from Tokugawa Muneyoshi, Edo jidai ni
okeru zflrin gijutsu no shiteki kenkyu, 333-34.
3. Tokugawa, Edo jidai, 336. Jikata kikigaki [Verbatim notes on rural
affairs], originally published in two kan and filling forty-eight pages of
modern text, consists of five parts, one of them dealing with woodland. It
provides guidance on administering rural areas, as distinct from adminis-
tering towns and handling judicial matters. The author is unknown, but
references to the work suggest that it was written by a bakufu intendant
(Kanto gundai] or one of his subordinates (Nihon rekishi daijiten, vol. 9,
pp. 196-97). Pine is generally not a favored fuelwood among North
Americans, but it has advantages. Pine trees survive on poor sites and grow
comparatively rapidly. The wood is soft for easy harvesting and lighter
than most hardwoods to carry. It provides a fast, hot fire and ample Btu's
per unit of weight. However, it does not burn long and steadily as good
hardwoods do and yields fewer Btu's per volume measure.
4. See Smith, Agrarian Origins, 88-89, and Robertson, "Japanese Farm
Manuals," 182—84, for a discussion of the Nogyo z.ensho [Encyclopedia of
farming].
5. Here and in what continues I am following Kano Kyoji, Edo jidai no
ringyo shiso, 26-29.
6. Kano, Edo jidai, 30—31.
7. Kano, Edo jidai, 51. Probably the most prolific and eclectic scholar
of the Edo period, Sato Shin'en (or Nobuhiro) wrote on foreign affairs,
society, taxation, defense, geography, astronomy, Shinto, and religion
more broadly, as well as on agricultural economics and silviculture. That
he has received so little attention among foreign scholars probably reflects
the bad press he has received because of the limited political perspective
from which his work is viewed.
8. Quoted from Sato's Keizaiyoroku in Kano, Edo jidai, 57.
9. Kano describes Sato's thinking at some length in Edo jidai, 53-108.
10. Motoyoshi Rurio, "Yamaguni sugi ni kan suru kenkyu (san),"
75-95, contains a discussion of the famous but atypical daisugi or kabusugi
culture of Yamaguni. After a few regenerations coppice loses its vitality,
and durable coppice stands must regularly include some new growth de-
rived from seedlings or slips.

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Notes to Pages 120-129 237

11. As the footnotes reveal, this chapter is heavily indebted to

Tokugawa, Edojidai. Muneyoshi's book is about as close as we can get to a
truly definitive study. Based on a thorough and informed review of the ori-
ginal materials, it is methodically organized in terms of the several facets of
silvicultural practice, including seed selection, seedbed preparation and
management, slip culture, soil improvement, site selection and prepara-
tion, transplanting techniques, aftercare, and coppice management. Mune-
yoshi was born in 1897, a direct descendant of the Tokugawa daimyo line
at Mito. He received his doctorate in agriculture from Tokyo Imperial
University and served as an instructor there and as a middle school prin-
cipal. He enjoyed a distinguished career as a national legislator and gov-
ernment official. He served as director of the Agency for Land Planning
(Kokudo Keikakukaicho), director of the Association of Japanese Mu-
seums (Nihon Hakubutsukan Kyokaicho), and assistant director of the
Japan Forest Association (Nihon Sanrinkai Fukukaicho). This book is his
best-known piece of scholarship, but during 1940, as the bibliography indi-
cates, he also published in the journal Sanrin [Forestry] a number of con-
cise essays on individual forestry commentators of the Edo period.
12. This material on seedling culture derives from Tokugawa, Edojidai,
6—270. It constitutes the heart of his study.
13. This section on cuttings is based on material derived from
Tokugawa, Edojidai, 81—91, 229—41.
14. Quoted in Tokugawa, Edojidai, 295.
15. This material on aftercare derives from Tokugawa, Edo jidai,
287-91,295-303, 306-14, 317-24.
16. Tokugawa, Edojidai, 317.
17. Muneyoshi's study reveals both the spread of silviculture and its
refinement. It is also clear from his study, however, that there were no fun-
damental changes in the basic understanding of silviculture during the
Tokugawa period. The improvements that took place occurred within a
stable conceptual frame of reference.
18. When viewed through the prism of Muneyoshi's work, this
Tokugawa silviculture seems particularly instructive even today. One
reason, no doubt, is that Muneyoshi was a trained silviculturist who or-
ganized and assessed materials in terms of his own fund of professional
knowledge. Hence, despite the great difference in levels of technical so-
phistication, his presentation of Tokugawa forestry bears a striking resem-
blance to silvicultural material as it appears in modern texts. See, for ex-
ample, the pertinent sections of Grant W. Sharpe, Clare W. Hendee, and
Shirley W. Allen, Introduction to Forestry, 4th ed.; and Theodore W. Daniel,
John A. Helms, and Frederick S. Baker, Principles of Silviculture, 2d ed.

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238 Notes to Pages 130—135

6. Plantation Forestry:
Economic Aspects of Its Emergence

1. This chapter is a revised version of my essay "Plantation Forestry in

Early Modern Japan: Economic Aspects of Its Emergence."
2. I explore this issue in the essay "Lumber Provisioning in Early
Modernjapan, 1580—1850."
3. Protection forests, such as those established on coastal sand dunes
facing the Sea of Japan, derived from more complex considerations, but
production forests, rather than protection stands, are the focus of our
attention.
4. Fujita Yoshitani, Kinsei mokuzai ryutsushi no kenkyu: Tanbazai ryutsu no
hatten katei, 116. I discuss Akita practices in The Origins of Japan's Modern
Forests: The Case of Akita.
5. Tokoro Mitsuo, "Saishu ringyo kara ikusei ringy5 e no katei,"
19-20.
6. Hattori Marenobu, "Hitoyoshi han ni okeru ikuseiteki ringyo: Toku
ni buwakebayashi no ringyoshiteki igi," 76, 78.
7. Motoyoshi Rurio, "Yamaguni sugi ni kan suru kenkyu (san),"
48-49>55-57, 77-
8. Matsumura Yasukazu, "Mito han ringyo no kiban to sono gijutsu-
teki tenkai," 8.
9. Ringyo Hattatsushi Chosakai, ed., Nihon ringyo hattatsushi: Meiji iko
no tenkai katei, 28. Alternatively, they were known as "Osaka seedlings" or
"Ikeda seedlings," according to Toba Masao, "Kinsei no shinrin keizai to
kamikatajumyS (jo)," I.
10. This description of Ikeda nursery activity is based on Toba, "Kinsei
(i)," and his similarly titled essay, "Kinsei (2)." Toba reports that besides
sugi, the Ikeda nurseries furnished many other species, notably hinoki,
matsu, kashi, hiba, and various bamboo.
11. The figure of 300,000 assumes that a pole load is two baskets of 100
to 200 seedlings apiece. The amount of too to 200 comes from Tokugawa
Muneyoshi, Edojidai ni okeru z.orin gijutsu no shiteki kenkyu, 112, and refers to
bundles of seedlings in general, not to those from Ikeda specifically. Nurs-
erymen in Osaka paid the city government annual license fees of "ten silver
pieces" each for their monopoly rights. If these "pieces" were momme, it
was a token fee rather than an extortionate levy (Toba, "Kinsei (i),"
i7-!9)-
12. Motoyoshi Rurio, Senshin ringyo chitai no shiteki kenkyu: Yamaguni
ringyo no hatten katei, 254, 257. For comparison, in December 1985 in Tokyo
stores, first-grade rice was selling for 550 to 580 yen per kilogram, depend-
ing on brand name reputation. Two gallons of water weigh about 7.27 kilo-

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Notes to Pages 135-137 239

grams; rice weighs somewhat less, and so today the rice that would have
cost about three silver momme in the mid-Edo period would cost roughly
3,500 yen.
13. To illustrate price fluctuation, Tsu han bought 135,500 sugi seed-
lings for 107 ryo (about five momme per hundred) in 1793. The next year it
paid 93 ryo for 329,392 (about two momme per hundred). Seedling age is not
indicated, though it certainly should have affected the price (Toba,
"Kinsei (1)," 21).
14. This material on Mito is from Matsumura Yasukazu, "Mito han
rinseishi josetsu," 148—51, and "Mito han gotateyama seido ni kan suru
ichi kosatsu," 85-86.
15. Tokoro Mitsuo, Kensei ringyoshi no kenkyu, 102-3. Bakufu wages in
Hida were comparatively high because tree planting served in part as a
form of government work-relief for impoverished villagers.
1 6. Tsutsui Michio, Nihon rinseishi kenkyu josetsu, 200. He cites informa-
tion from Akita, Shinj5, Morioka, Mito, Hikone, Tsu, Hiroshima, and
Kumamoto between the 17805 and 18505. At the time, reports Tsutsui, one
hundred men of z.eni generally would buy approximately i .5 to 3 sho (about
three to six quarts) of rice, depending on the location. Nakajima Akira,
"Maebashi han no rin'ya seido: Ohayashi o chushin to shite," 15, reports
that in Maebashi han in the 1 86os, villagers received two z,eni per forty-five
seedlings they planted and two z.eni for every one hundred tsubo (331
square meters) of area they cleared of weeds and brush. Perhaps the coin
was momme of silver rather than zeni of copper, which were worth about
i/ 1 20 of a momme.
17. Kurotaki Hidehisa, "Kinsei ni okeru mokuzai ryutsu no kozo:
Hirosaki han ni okeru mokuzai ishutsu o jirei to shite," 66.
1 8. Matsushima Yoshio, "Tokugawa jidai ni okeru zSrin seisaku ni
tsuite," 48-49, mentions the various ways of paying for planting. Asai
Junko, "Ohayashiyama ni okeru bakufu ringyo seisaku: Izu Amagi
ohayashiyama ni tsuite," 15-17, describes practices in bakufu lands on the
Izu peninsula. Hattori, "Hitoyoshi," describes nicely the methods of
afforestation in Hitoyoshi han.
19. Tsutsui, Nihon rinseishi, 192-207, attempts to assess the fiscal worth
of forests in several han, most especially Tsu. He reports that the labor ex-
pense for planting in Tsu was commonly two or three times the original
seedling cost. Total cost normally worked out to five or more momme per
hundred planted, which puts normal seedling cost at about one to two
momme per hundred. That figure is well below those of the Ikeda nurseries,
suggesting that a significant portion, perhaps half, of the real seedling cost
in Tsu was being absorbed by villages and forest users. And yet, this re-
generative forestry was still not cost-effective, at least not in the short term

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240 Notes to Pages 137-138

of one or two decades. On p. 207 Tsutsui presents the following data,

which reveal the considerable variation in acknowledged costs of seedling
culture. The right-hand column, with momme figured at sixty per ryo, is my
own derivation from the other figures.

Seedlings Labor, Etc., Total Momme

Planting as %of as% of Cost Seedlings per wo
Activity Total Cost Total Cost (ryo) per Ryo Seedlings
3,400
sugi 43-9 56.1 3i i,l3<> 5-74
211,514
seedlings 18.6 81.4 591 3,584 1.68
189,414
sugi
21,000
hinoki
IOO
sakura
1,000
hiba
192,493
sugi and
hinoki 31.6 68.4 174! i, 1 06 5.44
8
49 ,252
sugi and
hinoki 25.2 74.8 560^ 889 6.75
379,292
sugi and
hinoki 33-o 67.0 3241 1,170 5-r3
75,397
sugi and
hinoki 10.3 89.7 204! 369 16.25

20. Motoyoshi Rurio, "Yamaguni ringyo chitai ni okeru jinko zorin no

shinten to ikurin gijutsu no hensen," 83. The other 437 momme of cost is not
identified but probably included rent, tax fees, and other overhead. See
also n. 40 below for another instance of concealed labor costs.
21. Fujita Yoshihisa, "Kinsei ni okeru ikurin gijutsu taikei no chiiki-
sei," 110. Tokugawa, Edojidai, 81, lists seventeen types of trees sometimes
reproduced by cuttings.

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2
Notes to Pages 138—144 4'

22. Matsumura Yasukazu, "Sugisashiki ringyo no gijutsushiteki kosatsu:

Sugi no sashiki ringyo no kenkyu (dai yon)," 145-51.
23. Matsumura, "Sugisashiki," 150-51, 154; Ringyo Hattatsushi, Nihon
ringyo, 538. The two sources give slightly different information.
24. This description of tokozashi technique derives from Matsumura,
"Sugisashiki," 149-53. Ringyo Hattatsushi, Nihon ringyo, 526, 535, briefly
describes slip culture in the Chizu and Kitayama areas west and north of
Kyoto.
25. Morita Seiichi, "Higo no ringyo," 116.
26. Shioya Tsutomu and Sagio Ry5shi, Obi ringyo hattatsushi, 32—33.
27. Regulations issued in 1776 in Hitoyoshi han (which lay between
Kumamoto and Obi and which relied heavily on sugi cuttings and custom-
arily had corvee laborers plant them) excused villagers from corvee duty if
they paid 24 man in copper for every cutting of their obligation. This rate of
substitution converts (at 120 copper man per silver momme) to a fee of
twenty momme per hundred cuttings. It is a rate appreciably higher than
that for afforestation with seedlings, which suggests that the rate was de-
signed to discourage such substitution (Hattori, "Hitoyoshi," 80-81).
28. Asai, "Ohayashiyama," 13; Matsumura, "Sugisashiki," 150—51.
29. The figures in this paragraph derive from Asai, "Ohayashiyama,"
13, and Sato Takayuki, "Kinsei chuki no bakufu zorin seisaku to murakata
no taio: Horeki-An'ei ki Hokuen chiho o jirei to shite," 174—75, 17&~79'
181, 182.
30. Tokugawa, Edojidai, 286-329, discusses aftercare in detail.
31. Fujita, Kinsei mokuzai, 123.
32. This summary of Mito aftercare is from Matsumura, "Mito han
ringyo," 8-10.
33. Tsutsui Michio, "Akita han ni okeru ringyo ikusei seisan soshiki to
gyosei no h5ho," 19.
34. Asai, "Ohayashiyama," 17.
35. Osaki Rokuro, "Ohayashi chiseki kakutei katei no ichi kensho:
Kozuke kuni (Gumma ken) Tone gun o taisho to shite," 26.
36. Matsumura, "Mito han gotateyama," 86. These Mitoyamamori also
received various supplemental rewards.
37. Mitsuhashi Tokio, "Yoshino-Kumano no ringyo," 252, reports a 5
to 10 percent salary rate; RingyS Hattatsushi, Nihon Ringyo, 510, reports
i .5 to 5 percent.
38. Fujita, Kinsei mokuzai, 123.
39. Nakajima, "Maebashi," 16. The nobiban of table 2 were on duty
from the beginning of the twelfth month to the end of the third month dur-
ing the fire-prone winter months.
40. Matsumura Yasukazu, "Kinsei Onie ringyo no seiritsu oyobi hat-

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242 Notes to Pages 144-150

ten ni kan suru rekishi chirigakuteki kenkyu (shoroku)," 16-17. Matsu-

mura's figures seem to reveal partial concealment of labor costs. The sugi
seedlings themselves cost 3 ryo, but the six planters only cost 0.75 ryo (three
bu), or about 46 momme. The 3 ryo could have bought about six thousand
seedlings for original and replacement planting. Setting six thousand out
would have required roughly sixty man-days of labor or, if remunerated in
silver at some 2 momme per man per day, some 120 momme, rather than 46.
41. Motoyoshi, "Yamaguni sugi," 79.
42. Nihon Gakushiin, comp., Meijizen Nihon ringyo gijutsu kattatsushi,
451-52.
43. This discussion of "brand name recognition" is based on data in
Ringyo Hattatsushi, Nihon ringyo, 27 (general comments), 506 (on Yo-
shino), and 531 (on Obi).
44. It may be more correct historically to say that by a process of
"natural economic selection" optimally located plantations ended up as
flourishing entrepreneurial enterprises.
45. Matsumura Yasukazu, "Ome no ringyo," 196.
46. I have examined transportation costs in "Logging the Unloggable:
Timber Transport in Early Modern Japan." Onyamaotoshi see particularly
186, 191. The plantation grower may have faced a greater investment
burden at harvesttime insofar as he had an even-aged stand that he may
have clear-cut, incurring full cost before recouping, whereas the feller of
uneven-aged natural stands might spread his felling costs over several
years, recovering them as he went along.
47. Motoyoshi, "Yamaguni ringyo chitai," 86.
48. Ringyo Hattatsushi, Nihon ringyo, 515.
49. Kato Morihiro, "Nishikawa ringyo hasseishi ni kan suru ichi
kosatsu," 171, 178; Motoyoshi, "Yamaguni ringyo chitai," 78; Asakawa
Kiyoei, "Kinsei Suwa-gun ni okeru hayashi aratame to hayashi kenchi,"
125—66.
50. Iwanaga Yutaka, "Edo-Meiji ki ni okeru Yoshino ringyo no ikurin
gijutsu," 14-23.
51. Motoyoshi, "Yamaguni ringyo chitai," 95.
52. Quoted in Tsuboi Shunzo, "Kinsei chu-go ki Tenryu ringyo ni
tsuite," 23.

7. Land-Use Patterns and Afforestation

1. Parts of this chapter first appeared in my essays "Land-Use Patterns
and Afforestation in the Edo Period" and "From Exploitation to Planta-
tion Forestry in Early Modern Japan."
2. Here "multiple use" pertains to specific parcels of woodland, not, as

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Motes to Pages 151-158 243

in the U.S. Forest Service's definition, to an entire forest system, in which

the single use of specific tracts may be normative. The key paragraph of
the Forest Service's definition, which is a world-class example of com-
mittee writing and interest-group accommodation, is quoted in Grant W.
Sharpe, Clare W. Hendee, and Shirley W. Allen, Introduction to Forestry, 4th
ed., 46-47.
3. Hirasawa Kiyondo, Kinsei iriai kanko no seiritsu to tenkai: Shinshu Shimo
Ina chiho o chushin ni shite, 46—53.
4. Hirasawa, Kinsei iriai, 226—27.
5. The material on Maebashi han is from Rin'yacho, comp., Tokugawa
jidai ni okeru rin'ya seido no taiyo, 233—41.
6. The material on Tsugaru is from Matsuki Kan, "Tsugaru no hiba
(hinoki)," 152-59.
7. Tokoro Mitsuo, "Kinsei Kiso sanrin no hozoku taisaku," 9—12.
8. Tokoro Mitsuo, "Kiso no gomen shiraki," 24—26.
9. Minemura Hideo, "Hayashi metsuke no kiroku yori mita Suwa han
no sanrin seisaku," 395.
10. Osaki Rokuro, "Ohayashi chiseki kakutei katei no ichi kensho:
Kozuke kuni (Gumma ken) Tone gun o taisho to shite," 23.
11. Asakawa Kiyoei, "Kinsei Suwa-gun ni okeru hayashi aratame to
hayashi kenchi," 133.
12. Matsumura Yasukazu, "Mito han rinseishi josetsu," 138; and
idem, "Mito han gotateyama seido ni kan suru ichi kosatsu," 88-89.
13. Murai Hideo, Akita han rin'yashi kenkyujosetsu: Okachi gun Akinomiya o
chushin to suru rin'ya shoyu narabi ni riyonojittai, 58.
14. Kato Morihiro, "Nishikawa ringyo hasseishi ni kan suru ichi
kosatsu," i 75.
15. An influential pioneer study of shakuchi ringyo in Yoshino is Kasai
Kyoetsu, Yoshino ringyo no hatten kozfl. Fujita Yoshihisa, "Yoshino ringyoshi
ni okeru 'shakuchi ringyo' no saikento ni tsuite," 120—46, carefully refutes
Kasai, using the same source materials. He does so by defining shakuchi
ringyo literally as "land rental," whereas Kasai defined it loosely and in-
cluded a wide variety of sale and leasing practices. The issue is not merely
a semantic quibble, however: Kasai used the data to show that urban mer-
chants employed shakuchi ringyo to reduce the Yoshino mountain peasantry
to servitude, but Fujita contends that trends in forest-use rights did not
lead to that outcome.
16. A major source of information on wariyama is Harada Toshimaru,
Kinsei iriai seido kaitai katei no kenkyu: Yamawari seido no hassei to sono henshitsu.
Furukawa Sadao and Kanai Kiyotoshi have also written on wariyama in
recent years. Furushima Toshio is perhaps the dean of scholars of iriai
studies, and Nishikawa Zensuke a major interpreter. The wariyama system

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244 Notes to Pages 158-162

has been the subject of extensive study by historians interested in the devel-
opment of capitalism, landlordism, and accompanying social stratification
in rural Japan. In consequence, most of the literature draws no distinction
between communal areas of tillage, pasture, scrubland, and woodland, and
much of the analysis is marginal for a study of forest history. Philip Brown's
recent work on warichi examines a related phenomenon, but one that in a
sense is quite opposite in its implication: practices whereby villages con-
tinued exercising some degree of communal control over plots of arable that
were nominally assigned to individual households but which in fact were
redivided among villagers from time to time.
17. In general, yamawari appears to have resulted in better-managed
village uplands, in part because it reduced demand on the areas allotted to
most households, forcing poorer villagers to concentrate their search for fer-
tilizer and fuel in the remaining parcels ofiriaichi. Chiba Tokuji, Hageyama no
kenkyu, 112-13, cites suggestive materials on this matter.
18. Shoji Kichinosuke, "Kinsei ni okeru tochi oyobi sanrin no bunkatsu:
Minami Aizu gun Kanaizawa mura no mura yakujo monjo o chushin ni,"
22—23. Rather than say that villagers imposed these regulations on them-
selves, it might be more correct to say that those villagers with more wood-
land, who generally were more wealthy and influential, persuaded their
neighbors to accept regulations that restricted the use rights of less well en-
dowed neighbors.
19. Shoji, "Kinsei," 23—34.
20. Norinsho, comp., Nihon rinseishi shiryo, vol. 5, pp. 94-95.
21. Harada Toshimaru, "Yamawari seido to sono hensen," 179—80. Sa-
tsuyama, or "tagged forests," were areas in which use was restricted by specific
government orders applied to the particular site. I discuss satsuyama briefly in
The Origins of Japan's Modern Forests: The Case ofAkita, 25—26.
22. Harada Toshimaru, "Muramochi sanrin no hogo to yamawari
seido," 26.
23. This description of Yoshino practice follows the analysis in Fujita,
"Yoshino ringyoshi." For another useful account see Mitsuhashi Tokio,
"Yoshino-Kumano no ringyo."
24. An early study of Tenryu nenkiyama is Kaneiwa Yoshio, "Tenryu
ringyo chitai ni okeru sugiyama nenki uriwatashi nado ni kan suru kenkyu."
Shimada Kinzo has published essays on the subject in the 1977—81 issues of
TRK Kenkyu kiyo. In the first of these essays he discusses briefly the pertinent
historiography of Yoshino forestry.
25. Shimada Kinzo, "Kinsei Tenryu ringyochi ni okeru nenkiyama
baibai," 35. Kaneiwa, "Tenryu ringyo," reproduces sixty-seven of these con-
tracts, which reveal the great variety of particular arrangements in even one
locality.

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Notes to Pages 162-172 245

26. Shimada Kinzo, "Kinsei Tenryu ringy5chi ni okeru shikin ryutsu

katei," 66-67.
27. The major work on shared-yield forests is Shioya Tsutomu, Buwake-
bayashi seido no shiteki kenkyu: Buuiakebayashiyori bunshurin e no tenkai.
28. Shioya, Buwakebayashi, 251—549, discusses the practice han by han,
ranging over Tohoku, Kyushu, and selected areas in between.
29. Shioya Tsutomu and Sagio Ryoshi, Obi ringyo hattatsushi, 30, 34—36.
30. Shioya, Buwakebayashi, 508.
31. Tokoro Mitsuo, "Saishu ringyo kara ikusei ringyo e no katei," 18.
32. Sato Takayuki, "Kinsei chuki no bakufu zorin seisaku to murakata
no taio: Horeki-An'ei ki Hokuen chiho o jirei to shite," describes the
failure of bakufu afforestation in north Totomi in the 17605 and 17705.
33. Tokoro Mitsuo, Kinsei ringyoshi no kenkyu, 102—3, 159- Niwa Kunio,
"Hida 'ohayashiyama' no ichi kosatsu," 85—93, examining one locality up
to the 18405, offers a less sanguine conclusion.
34. Minemura, "Hayashi metsuke," 380-85. I presume the twenty
liters of seed were mixed with chaff; no seed count is available.
35. Morita Seiichi, "Higo no ringyo," 117. The "Annual Rate" figures
are my calculations, and they suggest that the original figures are, in part
at least, estimates.
36. Matsushima Yoshio, "Sugi no zSrinshi," 135.
37. Fujita Yoshihisa, "Kinsei ni okeru ikurin no seiritsu jiki to sono
chiikisa ni tsuite," 144.
38. Fujita Yoshihisa, "Kinsei ni okeru ikurin gijutsu taikei no chiiki-
sei," 120.
39. Fujita, "Kinsei ni okeru ikurin gijutsu," 105—6.
40. Ringyo Hattatsushi Chosakai, ed., Nihon ringyo hattatsushi: Meiji iko
no tenkai katei, 28.
41. Matsuki, "Tsugaru," 156.
42. Kurotaki Hidehisa, "Kinsei ni okeru mokuzai ryutsu no kozo:
Hirosaki han ni okeru mokuzai ishutsu o jirei to shite," 75.
43. Shioya and Sagio, Obi ringyo, 23-24. Although unspecified, this
figure likely refers to genboku.
44. Morita, "Higo no ringyo," 116.
45. Matsumura Yasukazu, "Ome no ringy5," 196.

Conclusion
1. An earlier version of this conclusion appeared in my "Forests of
Tokugawa Japan: A Catastrophe That Was Avoided."
2. In adopting these population figures, I am following Kristina Troost
(see n. 3 in chapter 2), who is versed in the most recent work of Japanese

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246 Notes to Pages 173-180

medievalists. The more traditional figure of 18 million for 1600, which I have
used in earlier writings, is an arbitrary choice derived from a tax-based esti-
mate of 18 million koku of agricultural output for the country as a whole. The
number is treated as a population statistic on the assumption that one person
requires about one koku of agricultural yield per year to survive. Needless to
say, the lower figure of 12 million is more convenient for my thesis that ex-
plosive growth in human consumption of biomass during the seventeenth
century was a major cause of the overcutting and damaging of Japan's wood-
land, which in turn led to the rise of regenerative forestry. The lower figure
also meshes nicely with the contention in chapter 2 that medieval demand on
forests was generally not excessive.
The last figure, 120 million, is anomalous. The earlier population figures
are estimates of the numbers of humans being supported by the archipelago's
biosystem; the present-day figure is the number of humans who happen to be
resident in the archipelago but who are supported by the global eco-
system as manipulated through techniques available to an industrial society.
Glenn Thomas Trewartha, Japan: A Physical, Cultural, and Regional Geography,
134, reports that in 1960 only Belgium, the Netherlands, and Java-Madura
had a greater density per total area than Japan.
3. Information conveyed by Tokoro Mitsuo, 26 May 1982. Tokoro, as
the bibliographical essay reveals, has devoted a lifetime to monographic
study of Edo-period forestry, concentrating on the Kiso river area.
4. By the eighteenth century scarcity of green fertilizer evidently had
driven up its cost enough to permit substitution offish meal, night soil, and
other commercial fertilizer materials, at least around cities and towns. Since
most land clearing, especially in the areas where commercial fertilizers were
used most intensively, had been accomplished before their use became wide-
spread, they evidently served not to facilitate the opening of more land but to
sustain and enhance the productivity of land already under cultivation. In
part their use constituted a more efficient utilization of terrestrial biomass
and in part an extension of human exploitation beyond the coast, so that sea
life rather than forest life paid the price for enhanced human well-being.
Whether substitution reduced the level of pressure on woodland, or simply
allowed expanded human consumption without increasing that pressure, is
probably impossible to determine in the absence of price figures whose
meaning in terms of real costs of production can be determined. But any re-
duction likely was modest because most of the other signs of scarcity—social
conflict, substitution, rationing, deterioration of physical plant, and govern-
ment manipulation—persisted.
5. Hageyama no bunka by Chiba Tokuji is a readable and insightful histori-
cal study of the process of forest soil degradation in central Japan.
6. The difficulty of linking the great falloff in temple construction during

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Q
Motes to Pages 181-187 47

the Heian period to any decline in religiosity should also be noted. What
seems to have declined was organized religion's connection to anyone with
sufficient will to overcome the growing obstacles to temple building.
7. See Theodore W. Daniel, John A. Helms, and Frederick S. Baker,
Principles of Silviculture, 282-91, for a discussion of forest dynamics, and plant
succession in particular.
8. During the seventeenth century, moreover, rulers who were more
concerned to assure food and fuel supplies than timber stands encouraged
brushy broadleaf growth. In Akita, for example, where cold winters required
a great deal of fuel for heating, han leaders of the mid-seventeenth century
encouraged the removal of low-quality sugi to make room for broadleafs,
which provided superior fuel (Iwasaki Naoto, Akita ken Noshirogauoa kami
chiho ni okeru sugibayashi no seiritsu narabi ni koshin ni kan sum kenkyu, 249). Later,
as timber became more scarce, rulers more consistently promoted conifer
growth, in the process colliding with villagers. But even then, as noted
in chapter 7, governments sometimes sacrificed timber stands to fodder-
fertilizer-fuel production.
9. According to Constantine Nomikos Vaporis, "Overland Communi-
cation in Tokugawa Japan," i, "carts were kept off the principal roads as
part of a conscious policy to maintain the roads in good condition for pe-
destrian traffic." Vaporis (64) adds that although he has seen "no doc-
umentary evidence for a statutory ban on the use of carts on the Gokaido,
such a ban may nevertheless have been in effect." The reasons for such a
ban, he indicates, were not only an official desire to preserve smooth roads
but also "the opposition of post horse operators to carts, which threatened
their livelihood."
10. Information conveyed by lioka Masatake, 12 February 1982. lioka
was referring to the situation in central Japan, but in Akita as well saws
were not used for felling until the 18205.
11. In this discussion of the conservation ethic I obviously am avoiding
two intriguing questions: why and how. To explain why this ethic arose
quickly enmeshes one in philosophical speculation about the dynamics of
the formation of human values, which is far beyond the boundary of our
task here. To explain the mechanisms of the diffusion and maintenance of
those values would entail a far simpler foray into social history that touches
the political structure, the schooling and writing system, kinship and
village organization—territory already well explored in English by other
scholars and other studies.
12. Tsukii Tadahiro, Akita han rinsei seishi, 2.
13. "Parasites" of the homocentric biological community in Japan
could be said to include, for example, those species of mosquitoes that
flourish in paddy land and other creatures that live off the collaborating

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248 Notes to Pages 187-188

biota, as well as the rats, mice, cockroaches, flies, intestinal parasites, and
so on that commonly come to mind.
14. From a twentieth-century perspective, in which Hokkaido (Ezo)
seems an indivisible part of Japan, it may appear strange that Japanese of
the Edo period made no sustained effort to log the island. The probable
reasons are fairly complex but can be boiled down. For reasons of diplo-
macy and internal politics, leaders in Edo opposed any intrusions on the
island most of the time. One of the few major efforts by bakufu leaders to
develop Ezo was undertaken by Tanuma Okitsugu in the 1760$, and it
came to naught because of political complications. Moreover, the daimyo
who controlled access to the island discouraged visits by outsiders lest his
sources of wealth be threatened. Finally, the island was regarded as so
distant, forbidding, and alien that few people wished to go there for any
reason, and the idea that timber from there could be a boon seems never to
have gained currency, and consequently no pressure group arose to chal-
lenge the island's de facto closure.
15. To propose that "intensifying constraints" were the root cause of
population limitation does not, of course, predetermine the mechanisms of
such a limitation. Whether the numbers were held in check by famine,
war, disease, malnutrition, contraception, abortion, infanticide, delayed
pregnancy, or whatever is not the issue. Here the point is that none of these
mechanisms would have become operative if the Tokugawa populace had
been able to satisfy its wants without resort to (or being subjected to) them.
But absent an industrial revolution or program of conquest and emigra-
tion, as gross human numbers approached thirty million, satisfying basic
wants became increasingly difficult. Even after mechanisms and rationales
of population control became established, the constraints evidently did not
disappear: population stability seems to have persisted, at least until circa
1840. When population began growing again from about that time, may
that not have been in part because of the success of reforestation projects
that relaxed the basic limitations imposed by the biosystem? See my article
"Tokugawa Peasants: Win, Lose, or Draw?" for a guide to relevant books
and articles in English and a brief exploration of the issues of population
growth and standards of living among commoners, in which I adopt a
position somewhat at odds with the currently preferred one of many, per-
haps most, economic historians.
16. Vaporis, "Overland Communication," 65, reports that in the city
of Edo humans replaced animals in cartage.
17. Although long-term trends are unclear, the dog population may
have peaked about 1700 and subsequently declined, freeing caloric yield
for other uses. See Donald H. Shively, "Tokugawa Tsunayoshi the Gen-
roku Shogun," 95-96.

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Motes to Pages 191-192 249

Bibliographical Essay:
Scholarship on Preindustrial
Japanese Forestry, 1880—1980

1. The earliest English-language piece on the topic, a concise and use-

ful introduction, is Masako M. Osako, "Forest Preservation in Tokugawa
Japan."
2. An earlier, abbreviated version of this essay is my "Century of Schol-
arship on Early Modern Japanese Forestry, 1880-1980."
3. This essay does not examine the institutional dimensions of this dis-
ciplinary development. The origins, purpose, personnel, vicissitudes, and
accomplishments of the various forestry-related scholarly organizations are
disregarded. Notable organizations include Dai Nihon Sanrinkai (Forest
Association of Imperial Japan), Nihon Ringakkai (Forestry Research
Association of Japan), Nihon Ringyo Chosakai (Commission to Inves-
tigate Japanese Forestry), Nihon Ringyo Gijutsu Kyokai (Society for
Japanese Forest Technology), Ringyo Hattatsushi Chosakai (Society for
Research on the Development of Forestry), Ringyo Keizai Kenkyujo
(Institute for Research on Forest Economics), and Tokugawa Rinseishi
Kenkyujo (Tokugawa Institute for the History of Forestry). The forest-
research arrangements of the nation's universities are not examined here.
Nor does the essay treat the history of relevant government organs, such as
the Sanrinkyoku and its successor, the Rin'yachS, or the many business
and local organizations and the various, often transitory, publishing or-
gans that constitute the subdiscipline's skeleton.
4. Although writings are scattered widely, certain journals are par-
ticularly valuable. Before the Pacific War, Sanrin iho carried many useful
essays. Since the war, Ringyo keizai, particularly on economic aspects of
modern forestry, and Shinano, on essays relating to that heavily forested
province (modern Nagano prefecture), have been strong. The thick an-
nual issues of the Tokugawa Rinseishi Kenkyujo's Kenkyu kiyo regularly
carry historical studies of early modern and modern forestry by the finest
scholars of Japanese forest history, making it the preeminent journal in the
field.
5. For example, I have been unable to locate a copy of a commonly
cited classic, Shinrin to bunka by Toba Masao, published in Tokyo in 1943,
at the height of World War II. I estimate that the 3OO-odd scholarly books
and articles on which this essay is based probably comprise over 80 percent
of the works written between 1880 and 1980 that deal primarily with
Japan's preindustrial forestry.
6. In "The Japanese Experience with Scarcity: Management of Tradi-
tional Common Lands," Margaret A. McKean describes concisely the

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250 Notes to Pages ig^-igg

main attributes of early modern iriai practice. A splendid examination of

early modern iriaichi is "Common Losses: Transformations of Common-
land and Peasant Livelihood in Tokugawa Japan, 1603-1868," by Karen
[Lewis] Wigen.
7. The boldface numbers in parentheses are those by which works are
listed in the bibliography.
8. In 1930 Endo Yasutaro reported in "Aizu han no zorin seido oyobi
sono jigyo ni kan suru ichi kosatsu," no. i, p. 13, that a partial copy of
Sanrin enkakushi survived the quake, apparently because it was in the house
of the official who had prepared it, and this was later turned over to the
Sanrinkyoku.
9. I am indebted to Professor Tokoro for providing much of this detail
on the preparation of Nihon rinseishi chosa shiryo, in a conversation of 26
May 1982.
10. One project that deserves special note, despite its post-1868 focus, is
the large series of usually slender, handwritten, paperbound volumes pub-
lished during the 19508 and 19605 by Ringyo Hattatsushi Chosakai
(Society for Research on the Development of Forestry), whose guiding
figure was Shimada Kinz5, a professor of forest economics at the Uni-
versity of Tokyo. The individual volumes generally consist of collected
documents accompanied by an interpretive essay, and they mostly deal
with developments in the forestry of selected localities or with statistical
series or other specialized topics.
11. The documents that Professor Shimada analyzes were brought to
his attention by Yoshida Yoshiaki, who used them in his readable study,
Kiba no rekishi.
12. Two major forestry reference works deserve mention even though
they are marginal to the study of preindustrial forest history. One is the
one-volume Ringyo hyakka jiten [Encyclopedia of forestry], put out by
Nihon Ringyo Gijutsu Kyokai, which has a sprinkling of historical terms
among its descriptions of forest vegetation, outlines of forest production in
the prefectures of modern Japan, explanations of modern technical termi-
nology, and descriptions of wood products. The other work is the five-
volume Ringyo gijutsushi [A history of forestry techniques] by the same
society, which, its title notwithstanding, has two volumes on regional
forestry in the important timber areas of modern Japan, two volumes on
technical aspects of forestry, and one volume on the industrial uses, pro-
cesses, and chemistry of wood products.
13. Hattori's work reveals especially well the scholarly concern with the
contemporary problems of Japan's forests and the people whose lives de-
pended on them, which was so characteristic of this forestry scholarship.

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Notes to Pages 208-211 251

14. Ringyoshi is essentially industrial history, and in this book I have

purposely avoided it lest it so dominate the analysis as to sabotage my
attempt to treat the human-forest relationship as a problem in environ-
mental history. I have adumbrated aspects of the topic in two essays,
"Logging the Unloggable: Timber Transport in Early Modern Japan,"
and "Lumber Provisioning in Early Modernjapan, 1580—1850."
15. The mining industry was a big consumer of wood. Being a major
industry, however, it has been studied as an independent topic, and I have
omitted references to it in this bibliography.
16. The boundary of early modern forest history is especially difficult to
delineate in works dealing with iriaichi. In this survey I have attempted to
include iriai studies if the common land under consideration appeared to
be forested but have omitted them if the nature of the study was such that
the character of vegetation was irrelevant. Wigen, "Common Losses,"
28-49, passim, contains a very thoughtful discussion of topics imbedded in
common-land history.
17. In "Shifting Cultivation and Land Tenure in Shirakawa-go:
Changes from the i6gos to the i88os," Professor Mizoguchi Tsunetoshi of
the College of Liberal Arts at Toyama University has compiled a helpful
bibliography on the literature of early modern slash-and-burn cultivation,
with particular reference to the Hida vicinity.
18. In late 1944, as Japan's domestic situation grew desperate, Yama-
guchi Yaichiro published a 238-page study of slash-and-burn agriculture,
Tohoku no Takibata kanko. Ostensibly written to help his country prepare for
the terrible years of semiarboreal subsistence that seemed in store, his work
provides valuable insight into the customs and techniques of burnt-field
culture as practiced in 19308 Japan. Doubtless, many of the techniques
were also characteristic of early modern slash-and-burn culture.

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254 Glossaries

daisugi coppice cryptomeria

doi short split pieces
dosha katayakusho office of erosion control
fuchimai rice paid as per diem wages
fushin bugyosho office of construction
fushinyaku construction office personnel
genboku unprocessed (felled) timber,
such as logs or kureki
gen'ya wasteland
gimmiyaku comptroller
gogyo the five elements
goyo shonin merchant quartermaster
goyoki lord's wood
gundai intendant
gun'yaku military obligation
hageyama bald mountain
hama goten "harbor mansion"
han early modern baronial
domain
haniwa protohistoric clay figurine
hara inner surface of split piece
hatamoto lesser shogunal retainer
hayashi forest
hayashi bugyo forest (mountain) magistrate
hinoki bugyo timber magistrate
hiwada cypress bark
hiyo day laborer; wage laborer
honbyakusho tax-paying landholder
hyakusho yama household woodland

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General Glossary 255

hyakushodai peasant representative;

village official
iriai; iriaichi communal land
iriaiken common-land use rights
itabuki shingle roofing
itago planking; board stock
jikatasho farm manual
jikizashi in situ slip culture
jinja Shinto shrine
jingu major Shinto shrine
jito land steward; land-holding
samurai
jitoyama steward's upland
jo a measure of land
kabusugi coppice cryptomeria
kadomatsu New Year's decorative pine
tree
kaibutsu enhancing productivity
kama sickle
kama kettle, cauldron
kama kiln, stove, oven
kama oven, hearth
kamakiri sickle
kan a unit of money
kanjo bugyo superintendent of finance
kanjosho finance office
karasuki a Chinese plow
karidono secondary shrine building
karo senior councillor of a daimyo

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256 Glossaries

kawaragi roof shingles

ken a linear or cubic measure
kofun ancient burial mound
kojoya village headman
koku a measure of volume
kokudaka putative agricultural yield
kori bugyo intendant
kotan industrial-use charcoal
koya bunkhouse
koyamamori village forest overseer
kumi work crew; unit of personnel
kumigashira neighborhood chief
kure; kureki split timber; split pieces
kuwa long-bladed hoe
machi bugyo city magistrate
masakari ax; broadax
midori no retto "the green archipelago"
mikanwari tangerine-like sectioning
miteyama lord's forest
momme a coin or unit of coinage
man a coin or unit of coinage
myoga a thanksgiving to one's lord
myoji taito the right to sword and
surname
myoshu freeholder
naeki seedling
nanushi village notable; headman
nata hatchet; machete
nenkiyama forest under fixed-term lease

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General Glossary 257

nobiban field fire patrols

norimono palanquin
ribsho farm manual
oga heavy-duty saw
ohayashi lord's forest
ohayashi bugyo forest magistrate
ohayashi daicho forest register
ohayashi mamori forest overseer
ohayashikata forest overseer
ohayashiyama lord's forest
ojikiyama lord's forest
ojoya headman of several villages
okuyama lord's forest
omotoyama lord's forest
otateyama reserved forest
otomebayashi reserved forest
oyama lord's forest
dyamamori regional forest overseer
ri a measure of distance
rikyu detached palace
ringyo forest industry; forestry
ringyo gijutsushi history of forest technology
ringyoshi history of forest industries
rinseishi history of forest
administration
roju senior councillors of the
shogun
ryo a unit of gold coinage
sake rice wine

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258 Glossaries

samurai warrior
sanbo three-sided measure of split
pieces
sankin kotai "hostage" system for daimyo
sanrin bugyo forest warden
sanrin shisoshi history of forest thought
sansonshi history of mountain villages
satsuyama restricted-use forest parcel
seiki arboreal vital fluids
sekkanke major Fujiwara households
shaku a measure of length
shakuchi ringyo rental forestry
shakujime a cubic measure
shikakurayama lord's forest [lit. deer
preserve]
shiraki peeled wood
sho a unit of volume measure
shoen ancient estate land
shoya village headman
soma professional logger or
woodsman
somayaku woodcutting duty and right
suai planting stick
sun a measure of length
tachiki stumpage
takamochi hyakusho taxable peasant
tam.az.ashi balled cutting
tan a measure of area
tatami sedge mat flooring

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General Glossary 259

tatebayashi stocked (planted) forest

tateyama stocked forest
tedai; tefsuki assistant
teiri plantation aftercare
tenshukaku castle donjon
teppo ashigaru foot soldiers with firearms
tera Buddhist monastery or
temple
tobimatsu wind-seeded pine trees
tokozashi cutting-bed slips
tomeki reserved trees
tomeyama forest preserve
tsubo a measure of floor space
uekikata forester
uji tribe
uji no kami tribal ruler
ukeyama lord's forest held in trust
unjo tax payment; contract fee
unjoyama taxed upland
usuita thin (ceiling) board
warichi divided land
wariyama divided forest or upland
watan domestic-use charcoal
yamaban forest warden
yama bugyo forest (mountain) magistrate
yama daikin upland tax
yamakata bugyo forest magistrate
yamamawari forest warden
yamamori forest warden; forester

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a6o Glossaries

yamamori be forest warden

yama nengu upland tax
yamaotoshi working logs downhill
yamate\yamateyaku upland tax
yamawari assigning upland to
households
yamayaku upland tax
yoz.ai processed lumber
Zaimoku bugyo timber magistrate or
superintendent
zatsuboku (see zoki)
zeni copper coinage
Zoki miscellaneous or weed trees
zorinshi history of afforestation

Glossary of Vegetation
Mainly based on Kitamura Siro ^ttt 13 $P and Okamoto Syogo |S]^s^^-. Gensoku
Nihonjumoku zukan JM^ B ^fSf'fc 12 IS [Colored illustrations of the trees and
shrubs ofJapan] (Tokyo: Hoikusha, 1959).

akamatsu Japanese red pine Pinus densiflora

asunaro Japanese cedar Thujopsis dolabrata
biwa Japanese medlar Eriobotrya japonica
buna Siebold's beech Fagus crenata
byakudan sandalwood Santalum album
chigaya a reed Imperata cylindrical
enoki Chinese nettle tree Celti sinensis
fuji wisteria Wisteria spp.
harigiri ? Kalopanax
septemlobus
hazenoki sumac; wax tree Rhus succedanea

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Glossary of Vegetation 261

hiba false arborvitae Thujopsis dolabrata,

var. Hondai Makino
himekomatsu Japanese white Pinus pentaphylla
pine
hinoki Japanese cypress Chamaecyparis obtusa
hiratake agaric (a fungus) Agaricus subfunereus
kaede maple Acer spp.
kaki persimmon Diospyros kaki
karamatsu larch Larix leptolepis
kashi evergreen oak Quercus spp.
(mainly subgen.
Cyclobalanopsis)
kashiwa white oak Quercus dentata
katsura katsura Cercidiphyllum
japonicum
kaya (see chigaya)
kaya a torreya nut tree Torreya nucifera
keyaki zelkova Zelkova serrata
kiri paulownia Paulownia tomentosa
konara white oak Quercus serrata
koyamaki umbrella pine Sciadopitys verticillata
kozo paper mulberry Broussonetia kazinoki
kunugi oak Quercus acutissima
kuri Japanese chestnut Castanea crenata
kurobe (see kurobi)
kurobi Standish Thuja standishii
arborvitae
kuromatsu Japanese black Pinus thunbergii
pine
kusunoki camphor tree Cinnamomum
camphora

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262 Glossaries

maki podocarp Podocarpus spp.

matsu pine Pinus spp.
matsutake a mushroom Armillaria edodes
momi white or silver fir Abies firma
momo peach Primus spp.
nara white oak Quercus spp.
nire elm Ulmus spp.
sakura cherry Prunus spp.
sasa (see sasagaya)
sasagaya dwarf bamboo Microstegium japonica
sawara Sawara cypress Chamaecyparis pisifera
sendan Bead tree Melia azedarach, var.
subtripinnata
sugi cryptomeria Cryptomeria japonica
todomatsu white fir Abies sachalinensis
togasawara Douglas fir Pseudotsuga japonica
tsuga Northern Japanese Tsuga diversifolia
hemlock
'.suki (see keyaki)
'suta Japanese ivy Parthenocissus
tricuspidata
'suzura (see tsuzurafuji)
'suzurafuji arrowroot Sinomenium acutum
(and similar vines)
ime plum Prunus mume
irushi lacquer tree Rhus verniciflua
varabi fernbrake; a Pteridium aquilinum,
bracken var. japonicum
lanagi willow Salix spp.

This content downloaded from 218.17.207.74 on Mon, 18 Dec 2017 11:55:13 UTC
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3. . "Ohayashiyama ni okeru bakufu ringyo seisaku: Izu Amagi
ohayashiyama ni tsuite" [Shogunate forest policy on government wood-

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7. . Hageyama no bunka [The culture of bald mountains]. Tokyo:
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8. . Hageyama no kenkyu [A study of bald mountains]. Tokyo:
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shiteki kenkyu: Tanba Tamaguni ni okeru [Historical studies of forest villages:
The Yamaguni district of Tanba prefecture]. Kyoto: Mineruva Shoten,
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n. Endo Jiichiro. Nihon rin'ya iriaiken ran [Disputes over rights to forested
common land in Japan]. Tokyo: Koyu Rin'ya Chosakai Rin'ya Kyozai-
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13. - . "Kinsei ni okeru ringyo bunken no gaikan" [An overview of
the Edo-period literature on forestry]. Nihon ringakkai shi 17, no. 12 (1935):
64-71.
14. - . Nihon sanrinshi: Hogorin hen (jo, ge, shiryo] [A history of
Japanese forestry: Protection forests (vols. i, 2, documents)]. Tokyo: Nihon
Sanrinshi Kankokai, 1934, 1936. 908, 420, 956 pp.
15. - . (Sanrinshi jo yori mitaru) Tohoku bunka no kenkyu (ichimei:
Tohoku sanrinshi} [A study of Tohoku culture: Viewed from the history of
its forests (also titled: A history of Tohoku forests)]. Tokyo: Nihon Sanrin-
shi Kenkyukai, 1938. 391 pp.
16. - . "Suigen kan'yorin ni taisuru zendai hito no shis5" [The
thought of earlier generations on watershed forestry]. Sanrin iho 26, nos.

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3-4; 27, nos. 1-3; 28, no. i (1931-33): 93-96; 60-65; 5-9; i4!-43; 68-71;
1-4.
17. Fujita Yoshihisa. "Kinsei ni okeru ikurin gijutsu taikei no chiikisei"
[The regional character of the organization of forest technology in the Edo
period]. TRK Kenkyu kiyo 55 (1980): 98—124.
18. . "Kinsei ni okeru ikurin no seiritsu jiki to sono chiikisa ni
tsuite" [Regional variation in the emergence of tree plantations in the Edo
period]. TRK Kenkyu kiyo 54 (1979): 136—58.
19. . "Yoshino ringyoshi ni okeru 'shakuchi ringyS' no saikento ni
tsuite" [A reexamination of so-called forest leasing in Yoshino forest his-
tory]. TRK Kenkyu kiyo 56 (1982): 120—46.
20. Fujita Yoshitani. Kinsei mokuzai ryutsushi no kenkyu: Tanbazai ryutsu no
hatten katei [A study of the history of Edo-period lumber distribution: The
development of lumber distribution from Tanba]. Tokyo: Ohara Shin-
seisha, 1973. 668 pp.
21. Fujiyoshi Nobuhiro. "Hokenteki ringyo keiei to koyo rodosha no
sonzai keitai" [Feudal forest management and the living conditions of for-
est wage laborers]. TRKKenkyu kiyo 42 (1967): 101-32.
22. . "Kiso no ringyo ni okeru shoya to shidashi gentei: Kiso
Otakimura Matsubara-ke no ringyo keiei" [A village head and the control
of production in Kiso forestry: The forest operation of the Matsubara
family in Otaki village in Kiso]. TRK Kenkyu kiyo 43 (1968): 70-102.
22a. Fukai Masaumi. "Zaimoku (ishi) bugyo narabi ni hayashi bugyo
no shuninsha ni tsuite" [The successive appointees to the offices of timber
(stone) and forest magistrates]. 77? K Kenkyu kiyo 61 (March 1987): 207-20.
23. Funakoshi Shoji. Nihon ringyo hattenshi [The development of lumber-
ing in Japan]. Tokyo: Chikyu Shuppansha, 1960. 296 pp.
24. Furukawa Sadao. "H6reki-ki no bakufu zochosaku to hyakusho
wariyama" [Shogunate tax collection policy and the division of peasant
mountain land during the 17605]. Shinano 26, no. 10 (October 1974):
37-50.
25. . "Kita Shinano ni okeru ohayashi to wariyama" [Mountain
division and "lord's forest" in northern Shinano]. TRK Kenkyu kiyo 49
(1974): 18-48.
26. . "Shinshu liyama-ryo ni okeru kinsei zen-chuki no hyakusho
wariyama" [Peasant mountain division of the early and middle Edo period
in liyamafiefin Shinano]. TRK Kenkyu kiyo 47 (1972): 52-95.
27. Furushima Toshio. Furushima Toshio chosakushu [The collected works
of Furushima Toshio]. 6 vols. Tokyo: T5kyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1975.
28. . Kinsei keizaishi no kiso katei: Nengu skudatsu to kyodotai [Basic
patterns in early modern economic history: Tribute exploitation and the
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29. . Nihon rin'ya seido no kenkyu: Kyodotaiteki rin'ya shoyu o chushin ni

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tices]. Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1955. 274 pp.
30. . Sanson no kozo [The structure of mountain villages]. Tokyo:
Nihon Hyoronsha, 1949; Ochanomizu Shoten, 1952. 304 pp.
31. . "Yakibatake nogyo no rekishiteki seikaku to sono kosaku
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37. . "Kinsei G5shu yamawari jirei shui" [A selection of examples
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fuzoku shiryokan kenkyu kiyo i (March 1968): 51-64.
38. . Kinsei iriai seido kaitai katei no kenkyu: Yamawari seido no hassei to
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system: Development and degeneration of the mountain division system].
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40. . "Kinsei no yamawari seido ni okeru bunkatsu no hoho to
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mountain division system]. Shiga daigaku keizai gakubu fuzoku shiryokan
kenkyu kiyo 2 (March 1969): 29-39.
41. . "Muramochi sanrin no hogo to yamawari seido" [The pro-
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43. - . "Omi Kinomoto chiho no yamawari seido" [The mountain
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bined issue; June 1960): 34—46.
44. - . "Omi Koga chiho ni okeru yamawari seido" [The mountain
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45. - . "Omi Kowaki sato no yamawari ni tsuite" [Dividing
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issue; August 1966): 78-85.
46. - . "Omi Kuchikidani no yamawari ni tsuite" [Mountain di-
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47. - . "Yamato ni okeru kinsei no yamawari shiryo" [Records of
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48. - . "Yamawari seido to sono hensen" [The mountain division
system and its changes]. Kyushu daigaku Kyushu bunkashi kenkyu kiyo 8—9
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49. Hattori Marenobu. "Akita han no buwakebayashi seido" [The
shared-forest system of Akita domain]. Keizaishi kenkyu 17, no. 5 (May
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50. - . "Akita han no rinsanbutsu senbaisei" [The forest products
monopoly system of Akita domain]. Keizaishi kenkyu 18, no. 3 (September
!937) = 14-31-
51. . "Akita han no shinrin riyo seigensaku" [Akita domain's
policy for restricting the use of forests]. Keizaishi kenkyu 19, no. 5 (April
1938): 53-70.
52. . "Hitoyoshi han ni okeru ikuseiteki ringyS: Toku ni buwake-
bayashi no ringySshiteki igi" [Plantation forestry in Hitoyoshi domain in
Kyushu: Especially its significance in the history of the shared-forest
system]. Keizaishikenkyu 19, no. 2 (February 1938): 75-101.
53. . "Nanbu han no toriwakebayashi ni tsuite" [The divided for-
ests of Nanbu]. Nihon ringakkaishi 19, no. 12 (December 1937): 744-51.
54. . Ringyo keizai kenkyu [A study of the economics of forestry].
Tokyo: Nishigahara Kankokai, 1940. 260 pp. Chikyu Shuppansha, 1967.
262 pp.
55. . "Tokugawa jidai ni okeru hoanrin seido no tokushoku"
[Special features of the Edo-period forest preserve system]. Keizaishi kenkyu
16, no. 2 (August 1936): 67—83.
56. Hayashi Tadakazu. "Kinsei Kiso ni okeru sanrin setto [Lumber theft
in early modern Kiso]. Shinano 9, no. 8 (1957): 479—90.
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2 vols.: Kodansha, 1978.
58. Hirao Michio. Tosa han ringyo keizaishi [An economic history of Tosa
forestry]. Kochi: KSchi Shimin Toshokan, 1956. 230 pp.
59. Hirasawa Kiyondo. "Chizuki iriai no kosaku shita iriaichi no nio-
kuzai bassai ni tsuite no funso ichirei" [An example of disputes over log-
ging in communal lands that are mixed with communal parcels assigned to
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60. . "Ina gun no kurekiyama no suii" [The evolution of split-
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(May, June, December 1962): 22-43; 33~46; i9~35-
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timber common lands and land tax reform in Ina district]. TRK Kenkyu
ki
yo 44 (i9 6 9) : 75-97-
62. . "Ina no 'kureki bugyo' 'kurekiyama' ko" [A study of the
"split-timber magistrate" and "split-timber mountains" of Ina district].
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63. . "Ina no 'kureki narimura' ko" [A study of the "split-timber-
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64. . "Iriaiyama no tachiki no shobun ni tsuite: Shinshu Ina gun
chiho no baai" [The disposal of standing timber on communal land: The
case of Ina district in Shinano]. 77? K Kenkyu kiyo 41 (1966): 85-120.
65. . Kinsei iriai kanko no seiritsu to tenkai: Shinshu Shimo Ina chiho o
chushin ni shite [The formation and evolution of Edo-period common-land
customs: The Shimo Ina area of Shinano province]. Tokyo: Ochanomizu
Shobo, 1967. 292 pp.
66. . "Kinsei ni okeru iriai kakuritsu katei: Mura yurin no keiei
seiko no en'in (iko)" [The establishment of early modern communal land:
The basic causes of success in handling village forests (a posthumous
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67. . "Kinsei Shinshu Ina gun no iriai kanko ni okeru jimoto—
iriaikata—irikata ni tsuite" [Abutting, participating, and admitted parties
in common-land practices in early modern Ina district]. TRK Kenkyu kiyo
45 (i97o): 85-96.
68. Hirayama Kozo. "Kanbun jiisan nen Kishii I to gun iriai soron ezu
narabi ni aishomon" [A general map and verbal declarations in delibera-
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69. Hirose Makoto. "Kurobe okuyama to Kaga han: Sono batsurin jigyo
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mura aida no funsS: Shinshu Ina gun Taiheizan no baai" [Disputes among
villages with communal lands and the formation of new mountain villages
in the Edo period: The case of Mount Taihei in Ina district in Shinano].
TRK Kenkyu kiyo 45 (1970): 98-122.
284. . "Shinshu lida han ryo ni okeru shiyurin no seiritsu katei"
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285. Uchida Tokuhei. "Shinshu Ina gun Noguchi mura sawayama
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289. . "Tango Kami Sano mura ni okeru yamawari seido" [The
mountain division system in Kami Sano village in Tango]. Keizaishi kenkyu
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290. . "Tango no jiwari seido" [The land division system in
Tango]. Keizaishikenkyu 16 (February 1931): 25-49.
291. Uesugi Mutsuhiko. "Kita Kanto kasen ryutsu ni okeru mokuzai
ichiba no tenkai: Kinugawa joryu no ikada s5ron o chushin to shite" [The
development of lumber marketing by north Kanto waterways transporta-
tion: Focusing on disputes over rafts in the upper Kinu river]. Tochigi
kenshi kenkyu 6 (November 1973): 3-24.
292. Wakabayashi Kisaburo. "Kaga han no ohayashiyama to tomeyama:
Oku Noto jiryonai tomeyama bassai negai o chushin to shite" [The lord's
forests and forest preserves of Kaga domain: Focusing on requests to fell
trees in temple-land forest preserves of inner Noto]. TRK Kenkyu kiyo 54
(1979): 98-114-
293. . "Kinsei ni okeru issaku ukeyama kanko ni tsuite: Oku Noto
Terayama mura no baai o rei to shite" [The Edo-period practice of single-
season mountain leasing: The case of Terayama village in inner Noto].
TRK Kenkyu kiyo 51 (1976): 203—28.

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296. . "Heian jidai no rin'ya riyo" [Forest use in the Heian
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297. . "Kamakura jidai no ringyo" [Forestry in the Kamakura
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298. . "Muromachi jidai no ringyo" [Forestry in the Muromachi
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300. . Ringyo oyobi rinsanbutsu [Forestry and forest products].
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301. . "Sengoku jidai no ringyo" [Forestry in the warring states
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302. . "Waga kuni kodai no ringyo" [Forestry in the ancient
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303. Yamamoto Tokusaburo. "Kumazawa Banzan no sanrinron shiken"
[A personal perspective on Kumazawa Banzan's writings on forestry]. Dai
Nikon sanrin kaiho 542 (January 1928): 50-62.
304. Yamanouchi Shizuo. Nihon zorin gyoseishi gaisetsu [A historical intro-
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306. Yokoyama Atsumi. "Azusagawadani ni okeru Matsumoto han no
motogiriyama to shidashiyama-unjoyama (ichi, ni)" [Three types of forest
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Shinano 16, nos. 6—7 (June, July 1964): 33—40; 33—43.
307. . "Shiraki ko: Chubu sangoku chitai ni okeru seisan to ryutsu"
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Shinrin Shigen Sogo Taisaku Kyogikai, 1959. 280 pp.
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case of Akaiwa village in Takai district of Shinano]. Shinano 32, no. 10

(October 1980): 66-77.
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250 pp.

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Index

Key Entries: with pertinent subtopics listed

Afforestation Forest administration
Agriculture Political process
Commoner forest use Regenerative forestry
Daimyo Urban forest use
Deforestation Use rights
Exploitation forestry Villages and woodland

Afforestation: ancient, 28, 32; Aoyama Zen'uemon, 161-162

medieval, 48; early modern, 5, Asaijunko, 207
94, 100, 109, 149, 167-169. See
also Cuttings; Plantation forestry; Buwakebayashi. See Shared-yield
Regenerative forestry; Rental forest
forestry; Seedlings; Silviculture
Agriculture: ancient, 9—10; Charcoal: controlling production
medieval, 34-37, 39~4°> 42, of, 99, 1 08- 1 10, 152-153; and
47; early modern, 97. See also coppice, 1 06, 120; fostering
Animals; Commoner forest use; production of, 128, 145; uses of,
Irrigation; Land opening; Slash- 9, 22-23, 43-44, 85- See also
and-burn; Soil; Wildfire Construction; Fuelwood
Aizu-Wakamatsu, 64, 90, 158—159 Chiba Tokuji, 2 1 3
Akita: afforestation in, 131 — 132, China: forests of, 44, 180, 2i6n. 7;
138; controlling forests in, 89, Hideyoshi and, 56-59, 67; early
141, 157; deforestation in, 69, 74, Japanese contacts with, 20, 23,
230 n. 80; Hideyoshi and, 57-61; 2i7-2i8n. 1 1, 2i8n. 12
shared-yield forests in, 164—165 City fires: Kamakura, 45; early
Amagi, Mount. See Izu modern, 67, 68, 147. See also
Animals: domesticated, 10, 35, 49, Meireki fire
122, 186-188; wild, 36, 187. See Clear-cutting, 29, 57, 63, 68-69,
also Agriculture 128

291

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aga Index

Commoner forest use: ancient, 10- Deforestation: ancient, u, 13, 16,

11, 23—24, 220 n. 40; medieval, 1 8, 24-33, 2i6n. 7; during Hide-
35-37; eal"ly modern, 50-51, yoshi's and leyasu's day, 50—54,
85-86, 151-153, 231 n. 5. See also 62-63; general periods of, 3-5,
Agriculture; Communal land; 9, 78; medieval, 34, 36, 45, 48-
Coppice; Fertilizer; Fodder; 49; in seventeenth century, 68—
Fuelwood; Household land; 78, 80, 93, 95, 104-105, 112-
Irrigation; Land opening; 114, 149, 174-178, 230 n. 83. See
Slash-and-burn; Villages and also Clear-cutting; Erosion; Land
woodland opening; Slash-and-burn; Soil;
Communal land (iriai): medieval, Urban forest use; Wildfire
41-43; early modern, 87, 1 14, Divided forest (wariyama), 158—161,
150, 158-160, 163, 185; scholar- 165, 185-186; scholarship on,
ship on, 192—193, 20 1, 210— 21 1. 210— 21 1, 243— 244n. 16, 244n. 17.
See also Commoner forest use; See also Commoner forest use;
Use rights Regenerative forestry; Rental
Construction: ancient, 3, 10-20, forestry
25, 2 1 7 n. 7; medieval, 43-47;
early modern, 52—54, 56—60, 62, Emperors and Empresses: Kammu,
64-67. See also Urban forest use 14-15, 28; Kotoku, 13; Saimei,
Coppice, 236 n. 10; ancient, 29— 17, 24; Shomu, 14, 1 6; Suiko, 13,
30; medieval, 36, 40-41, 44, 49; 15, 17; Temmu, 26, 28; Tenchi,
early modern, 97, 106, 108, 120, 13
163. See also Commoner forest Endo Jiichiro, 202
use; Fuelwood Endo Yasutaro, 194, 196, 200
Cuttings: medieval, 48; early Erosion: ancient, 1 1, 26, 29, 32;
modern, 118—120, 123-124, controlling erosion, 85, 93—97,
137—139, 169, 24on. 21. See also 99, 158, 233 n. 30; medieval, 36;
Afforestation; Plantation forestry; early modern, 4, 51, 53-54, 174.
Seedlings; Silviculture See also Deforestation; Protection
forests; Soil
Daimyo: forest administration by, Exploitation forestry, 4, 47-49, 80,
8
5>9!-93> H3. J 52, 157; in 148, 174, 190. See also Commoner
sixteenth century, 3, 38, 50, 52- forest use; Construction; Defores-
56; in seventeenth century, 62- tation; Forest administration
66; restricting consumption, 89— Ezo. See Hokkaido
90; tree planting by, 131-143,
148, 163— 168, 241 n. 27. See Famine: general, 187; Kan'ei
also Aizu-Wakamatsu; Akita; famine, 94, 98
Hitoyoshi; Izu; Kanazawa; Kii; Fertilizer: medieval, 3, 1 1, 38, 40-
Kiso; Kumamoto; Maebashi; 41; regulating use of, 86, 114,
Matsumoto; Mito; Obi; Owase; 151, 159; scarcity of, 51, 73, 156,
Suwa; Takato; Tosa; Tsu; 173; source material for, 35,
Tsugaru 246 n. 4; sources of, 106, 158,
Dbh (diameter at breast height), 163, 172, 178, 187-188. See also
102, 234^46 Commoner forest use; Use rights

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Index 293

Fodder: ancient, n, 28; medieval, Fujita Yoshitani, 208-209

35, 41; early modern, 51, 73, 86, Fujiwara Toyonari, 16, 18
1 14, 156, 178. See also Commoner Funakoshi Shqji, 205
forest use; Use rights Furushima Toshio, 203, 210-21 1
Forest: ancient, 12, 30-32; defined,
2i7n.4; medieval, 36, 48-49; Geography, 2, 79, 147, 171-172,
early modern, 80; modern, 6, 188-189
192-193, 2i5-2i6n.6 Germany, 6, 21, 22on_36
Forest administration: ancient, 26-
29, 32; medieval, 38-43, 45; early Han. See Daimyo
modern, 5, 54-56, 60, 71, 231^3; Harada Toshimaru, 201, 211
as negative policy, 83-88, 91- Hattori Marenobu, 194, 199, 200
115; as positive policy, 149—165; Hida forests: before 1600, 19, 36,
and the term rinsei, 206—207. ^ee 45. 47> 57; deforested, 76-77,
also Forest closure; Multiple- use 105, 1 10— 1 13; reforestation of,
forestry; Regenerative forestry; 124-125, 137, 166
Rental forestry; Single-use for- Higo. See Kumamoto
estry; Use rights; Wildfire Hirao Michio, 206
Forest closure: ancient, 3, 26—28; Hirasawa Kiyondo, 210-21 1
by bakufu, 94, 99, 108, 111-112; Hitoyoshi, 131, 133, 148, 241 n. 27
by daimyo, 54-56, 71, 155-156; Hiwada: in ancient Japan, 15—16,
early modern, 92-93, 154; medi- 25-27, 2i8nn. 19, 20; for Hide-
eval, 3, 38, 40-41, 51; by rulers, yoshi, 57. See also Roofing
92, 154, 185, 23 i n . 3; by villages, Hojo Hiroshi, 210
73, 152, 178. See also Forest ad- Hokkaido, 4, 69-70, 74, 174, 187,
ministration; Production forests; 2i6n.8, 248 n. 14
Protection forests; Tomeki', Use Homocentric biological community,
rights 186-188, 190, 247~248n. 13
Forest law. See Forest administration Household land (hyakusho yama) , 87,
Forest magistrate, 98, 100, 104, 100, 1 14, 150, 163. See also Com-
109, 159 moner forest use; Use rights
Forest register, 98, 100—105, 109 Hyakusho jama. See Household land
Forest succession, 25, 29-31, 48,
1 8 1 — 1 82. See also Coppice lioka Masatake, 208—209
Forest taxes: before 1600, 38, 60, Imabori, 42
220 n. 39; early modern, 72, 105, Iriai, Iriaichi. See Communal land
135, 146, 157, 231 n. 4 Irrigation: before 1600, 9—10, 35—
Forest warden, 28, 54, 91, 98, 142 40; after 1600, 74, 94-97, 1 14, 152
Fuelwood: ancient, 1 1, 21—24, 29, Iwasaki Naoto, 199
220 n. 37; in Europe, 220 n. 36; Izu: before 1600, 44, 55, 69, 105;
medieval, 35, 42, 44; early under bakufu, 104—110, 140—141,
modern, 85— 86, 105—106, 114, 154, 235 nn. 53, 54
127, 158, 163, 178, 247 n. 8. See
also Charcoal; Commoner forest Jikata kikigaki, 117, 236 n. 3
use; Coppice Jikatasho, 1 16— 1 19. See also Silvi-
Fujita Yoshihisa, 167, 212 culture

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294 Index

Kaibara Atsunobu, 1 1 7 ryo (gold), 57, 142; shaku, 59,

Kaino Michitaka, 201 108, 224nn. 26, 30; shakujime,
Kamikata seedlings, 134—135, 110; tsubo, 122, 228 n. 46
2380.9. See also Seedlings Meireki fire: effects, 76, 86, 100,
Kanazawa, 64, 138 113, 2350.61; scale, 68, 74
Kaneiwa Yoshio, 208 Merchants, 251 n. 14; and exploita-
Kano Kyqji, 118, 203, 212 tion forestry, 41, 60— 61, 65—66,
Kasai Kyoetsu, 208 70, 1 1 1 ; and regenerative forestry,
Kidder, J. Edward, 12 142, 161 — 162
Kii: before 1600, 19, 36, 45, 54, 57; Mikami Gennosuke, 1 24
after 1600, 61, 134, 146-147. See Minemura Hideo, 207
also Owase Mito, 94, 133, 135-136, 141-142,
Kinai basin: defined, 3, 215^5 156
Kiso: ancient, 19; medieval, 44-45; Miyamoto Tsuneichi, 210
under Hideyoshi and leyasu, 60— Miyazaki Antei, 117-118, 126,
63, 70; under Owari, 75, 77, 131- 198. See also Jikatasho
'33, I54^i55» 165, 233n. 2 o Monda Sai, 199
Korea, 14, 20, 56 Motoyoshi Rurio, 2 1 2
Kumamoto: deforestation of, 64, Multiple-use forestry, 88, 150-157,
74; reforestation of, 125, 138- 242-243 n. 2. See also Commoner
139, 1 66, 1 68 forest use; Forest administration;
Kumazawa Banzan, 70, 200 Use rights
kureki (kure): defined, 19, 2 19 n. 30; Mushrooms, 31, 36, 222 n. 65. See
ancient, 19; medieval, 45, also Deforestation; Erosion; Soil
224 n. 26; early modern, 60,
71—73, 22gnn.64, 66 Nakada Kaoru, 201
Nenkiyama, 158, 161-163, '65, 186.
Landholding. See Use rights See also Plantation forestry;
Land opening, 3-4; ancient, 9—10, Regenerative forestry; Rental
12; medieval, 35—37; early forestry
modern, 50-51, 94-97, 113- Nishikawa Zensuke, 194, 203, 208-
1 1 4. See also Commoner forest 21 I
use; Communal land; Deforesta- Nosho. See Jikatasho
tion; Slash-and-burn; Villages
and woodland Obi, 131, 139, 145, 148, 163, 1 68
Oda Nobunaga, 53, 56
Maebashi, 142-144, 152, 23gn. 16 Ohayashi bugyo. See Forest magistrate
Matsudaira Sadatsuna, 1 17 Ohayashi daicho. See Forest register
Matsumoto, 64-65, 70-71 Oi river in Tanba. See Yamaguni
Matsushima Yoshio, 167, 202 Oishi Shinzaburo, 212
Measurements: cho, 101, 2240.31, Okino Takao, 125, 127
234^49; chobu, i^.i;fuchimai, Okura Nagatsune, 198
62; jo, 224n.3o; kan (silver), 57; Omi: ancient, n, 13-16, 19, 24,
2
ken, 59, 63, 90, 232 n. 12; koku, 7, 30-33; medieval, 42, 45, 48,
2 i g n . a 6 , 22on-38, 228n.46; 54-55; early modern, 62, 95,
momme (silver), 142; n, 224 n. 31; 145, 1 60

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Index 295

Ota Katsuya, 210 Religious ideas and forests: Bud-

Owase, 145-146, 148, 1 68 dhist, 179; Confucian, 77, 179-
Ownership. See Use rights 180, 189; Shinto, 13, 179; other,
1 79— 1 8 1 , 1 84. See also
Plantation forestry, 5, 129-130, Silviculture
147-148, 165-169, 178; advan- Religious institutions and forests:
tages, 144-147; costs of, 135-137, ancient Buddhist, 11, 13, 17—18,
139, 141-144, 148, 23gnn. 13, 20-21, 24-26; medieval Bud-
15, 1 6, 19, 242 n. 40; problems dhist, 44-47, 64, 225 n. 34; early
of, 131-132; techniques of, 133- modern Buddhist, 54, 56—57, 62,
144. See also Forest closure; 167; Shinto, n, 13, 17, 32,67,
Regenerative forestry; Rental 2 19 n. 27. See also Construction;
forestry; Silviculture Todaiji; Urban forest use
Political process, 3-4; ancient, 10- Rental forestry, 157—158, 243 n. 15.
13, 26-27, 2 i 7 n n . 8, 1 1; medi- See also Divided forest; Nenkiyama',
eval, 37-42, 174; early modern, Regenerative forestry; Shared-
51-52, 56, 68, 84-85, 184-185. yield forest
See also Daimyo; Emperors and Reserved trees. See Tomeki
Empresses; Tokugawa bakufu and Roofing: ancient, 15-16, 19, 25-
forests 26; medieval, 44, 53; early
Population, 172, 222 n. I, 245- modern, 58, 61, 68, 145
246 n. 2; medieval changes in, Rotation cutting, 1 17, 168. See also
34-36; early modern, 80, 85, Forest administration; Planta-
187, 2480. 15; of Nara and tion forestry
Heian, 1 1
Pottery, 10, 24, 35 Sai On, 198
Production forests: before 1 600, Salt-making, 24, 35
32> 48> 555 earlY modern, 5, 84, Sato Shin'en, 118-119, 198, 236 n. 7
97—105, 1 14. See also Forest Sato Takayuki, 213
administration Satsuyama, 160, 244 n. 21
Protection forests: ancient, 28-29, Sawata Takaharu, 208
32; medieval, 47-48; early Sculpture, 20-21, 26, 220 n. 35
modem, 4, 55-56, 84, 93-97, Seedlings, 120—122, 133-137, 169.
1 13-1 14, 2 33 n. 19. See also Forest See also Afforestation; Cuttings;
administration Silviculture
Selective logging, 29, 128. See also
Rationing. See Sumptuary Clear-cutting
regulations Shakuchi ringyo. See Rental forestry
Regenerative forestry, 4-6, 148, Shared-yield forest (buwakebqyashi) ,
174, 190, 2 1 5-2 1 6 n. 6. See also 5, 158, 163-165, 1 86. See also
Afforestation; Coppice; Divided Plantation forestry; Regenerative
forest; Forest administration; forestry; Rental forestry
Forest closure; Nenkiyama; Shimada Kinzo, 194, 198, 208, 209
Plantation forestry; Rental Shioya Tsutomu, 207
forestry; Shared-yield forest; Ships: ancient, 10, 14, 20; medieval,
Silviculture 44, 46-47; early modern, 145,

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296 Index

Ships (continued] Todaiji, 17-18, 22, 27, 45-46, 56

153; of Hideyoshi and leyasu, Toda Yoshimi, 204
56, 58-59, 67 Tokoro Mitsuo: analyses by, 16—
Shirakawa Taro, 198—199 1 8, 62, 65, 1 13; scholarship by,
I
Shoen, 17, 27, 37-41,48 94~ I 95> 200> 2°4> 2o6> 208-
Silviculture: aftercare, 124-128; 209, 213
intellectual context of, 116—119, Tokugawa bakufu and forests: forest
237 nn. 17, 1 8; seedling culture, administration, 84-86, 126, 159;
1 19-122; slip culture, 119, 123- Hida, 76— 77, 110—113, 166; Izu,
124; writings on, 5, 130. See also 105—110, 141; production forests,
Afforestation; Cuttings; Planta- 97-105; protection forests, 93-
tion forestry; Seedlings 97; restrictions on consumption,
Single-use forestry, 154—157, 186. 89-90; Tenryu, 71-74, 151-152.
See also Divided forest; Multiple- See also Daimyo; Forest adminis-
use forestry; Nenkiyama; Shared- tration; Political process
yield forest; Use rights Tokugawa leyasu, 52, 57, 60-63,
Slash-and-burn, 35—36, 96, 1 12, 68,80,93, 227nn.34, 37
151. See also Commoner forest Tokugawa Muneyoshi, 195, 196,
use; Deforestation 200, 237nn. 1 1, 18
Slip culture. See Cuttings Tokugawa Yoshichika, 199
Soil: degradation, 31, 36, 114, 178; Tomeki, 86, 92, 106-110, 152-153,
in medieval Japan, 40, 48-49. 156, 163. See also Forest closure
See also Deforestation; Erosion; Tomeyama. See Forest closure, early
Slash-and-burn modern
Soper, Alexander, 17-18 Tools, 4; of agriculture, 10, 35; of
Suminokura Ryoi, 61—62, 69 logging, 10, 27-28,47, 182-183
Suminokura Yoichi, 61 Tosa: depleting forests, 45, 57-58,
Sumptuary regulations: 5, 89-90, 63, 65-66, 74-75; protecting
94, 232 n. 15. See also Forest forests, 55, 131-132, 139
Administration; Tokugawa bakufu Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 52, 56—60, 80
and forests Transportation: ancient, 13-15,
Suruga, 44, 57, 67, 99, 140, 168 19, 22, 26, 31, 221 n-46; medi-
Suwa, 155-156, 1 66 eval, 46-47, 225 n. 33, 226 n. 28;
Swidden. See Slash-and-burn early modern, 58, 61, 65-67, 72-
74, 227nn. 31, 32; and reforesta-
Takase Tamotsu, 208-209 tion, 128, 134, 146-147; regula-
Takato, 55, 63, 73 tion of, 88-89, t^S, 229 n. 68,
Takeda Hisao, 199, 203, 207 247 n -9
Tanaka Hajime, 202 Tsu, 137, 239— 240 n. 19
Tenryu river valley: deforestation Tsugaru: controlling forests of, 86,
in, 71 — 74, 151 — 152; in medieval 131-132, 152-153, 1 68; defores-
Japan, 44; reforesting of, 147- tation of, 64, 74; records of, 1 96-
148, 161-162; under Hideyoshi 197; reforestation of, 124, 126,
and leyasu, 58, 60— 61, 63, 69. 137, I53> 163
See also Takato Tsugaru Nobumasa, 77
Toba Masao, 194, 196, 199-200 Tsukamoto Manabu, 212

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Index 297

Tsukii Tadahiro, 1 99 Fertilizer; Fodder; Forest closure;

Tsutsui Michio, 205, 21 1 Fuelwood; Household land;
Land opening; Rental forestry;
Ueda Tqjuro, 201 Slash-and-burn
Urban forest use: before 1600, 13—
15. r 9> 2 5> 2 9> 43~45> 53, 173~ Wakabayashi Kisaburo, 208
174; early modern, 52, 64, 67- Wariyama. See Divided forest
68. See also Charcoal; City fires; Weapons, 10-1 1, 23, 43, 54
Construction; Fuelwood; Meireki Wildfire: before 1600, n, 25, 30-
fire; Pottery; Salt-making; 31, 35-36, 545 after l6o°, 92,
Sculpture 99, 107-108, 131, 151. See also
Use rights: defined, 88, 231 n. 7; Coppice; Deforestation
ancient, 26—28; medieval, 38,
40-43, 51; early modern, 113, Yamaga Soko, 77, 117
150-153, 175. See also Commoner Yamaguni: afforestation in, 120,
forest use; Forest administration; r
33, ! 37> ! 4 2 > H4> 146- '48,
Multiple-use forestry; Rental 236 n. i o; ancient, 14—16, 19,
forestry; Single-use forestry 25; medieval, 41, 45-46; under
leyasu, 61-62
Vegetative reproduction, 119-120. Yamamoto Hikaru, 204
See also Afforestation; Cuttings; Yamamoto Tokusaburo, 200
Plantation forestry; Silviculture Yamanouchi Shizuo, 202
Villages and woodland: in Hida, Yokoyama Atsumi, 209
1 1 i-i 12; in Izu, 106-1 10; Yoshino (in Yamato): deforestation
medieval, 39-43; early modern, of, 45, 47, 60, 63; reforestation
84-88, 150-153, r55, I58~l65- of, 142, 145, 148, 161
See also Commoner forest use; Tozai, 17, 62, 65, 68, 2 19 n. 25,
Communal land; Coppice; 227n.35

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